“From Microsoft’s killer new Outlook email app to fun little games for passing the time like Psych, you’re bound to find something you like.” There’s even an app that lets you volunteer for the blind. Most of the apps are free or less than $5 for iOS. The mobile interface of the Outlook email app (free) looks especially easy to read and use, which is hard to find with most email apps.
The article features Hopper, Letterspace, Funny or Die Weather, Minesweeper Widget Edition, Detour, Khan Academy, and more.
The underlying assumption of an education system that relies so heavily on test-based assessment is that content is what matters.
For those who prioritize learning that can be measured using only quantitative assessments, game-based learning probably just looks like a way to increase student engagement and content retention. It might seem like a complex workbook, or an entertaining quiz. Perhaps game-based learning looks like a great tool for practice and drilling, like a super sophisticated flash-card system that makes memorization more fun. But this kind of thinking doesn’t take into account the broader understanding of what matters. Game-based learning is a great classroom tool because it allows for interdisciplinary learning through contextualized critical thinking and problem solving.
Games in the classroom can encourage students to understand subject matter in context — as part of a system. In contrast to memorization, drilling, and quizzing, which is often criticized because it focuses on facts in isolation, games force players to interact with problems in ways that take relationships into account. The content becomes useful insofar as it plays a part in a larger multi-modal system.
Definition Game-based learning is an instructional method that allows students to experience, understand, and solve problems in the world of a particular subject, or system, from the inside.
One promise of game-based learning is that it has the potential of building comprehension and literacy rather than retention. It does this by combining instruction, practice, and assessment. Teachers become the facilitators of a process where instruction is experiential. Practice is project based, requiring students to solve new problems and address new challenges using the new ideas to which they’ve been introduced. And assessment no longer measures a student’s ability to regurgitate information, or to choose among multiple answers, but rather, to use the content, or subject matter, in context. Even more impressive is that in order to successfully manipulate one piece within a comprehensive and complex system, the students must understand every piece of the system. http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/tag/games/
All the above games have physics in common but they’re also all in 2D. If students love these games, consider challenging them with 3D and even 4D games that put physics knowledge to the test. Valve’s Portal series is a great choice, or look into the equally mind-bending first-person games Antichamber or Quantum Conundrum, both of which go beyond the boundaries of Newtonian physics and Euclidean geometry.
It’s a debate about a lot of things and it involves a lot of people, but at its heart, #Gamergate is about two key things: ethics in video game journalism, and the role and treatment of women in the video game industry — an industry that has long been dominated by men.
Avoiding making people sick is one of the key struggles in producing VR games. Developers large and small have said games need to be made in new ways to protect players from motion sickness.
the article lists “for-” and “against-,” but does not take a stand.
What is your opinion? Do games on resume represents better skills? Do you think listing your gaming skills on a resume will increase your change of being hired?
Please consider our other blog entries on games and gamification in education:
\three areas that generally get neglected in school: architecture, animation and game design.
students create their own games using these concepts. They may choose from several programming platforms, including Beta, Kandu, Flowlab, Unity, Atmosphir, Gamestar Mechanic and Game Maker. Some of these require knowledge of coding; others are almost purely visual.
If you build it …? One campus’ firsthand account of gamification in the academic library http://crln.acrl.org/content/74/4/208.full
Straight from CRL News
SCVNGR as a platform was attractive to us for several reasons, including UCSD’s experience. First, it incorporated gaming into students’ experience of the library, which has been widely explored and recommended as a way to engage library patrons.2,3 Second, it would enable us to connect with students early in the year without needing to commit personnel to lengthy tours and other scheduled services during a busy time.
the heart of the student engagement myth: that adding or changing classroom elements, doing a new project, or exposing a student to a new technology or method of instruction will magically transform apathy into a white-hot fire of curiosity.
True engagement comes when a teacher knows a student’s strengths and interests beyond the classroom and uses that knowledge to deepen relationships. If we go into our rooms each day to teach but not connect, we can’t expect students to care beyond a test score, if that.
Can you answer these questions about your students? If you can, how do you apply that knowledge to connect with them?
*What home issues are affecting their work?
*Do they have a non-academic passion?
*What are their favorite shows, games, songs, or books?
*Do they have a preferred learning style?
*What is their hidden talent?
*What goals do they have for themselves in the future?
My note: easily said then done; if the instructor is overloaded with 4 classes 100 students per class, the suggestion above is rendered useless.
