The Multiplayer Classroom: Designing Coursework as a Game

Go beyond gamification’s badges and leaderboards with the new edition of the book, first published in 2011, that helped transform education. Going far beyond the first edition of The Multiplayer Classroom, forthrightly examining what worked and what didn’t over years of development, here are the tools to design any structured learning experience as a game to engage your students, raise their grades, and ensure their attendance. Suitable for use in the classroom or the boardroom, this book features a reader-friendly style that introduces game concepts and vocabulary in a logical way. Also included are case studies, both past and present, from others teaching in their own multiplayer classrooms around the world. You don't need any experience making games or even playing games to use this book. You don’t even need a computer. Yet, you will join many hundreds of educators who have learned how to create multiplayer games for any age on any subject.

Lee Sheldon began his writing career in television as a writer-producer, eventually writing more than 200 shows ranging from Charlie’s Angels (writer) to Edge of Night (head writer) to Star Trek: The Next Generation (writer-producer). Having written and designed more than 40 commercial and applied video games, Lee spearheaded the first full writing for games concentration in North America at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the second writing concentration at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, where he is now a professor of practice. Lee is a regular lecturer and consultant on game design and writing in the United States and abroad. His most recent commercial game, the award-winning The Lion’s Song, is currently on Steam.

Lee Sheldon began his writing career in television as a writer-producer, eventually writing more than 200 shows ranging from Charlie’s Angels (writer) to Edge of Night (head writer) to Star Trek: The Next Generation (writer-producer). Having written and designed more than forty commercial and applied video games, Lee spearheaded the first full writing for games concentration in North America at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the second writing concentration at Worcester Polytechnic Institute where he is now a professor of practice. The forthcoming CRC Press companion book, The Multiplayer Classroom: Game Plans, will feature fully annotated design documents from his more ambitious multiplayer and alternate reality games including the first online multiplayer classroom. Other games covered teach physical fitness, Mandarin and Chinese Culture and cybersecurity, a game where students must defend their university against attacks originating on the dark web. The third edition of Lee’s book Character Development and Storytelling for Games, a standard text in the field, is also forthcoming from CRC Press. Lee is a regular lecturer and consultant on game design and writing in the U.S. and abroad. His most recent commercial game, the award-winning The Lion’s Song, is currently on Steam.