Practical barriers in using educational computer games Available to Purchase

This paper outlines the barriers for using computer games in an educational setting by drawing on a study of a two‐month history course with the historical strategy game Europa Universalis II. The paper draws on the limited earlier literature on the subject to identify classic areas of difficulty. Some of these are time schedule, physical setting, class expectations, teacher background, genre knowledge, technical problems, experience with group work, teacher preparation, perception of games, class size, priority issue. It is concluded that these factors add up to a tremendous workload on teachers that wish to engage with educational computer games and demands that the teacher possesses a variety of skills.