Search Results for: gaming

Digital Tools, Podcast

“Gamified” Textbooks? It’s on the Horizon

Aside 1 Comment

From Mashable:

A prediction about gaming in education, by Gabe Zicherman author of the upcoming book Gamification by Design (O’Reilly, 2011).

I believe we’ll see the first “trans-institution” apps that connect students across different schools. We’ll see the first “gamified” textbooks from publishers while federal and state governments will continue to innovate and support initiatives in education. For adults, applications like MindSnacks, an iPhone app that makes learning languages more fun, will transform how we engage with continuing education. Expect an explosion in apps and services for language, food, finance and geo-location that manipulate game mechanics.

Mindshift, Podcast

Mobile Phones Open Up a Word of Learning

Aside

By Leslie Rule

Leslie Rule is studying at the Harvard Graduate School of Education in the Technology, Innovation, and Education (TIE) program. She specializes in project-based workshops using geo-apps, mobile devices, and storytelling techniques to explore place and community.

The statistics on cellphone adoption and usage are staggering, not just for their sheer numbers, but for the depth to which they have penetrated our day-to-day life. According to a recent Pew Report, they are our favorite devices, beating out desktops, laptops, gaming consoles, MP3 players, and tablet/readers.

Consider the recent stats:

– 75% of 12-17 year-olds use own cell phones, and of those

– 88% of kids with cellphones use them to text

-83% use them to take pictures and 64% to exchange pictures

-54% to record and 32% to exchange video

– 27% to trawl the web

-23% to post to social networking sites Continue reading Mobile Phones Open Up a Word of Learning →

Mindshift, Podcast

(Video) Game on? Yes and No.

Aside

Leslie Rule is studying at the Harvard Graduate School of Education in the Technology, Innovation, and Education (TIE) program. She specializes in hands-on, in-depth, project-based workshops using geo-apps, mobile devices, and storytelling techniques to explore place and community.

By Leslie Rule

I am not a gamer. Never liked board games. Pre-date the video game revolution. I have played many games of tennis, have on occasion gamed the system, even been bested by the game of life…but video games, not so much.

But one part of the video game I love: the world created, otherwise known by the rather antiseptic term “virtual environment.” My son will often call me over to watch the opening “cinematic” of a video game, where the virtual environment (the amazing fantasy world) is introduced. Think Oz or Dune, Narnia, Middle-Earth, or Rivendell…or my son’s favorite, Spira of FFX.

What affordances (roughly defined “action possibilities” or learning tools) does a virtual world offer that the real world doesn’t? For the concerned environmentalist in all of us, researchers at the Harvard Graduate School of Education are investigating just that question. Chris Dede, Tina Grotzer and team have built a virtual ecosystem/world of EcoMUVE: Advancing Ecosystems Science Education via Situated Collaborative Learning in a Multi-User Virtual Environments. Continue reading (Video) Game on? Yes and No. →

Mindshift, Podcast

College Credit for Video Games

Aside 1 Comment

Video games are not just rich school curriculum for sixth graders, as I posted yesterday.

As U.C. Berkeley did last year, the University of Florida is offering a two-credit class called “21st Century Skills in StarCraft” to teach resource-management and decision-making skills, as well as critical thinking and adaptive decision-making.

As an ecampus news article points out, these types of courses are not commonly seen on college syllabi, but there’s potential to create a useful prototype for similar classes in the future. Continue reading College Credit for Video Games →