Building a Virtual Business Curriculum through Serious Games

by on 9 August, 2007 - 12:22

Via: Knowledge Matters - Virtual Business SuiteVirtual Business is a suite of business and marketing simulations designed with the educator in mind. Topics covered include Marketing, Introduction to Business, Management, Supervision, Sports Marketing and Management, Retailing, and Entrepreneurship.

Serious Games challenging us to mimic real life management situations

Currently used in 3000 schools in the United States and abroad, Knowledge Matters' Virtual Business programs are designed to give students interactive learning experiences as virtual business owners and managersCurrently used in 3000 schools in the United States and abroad, Knowledge Matters' Virtual Business programs are designed to give students interactive learning experiences as virtual business owners and managersVirtual Business - Management 2.0 (VBM)This standards-based program adds a multiplayer capacity to the original version allowing teams to "steal" each other's customers and employees while motivating cooperative thinking and team strategy.This standards-based program adds a multiplayer capacity to the original version allowing teams to "steal" each other's customers and employees while motivating cooperative thinking and team strategy.

To mimic real life management situations, VBM developers worked in conjunction with a major food distributor to embed variables in the simulation that test players' abilities to score ever-higher profits running a distribution company.

Virtual Business - Retailing 2.0 (VBR)VBR is a software-based simulation of a convenience store that motivates students to want to learn more about business and marketing, empowering players with control over pricing, promotion, merchandising, market research, and more. 

Multiplayer Competitions. Students are able to set up their own store and compete against their classmates for customer share and profit. A teacher scoreboard shows the scores of individual students as they fight it out to see who will have the leading store in this virtual city.

Virtual Business - SportsThis software-based simulation of a football franchise lets students handle promotion, ticket pricing, stadium operations and staffing, sponsors and licensing deals, and more.

About Knowledge Matters, Inc.Knowledge Matters is a developer and publisher of educational software for high school and middle school classrooms. The company was founded in 1997 by Peter Jordan, with a grant from the Department of Education, to create quality educational software that helps teachers teach.Knowledge Matters seeks to change the traditional "drill and kill" educational system by creating learner centered, "what if", virtual environments. Knowledge Matters believe their graphically animated, interactive software will serve as the engine to drive this change, helping to create successful 21st century classrooms where knowledge does not pursue the student, but the student pursues knowledge.As students make decisions for their characters and experience the consequences of those decisions they learn about the world and gain an increased appreciation of their own culture and diversity. 

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