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.

http://www.mathstudio.com/product.htm

Mental Disorder

Educational satire of the mental health profession.

Players diagnose each other.
http://www.mentaldisorder.com/

Problems &
Programmers

http://www.ics.uci.edu/~andre/research/publications.html#ICSE2003-2

Compost Gin

http://www.stanslaughter.com/compost/cpstgin.html

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

http://www.homestargames.com/product.htm

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.
http://www.wunderland.com/LooneyLabs/Nanofictionary/Index.html

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
Ranks

Differences in power, size, etc.

Suits

Categories

Trump

More potent category

Card to avoid

Undesirable element

Wild card

Outlier

Groupings
Natural groupings
(e.g. face cards) (e.g., noble gases)

Educational Card Design

Advantages, Limitations,
Examples, & Options