Adding Off-the-Shelf Games into Classes

Event: Webinar

Date: Monday, December 12, 2011
Starts: 4:00 pm (GMT-5) Eastern Time (US)

To participate in the webinar, go to http://www.instantpresenter.com/edweb3 on December 12. (No pre-registration required.)

The best educational curriculum seamlessly integrates content, interaction, and assessment into meaningful learning experiences built upon inquiry-based, student-centered, and authentic problem-solving instructional strategies. As it happens, that is exactly what many commercial games do, making their use for education an obvious choice. But this is easier said than done. In our community’s next webinar, the University of North Dakota’s Richard Van Eck will provide a practical overview of how to integrate commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) games into the classroom. Richard will provide an overview of the NTeQ technology integration model, which is compatible with inquiry-based curriculum that COTS games. He will discuss how this model has been used by elementary, middle, and high school teachers to integrate games into the curriculum while meeting the requirements of real-world classrooms. Join Richard for an interactive, one-hour webinar on December 12th for this model and other practical tips for integrating COTS games into the classroom.

Games-Based Learning

Educational Games/Serious Games

Games are becoming a pervasive part of everyday life, and our notions of what constitutes a game are changing as fast as the applications of games themselves. These games have defined learning outcomes. Generally they are designed in order to balance the subject matter with the game play and the ability of the player to retain and apply the subject matter in the real world.

Online games for single users are also popular, though access to them is often blocked in the K12 environment. There are many free games designed for K-12 students that are accessible via a web browser and require no installation, such as The Potato Story (http://www.thepotatostory.co.uk), a UK-based game that teaches kids where food comes from

Open-ended, collaborative games also play out as alternate reality games (ARGs), in which players find clues and solve puzzles in experiences that blur the boundary between the game and real life. Recent examples of large-scale ARGs include the educational games World Without Oil and Superstruct, and the promotional game I Love Bees. The Tower of Babel, an ARG designed by the European ARGuing Project, was used in schools as well as by learners of all ages. It was developed to engage students in learning languages other than their own.

According to the 2010 Horizon Report: K12 Edition, another promising area is the development of educational Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) games. As yet, there are few examples of these games designed specifically for education. Early efforts include Mithril, a multiplayer online role-playing game developed by students at Stanford University. Mithril draws on the look and feel of MMOs but is math-based. Students must master mathematical concepts in order to cast spells, defeat foes, and progress in the game.

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Software in corporate training and higher education

According to there website, "In a Virtual Heroes world, textbooks and lectures are replaced with complete interactivity, excitement and serious fun!  Our Advanced Learning Technology (A.L.T.) platform has re-invented the way medical, military and corporate professionals can enhance performance and unleash potential. Our technology facilitates the linkage of learning objectives to measurable performance outcomes."

Founded in 1998, BreakAway, Ltd. is a leading developer of entertainment games and game-based technology products. We create entertainment experiences that enable people to master skills and concepts in virtual worlds, and transfer this expertise to develop tools that provide game-based solutions for real world problems. Their platform, the mōsbē™ desktop development studio, is a strategy-based platform designed to enable military, homeland security, medical, and corporate customers solve real-world problems with the situational realism and experiential engagement of game-based simulation.

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Edutainment

The term "edutainment" describes an intentional merger of computer games and educational software into a single product. The term describes educational software whose primary focus entertainment, but can be used for educational purposes as well. "Software of this kind is not structured towards school curricula, does not normally involve educational advisors, and does not focus on core skills such as literacy and numeracy" (Wikipedia).

These are games which were originally developed for adults or older children and which have potential learning implications. For the most part, these games provide simulations of different kinds of human activities or historical recreations, allowing players to explore a variety of social, historical and economic processes.

For example:

• City-building games such as the SimCity series (1989–2003) and Caesar (video game) (1993–2006) invite players to explore the social, practical and economic processes involved in city management;
• Empire-building games such as the Civilization (video game) series (1991–2005) and the Europa Universalis series (2000–2007) help players to learn about history and its political, economic and military aspects;
• Railroad management games such as Railroad Tycoon (1990–2003) and Rails Across America (2001) illuminate the history, engineering and economics of railroad management.
• Geography games such as PlaceSpotting (2008–2009) help players to find locations on earth according to some hints.

Mashpee High uses computer wizardry to teach technology

Students in Sal Nocella's gaming design class are learning about 3D animation and creating video games in high-tech classes that focus on STEM fields. "The best way to say it is that we're taking theory and applying it," one teacher said. For example, in a 3D animation class, students must first measure objects and use math to create 3D computer images. Though the ultimate goal is creating a fun distraction, inherent in the game are somewhat complicated equations and calculations. In this case, students used an X and Y axis to graph the robot's movements, while in other applications they might use equations to calculate the size of an object they want to turn into a 3D computer image. An added bonus to using the state-of-the-art software Nocella provides his students is that, come college or career, they'll already be entrenched in a field that's exploding in Massachusetts and elsewhere. "This is where the jobs are," he said. "This is how to compete with the global economy." Cape Cod Times (Mass.)

DimensionM

DimensionM is an immersive video game world that engages students in the instruction and learning of mathematics. Important learning objectives are covered through a series of missions that bring math into a world that today's students understand. Students become so captivated in solving problems that they forget they're learning but they don't forget what they've learned. Research with  demonstrates how well these programs align with the way today's students learn and how naturally immersed students become in their learning. The result is increased student motivation, increased time on task, and the application of learning to real world situations.

Calculation Nation

Calculation Nation is a free, easy to use, mathematics game site, offering Serious Games for most K-12 students. Calculation Nation offers students the opportunity to practice their mathematics skills individually or in a head-to-head format playing against other students. For parents and teachers, Calculation Nation offers suggestions for using Calculation Nation.

Calculation Nation™ uses the power of the Web to let students challenge opponents from anywhere in the world. At the same time, students are able to challenge themselves by investigating significant mathematical content and practicing fundamental skills. The element of competition adds an extra layer of excitement.

The National Council of Teacher’s of Mathematics (NCTM) hired Interactive Knowledge (IK) to design a system for middle school students to play math-related online games against live opponents. The site features five online games and a customized game room where thousands of students can challenge one another to test their math skills. Before going live, Calculation Nation was tested by hundreds of math teacher’s during NCTM’s annual conference held in April 2009.

New 3D Technology for Handhelds

Nintendo says it will begin selling a 3D version of the DSi portable within a year, tentatively called Nintendo 3DS. Sharp recently announced that its latest 3D displays (designed for smaller screens on mobile devices) work without 3D glasses. Mass production of the 3D LCDs was set to start earlier this month. Both Sharp and Hitachi (which released 3D-glasses free technology for cell phones last year) both supply LCD screens for Nintendo.

"3-D will really benefit education if it's relevant to the subject -- for example, a 3-D version of the human body for biology, or seeing how a plane flies for physics," noted Kurt Squire, a research scientist at the Academic Advanced Distributed Learning Co-Lab and a co-founder and current director of the Games + Learning + Society Initiative, a group of more than 50 faculty and students investigating game-based learning.. 3D technology paired with games-based learning allow for more interactive learning--a way to engage students using the technology they are familiar with. The key is to making the games curriculum-based that involve more than rote memorization or electronic versions of worksheets. eSchool News (free registration)