Executive Summary
During my first semester in the Educational Technology graduate program in the Spring of 2018, I enrolled in my first ETEC class: Foundations of Educational Technology. The final project for this class was to conduct a literature review on an approved topic. I was very interested in how games could play a very important role in education. I had just finished a book review of David W. Shaffer’s book, How Computer Games Help Children Learn, and wanted to see if there was any research around implementing games in a corporate training environment. That led me to the topic for my literature review: Game On! A Literature Review of Games and Simulations in Corporate Training. I reviewed over 30 pieces of literature on the subject of games and simulations and their use in education and corporate training. I won’t spoil it for you, but if you’re a corporate trainer thinking you only need to break out a Monopoly board for all future training sessions, well…that’s not quite the case. I was very happy with my topic choice and learned a lot from the existing literature and studies around the subject.
Personal Reflection
I was terrified during the process for this project. As stated earlier, this was my first semester in graduate school. I graduated with my undergraduate degree in 1999, so it had been almost 20 years since I was a student in an academic setting. I didn’t know what to expect. I had never heard of a “rubric” before this class. And now I’m supposed to review all of these scholarly articles to try to cobble together a review on a topic that I didn’t know if there was sufficient information to support. Terrified. However, as I got into it, it started to become fun. I even mentioned to my professor after all the grades were finalized that I started to get excited during my research. I had read so many studies that I started seeing references to other studies and articles that I had already read. I remember thinking the first time I recognized that, “Hey! I know that study! I just read it! And now it’s referenced in another paper! Ok…I’m following you Mr./Mrs. article author.” It was a pretty cool feeling and made the process much less terrifying.
Project Resources
Literature Review