Game-Based Learning 
Play and Learn
Game-Based Learning (#GBL) and ADHD(2)
From paper : GAME-BASED LEARNING AND ADHD, by Safia Doumani, California State University San Marcos, Spring, 2013 It is a common story: The same child who cannot stay at his desk for more than fifteen minutes at a time is perfectly happy to spend six hours at home mastering his favorite video game. The real problem might not be… Read More ›
A Short Introduction to MineCraft Pedagogy
by Santeri Koivisto, Some thoughts about MinecraftEdu in a classroom About the author: Santeri Koivisto is one of the creators of MinecraftEdu. He mostly does the boring business stuff in the company, but he’s also a teacher in Finland and education enthusiast. His thoughts effect heavily on the way Minecraft and MinecraftEdu are being used in everyday… Read More ›
Digital Game-Based Language Learning with Interactive Fiction (PART 2)
The first post in this series explored how digital games, and how text-based Interactive Fiction in particular, might offer language learners a potentially more engaging and interactive learning experience. Being both a digital game and a form of electronic literature, it encompasses the unique learning and cognitive affordances of both mediums, allowing for deeper interaction… Read More ›
What Do Kids Turned Learning Game Designers Inspire Us? (#GBL)
Kids need to be content creators, not only information consumers. This sounds like a cliche. But someone might think the idea is just a buzzword. It’s not necessarily urgent. In the following case, we observe that kids are in charge of their own project – making a game to join the Healthivore Video Game Contest…. Read More ›
Alternate Reality Game (ARG) for K-12
Milton Chen at The George Lucas Educational Foundation talked about “Games and the Common Core: Two Movements That Need Each Other“, a good point is : …we should recognize that the Common Core Standards in language arts and math are outcomes, not subject areas, and that there should be multiple paths to achieving the higher and… Read More ›
Creating Values from Play – Tiltfactor
Tiltfactor, the interdisciplinary innovation studio dedicated to designing & studying games for social impact, was founded and is led by Dr. Mary Flanagan. Skilled at designing catchy games that teach people something or create new knowledge, the lab always follows up with rigorous research that proves the approach and creates tangible results. Tiltfactor has created unique game… Read More ›
Collaborative LEarning GAme DEsign Environment
When developing Serious Games (SGs) for academic purposes, not only is there a budgetary challenge, but there is also the challenge of integrating enough educational value without sacrificing the fun characteristics. Various participants have to collaborate to balance all the important elements : project manager, cognitive specialist, domain experts, storyboard writer, artistic director, pedagogical expert, programmers…… Read More ›
Debates about Gamification and Game-Based Learning(#GBL) in Education
by Justin Marquis Ph.D., from OnlineUniversities.com There is a tendency in life to see things in absolutes. Sensationalist media thrives on the love/hate, friend/enemy, smash hit/trash it dichotomy. The proposition of including games in the classroom at any level is no different. There are those who love the concept and are all in for redesigning… Read More ›
17 Things about Alternate Reality Games(#GBL)
from : Motivation in alternate reality gaming environments and implications for learning Alternate Reality Games(ARG) are being used increasingly in Higher Education as a way of providing a stimulating context for student learning. However, several instances have shown that students are not as motivated to take part in this type of active learning activity as might… Read More ›
8 Reasons Why We Should Teach to the Game (#GBL)
from James Paul Gee, David Williamson Shaffer : Looking where the light is bad: Video games and the future of assessment Abstract In the past we have referred to games as good “learning engines.” Here we argue that games are good learning engines because they are first good assessment engines. Games require the kind of thinking that we… Read More ›
Fun, Flow, and Fiero: Reflections on Week 1 of the Games Based Learning MOOC
Reblogged from Remixing College English: As mentioned in my last post, I am planning to gamify next Fall’s first-semester FYC course, using Interactive Fiction (IF) and the multiplayer classroom model. The decision to do so came completely independently of a new MOOC that started this past week that focuses on Games Based Learning (GBL). I… Read More ›
Research: Playing Video Games Every Day Can Improve Cognitive Performance
Yesterday GamePolitics.com posted about the research result from Adam Chie-Ming Oei and Michael Donald Patterson (from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore). Published this week in the open access journal PLOS ONE, the research found that playing video games a little bit every day can improve cognitive performance. The research is based on a study conducted by Oei… Read More ›
Let the Games Begin to Make A Change
Maybe you already know the non-profit organization “Game for Change”, but, “can games really make changes in our lives and society?” you ask. “9 MINUTES” MOBILE GAME EVALUATION DEMONSTRATES POSITIVE CHANGE FOR PREGNANT WOMEN The game was developed for feature phones commonly used in India and East Africa. Learn more here. 9 Minutes plays out the adventure of… Read More ›
Making Interactive Fictions in Classrooms
Making games in the classroom could be daunting to get started, especially when graphics and interfaces are involved. So creating text adventures (or interactive fictions, IF) is a great start for building the capacity of game design and traditional literacy – reading and writing. Anastasia Salter of ProfHacker selected some free tools sutiable for classrooms. Make Games in the… Read More ›
Adaptivity in Learning Games and Simulations (#GBL)
Data-driven adaptivity in learning process is getting attention recently, but adaptivity in learning or entertainment games isn’t a new research interest. One good reading is this paper in IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON COMPUTATIONAL INTELLIGENCE AND AI IN GAMES: Adaptivity Challenges in Games and Simulations: a Survey. Static game content and its pre-defined variations, based on low-resolution profiles, all… Read More ›
Games and Learning, Health and Social Impact
The majority of Americans regularly play computer and video games, spending billions of hours deeply immersed in their favorite interactive games. Only a tiny fraction of this time, however, is spent on video games specifically designed for learning, health or social impact. At an August 2012 meeting hosted by the White House Office of Science… Read More ›
Game On
Reblogged from edtechdigest.com: From imagination to implementation: the power of collaboration between game designers and teachers “As a teacher, you’re normally an island in a school. If you’re lucky, you have a colleague to consult with. If you’re unlucky, you’re alone in planning and implementing your curriculum until someone periodically comes in to judge you…. Read More ›
Tin Can API Tracks Learning in Serious Games
As explained in our previous post, Tin Can API Makes All Learning Experience Trackable. Traditional learning management systems(LMS) are lack of flexibility and data portability, even with social media integration, they are more like old-school-style learning. But nowadays learning opportunities and forms are very diversified, mobile applications, web-based applications, virtual worlds, simulations, learning games, MOOCs, informal learning… Read More ›
Virtual Superheroes: Using Superpowers in Virtual Reality to Encourage Prosocial Behavior
Playing the part of a flying superhero in virtual reality games heightens gamers’ social conscience in the real world, according to a study by a team of psychologists. Wired magazine pointed to an interesting paper published by Stanford University’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab, revealed a growing body of clinical work that demonstrates gaming can have a good influence. This paper is… Read More ›
Developing A Strategy for Game-Based Learning (#GBL)
EDUCAUSE Center for Applied Research (ECAR) had published a paper about GAME-BASED LEARNING: DEVELOPING AN INSTITUTIONAL STRATEGY in last August. As the idea of gamification and game-based learning are gaining awareness in higher education, it provides a useful framework for overall policy consideration. It’s very different to use game thinking in one course and a system implementation. Games… Read More ›
Text adventure games are still new
Reblogged from Text Adventures Blog: Cross-posted to Gamasutra. This blog post is based on part of my AdventureX talk from December – hopefully a video of that will be available soon. Every couple of weeks, it seems, another games journalist writes an article about how they’ve rediscovered the long lost art of the text adventure… Read More ›
Minecraft in Schools
Reblogged from ikeane007: MINECRAFT IN SCHOOLS 1/17/2013 Minecraft in Schools Minecraft within Curriculum for Excellence Game-based learning is still little understood and underutilized within the Scottish Educational system. Minecraft is a sandbox game similar to Lego that allows the user to create a world using blocks. Minecraft is being used in America and around the… Read More ›
Free Resources to Support “Quest to Learn” Model
“What if school engaged students in ways that are exciting, empowering and culturally relevant? What if it became just one part of a community of learning that extends far beyond the classroom walls? What if it equipped students to view the world as a single uninterrupted opportunity to learn?“ This is the goal beyond “Quest… Read More ›
What Can “Call of Duty” Teach Our Students?
Frontiers in Educational Psychology is a Specialty Section of the open-access Frontiers in Psychology journal family, supported by the non-profit Frontiers Research Foundation. In this publication, the researches around video gaming and what such games can offer to the field of education were extensively reviewed. Through an examination of the learning mechanisms found in cognitively motivational and… Read More ›
Automating and Humanizing Education for The First Time In History
This post written by Daniel Burrus first appeared on GettingSmart : Automating and Humanizing Education for The First Time In History. While many parents and teachers lament over the amount of time today’s youth spend on video games, the truth is that these high-tech “toys” can be used to revolutionize education and training. Think of it… Read More ›
Video games and libraries are a good mix, say librarians
Reblogged from VentureBeat: Walk into any public library and, of course, you see books, reference materials, newspapers, magazines, and all types of the printed word. We might also see comic books, manga, and less traditional “literature.” These days, we encounter film, television, music, internet-connected computers, and other digital media. But video games? Libraries lend video… Read More ›
How To Integrate Video Games In The Classroom
How To Integrate Video Games In The Classroom by Terry Heick was first published on TeachThought. Using video games in a formal learning environment isn’t an entirely natural concept–using them in pursuit of global learning initiatives only adds to the seeming complexity. Judging by the feedback from the presentation TeachThought and Edutopia received during our 2012… Read More ›
40 Game Building Tools and a MAGICAL tool for Learning
We are following the blog of Nicola Whitton, recently she pointed to a resource for building games for education purpose in this port : Tools for game building. The Making Games in Collaboration for Learning (MAGICAL) project, in which we’re a partner, has just released an updated version of its list of game-making environments (pdf). It contains information about nearly… Read More ›
The Safety Part of Game-Based Learning
The Safety Part of Game-Based Learning on SlideShare is from Anne Collier. A brief preso of research-based ideas on safety and citizenship in digital environments and games at school. Another presentation of A fresh look at digital safety, citizenship is the keynote she gave at “Games in Education” in upstate New York, 2012 : Anne Collier is a journalist and… Read More ›
Digital game-based language learning with Interactive Fiction (PART 1)
Video games (also called digital games) are serious. While the people who play them have known this for a long time, it’s taken over three decades for society in general to accept them as something other than a way to pass the time in virtue of doing “more serious” work. The fact is, video games… Read More ›
Gaming the First-Year Composition Course
Reblogged from Remixing College English: In my last post, I addressed the idea of disrupting the First-Year Composition course. One of those disruptive pedagogies that I’ve been monitoring for some time is gamification. I don’t like jumping on any pedagogical bandwagon until I’ve had some time to observe it from afar for a while and… Read More ›
Teacher Turned Game Designer Shares about Math Game-Based Learning
by Sarah Cargill, first published on GettingSmart.com : Q&A: Teacher Turned Game Designer Shares Lessons From The Biggest Story Problem The Biggest Story Problem Trailer from Imagine Education on Vimeo. The Biggest Story Problem, a independent documentary film aimed at examining the decline in math proficiency in the U.S. with global solutions, was produced this year. The… Read More ›
Pushing The Boundaries of Game-Based Learning – Institute of Play
Good gamers are good learners! Institute of Play – a not-for-profit design studio that pioneers new models of learning and engagement – is constantly pushing the boundaries of how game-like learning design can engage and empower learners. Let’s start this post from this quote from their latest article: If you’ve played enough well-designed games, you know that… Read More ›
What K-12 Teachers Think about Game-Based Learning
WeAreTeachers released the result of a survey of 309 K–12 classroom teachers from public, private and religious schools across the country about their views on game based learning. It shows more technologies and helps are needed for game-based learning to be broadly implemented into classrooms. But in another post “Debating Game-Based Learning“, the pros and cons are… Read More ›
Educators Are Well Positioned to Be Game Designers
Educators are well positioned to be game designers, but a lot of times teachers don’t feel that way because they don’t play games. Raymond Yan, senior vice president of DigiPen Institute of Technology and 2012 NAIS ( National Association of Independent Schools) Annual Conference speaker talks about how you can teach with games. He discussed the game-making… Read More ›
Game-Based Learning for Geoscience
The Starting Point project has been exploring the ability of on-line resources to catalyze improvements in teaching geoscience for undergraduate students. They have been developing a resource that intimately integrates pedagogy with teaching resources. The purpose is to bridge the gap between information about teaching methods and the everyday experiences of geoscience faculty by providing geoscience… Read More ›
“Flow” in Learning Design
by Edwin McRae, Fiction Engine Jenova Chen has captured one of the most important learning advantages of games in…a game, of course. ’Flow’ is the name of the game, and a state of mind that all learners need to aspire to. It goes like this… • A sense of control; • A loss of self-consciousness; and… Read More ›
Battling The Forces of Boring Education with Games and Stories
English teacher Edwin McRae is at war. He’s on a personal crusade to ‘battle the forces of boring education’ by promoting the use of computer games in the classroom. This guest post is from him. ***** I created The Fiction Engine, a website about computer games and learning, as a staging ground for a war… Read More ›
Serious Gaming, The Next Frontier for Learning?
Reblogged from Technology, Innovation, Education: In late October I hosted a set of Webinars titled “Serious Gaming – The Next Frontier for Learning?”. These were very interactive webinars, or as I called them, Socratic Webinars (hat tip to Humberto Schwab). All participants had to agree to the following rules: This is not a discussion: We… Read More ›
Your Brain on Video Games
Daphne Bavelier is an internationally-recognized expert on how humans learn. In particular, she studies how the brain adapts to changes in experience, either by nature – for example, deafness – or by training – for example, playing video games. Initially trained in Biology at the ‘Ecole Normale Superieure de Paris’, she then received a PhD in Brain and… Read More ›
