Initial feedback (EDINA 2010c, Sutton 2010) from teaching staff reveals that expectations around quality and costs of mapping appear grounded in existing consumer mapping tools. Since DfS is a subscription service, it would be beneficial (to EDINA) to provide a game that demonstrates functionality and value through offering support for teaching staff to build their own classroom activities around specific map features.
Motivating teaching staff to play will be crucial to the game's success as teaching staff indicate that they lack time to experiment with new tools (Sutton 2010). In proposing a DfS game, I hope to reflect the playfulness that is innate to most classroom activities in the materials provided to support classroom tools. Kane (2005) endorses such a “Play Ethic” but also cautions, pertinently, that play must also be “necessary and worthwhile”.
Malone (1980) recommends engaging cognitive curiosity through intrinsic fantasy alongside varied, specific and surprising feedback within learning games to make them enjoyable and educationally successful. As the game will form part of the training or professional development of the player it must also be highly participatory – taking the active critical approach recommended by both Gee (2003) and Whitton (2010) – and must be fun and motivating. Ideally, (some) players will become deeply engaged in game play such that they achieve a productive state of flow (Nakamura and Csikszentmihalyi 2002) in which the game itself would become intrinsically rewarding and “the end goal is just an excuse for the process”.