Humans play board games, card games, computer games and games with dice, balls and sticks. We read books that contain games, challenge ourselves with word or visual puzzles and play games that use nothing more than language to entertain ourselves.

Each of these different types of games have a use in an educational setting. In some cases the games may not be directly usable in the classroom. I would not for example allow my students to play Candy Crush Saga in a Science lesson! I have however taken elements of what makes those games engaging and used them in designing my class activities and units of work.