Educational Card Design Advantages, Limitations, Examples, & Options

Strengths of Card Games Compact Playable anywhere Mastered quickly Played quickly Good for reinforcing facts, classification, simple relationships

Limitations of Card Games Cant be used for higher level objectives If not designed carefully, could be played for fun without learning Producing more than one deck takes careful planning (use of database or page layout program) and tedious assembly

Example: Krill Used to teach ocean food chains Simple relationships: what it eats, and what eats it

The Algebra Game Rummy-like game in which combinations of equations and their graphs are matched and discarded.

Mental Disorder Educational satire of the mental health profession. Players diagnose each other.

Problems & Programmers

Compost Gin

Planetaire Rummy-like game that can also be played like solitaire.

Nanofictionary Players combine and recombine Settings, Characters, Problems and Resolutions to create the best story they can, while other players mix things up with wacky Action cards.

Example: Triangle Object: to put down triads of cards that represent sides and angles of triangles

Native American Rummy Each card represents an historically important Native American.

Categories of Card Games Bridge/Whist Poker/Rummy Happy Families/Snap Patience Solitaire

Bridge/Whist Emphasis on winning tricks Suits have relative strengths Sometimes involves pairs as partners Sometimes involves bidding Its not easy to create educational games in this format!

Poker/Rummy Emphasis on building a pattern of cards and discarding them Patterns can be based on suits or ranks or both (e.g., three of a kind, flush, straight) Applicable to wide range of content involving categories and ranking within categories

Happy Families/Snap Mostly childrens games Simple relationships (e.g. greater than) Sometimes involves element of speed Typical educational use: drilling simple relationships

Patience/Solitaire Players start with a pattern of cards and work to an end state with a different pattern Could be used educationally to represent complex interrelationships among elements

Melding Content & Game Structures RanksDifferences in power, size, etc. SuitsCategories TrumpMore potent category Card to avoidUndesirable element Wild cardOutlier Groupings (e.g. face cards) Natural groupings (e.g., noble gases)

Educational Card Design Advantages, Limitations, Examples, & Options