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"A full third of the world's population -- 2.6 billion people -- play video games, plugging into massive networks of interaction that have opened up opportunities well beyond entertainment. In a talk about the future of the medium, entrepreneur Herman Narula makes the case for a new understanding of gaming -- one that includes the power to create new worlds, connect people and shape the economy."

From Arcademics Skill Builders. The game involves grabbing the word that fits best. Fast and fun interactive word game

"Marie Curie, Martin Luther King Jr, Albert Einstein, Sir Alexander Fleming, Mother Teresa; all of these amazing individuals have one thing in common - winning the Nobel Prize. The Nobel Prize is one of the most highly regarded awards given to people working in the fields of literature, medicine, physics, chemistry, peace, and economics. But the Nobel Foundation is more than just an award giving Foundation, and has branched out into creating educational content related to the hard work done by Nobel Prize winners. Not only does their website contain video clips, documentaries, literature and history related to the winners, but it has over 29 interactive educational games for students to learn about key scientific, economic, literature and peace concepts."

Much is made of the potential for games to enhance education for today's kids living in a so-called "digital world," but traditional approaches seek to make gaming conform to education. At the Edinburgh Interactive Festival, two innovative teachers suggested that teachers ought to embrace -- and employ -- all the ways in which kids are already playing

An inspiring first European overview A groundbreaking new European study, released today at a major EU conference hosted by the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, sheds light on how teachers use digital games in the classroom with their pupils for learning purposes. The conference was opened by the European Commissioner for Education and Culture, Jan Figel, underlining the importance of the study. It covers commercial as well as "serious" games. It was carried out by European Schoolnet, a network of 31 Ministries of Education, commissioned by the Interactive Software Federation of Europe (ISFE).

"Coding is believed to be the 21st century literacy par excellence. Codes make up the totality of our digital world. They are a universal language that every computer speak. Teaching kids coding will not only enable them to better understand the digital world surrounding them but, more importantly, will equip them with skills integral to their overall learning. Coding is all about creativity, imagination, problem solving and strategic thinking. There is a wide variety of ways to make learning programming and coding a fun an enjoyable task for kids. One of them is through the use of engaging and interactive games. Below is a collection of some of the most popular iPad apps for helping kids learn coding through games. Check them out and share with us if you have other suggestions."

"Studio Pango produces a bunch of iPad apps that children (pre-K through grade 2) are sure to love. Some of the apps are free and some of the apps require purchase. To get a sense of what the paid apps offer, try the free apps first. This morning I tried two of the free apps. I tried Pango Book 1 and Pango Playground for Kids."

Alice is an innovative 3D programming environment that makes it easy to create an animation for telling a story, playing an interactive game, or a video to share on the web. Alice is a freely available teaching tool designed to be a student's first exposure to object-oriented programming. It allows students to learn fundamental programming concepts in the context of creating animated movies and simple video games. In Alice, 3-D objects (e.g., people, animals, and vehicles) populate a virtual world and students create a program to animate the objects

3-6 Grade levele interactive games for use with or w/o IWB

Games, Puzzles and other Interactive Multimedia Resources Online for Teachers and Kids - By David Hellam

"Osmo was created by young parents and encourages social interaction by expanding interaction with games to the area in front of an iPad. It does this by providing a white stand and a red mirror that works with iPad and iPad mini. The reflector lets the front-facing camera recognize what is placed in front of iPad. Something to know is that iPad must be removed from any case in order to fit into the stand."

"About two decades ago The MIT Media lab introduced the concept of block-based programming. The idea was to develop an interface that allowed computer programs to be built by simply dragging and dropping puzzle blocks to represent complex programming constructs and commands. With this new method for teaching and learning computer science, the hugely popular Scratch platform was born. This approach lowered the bar for experimenting with programmatic thinking, making it possible for students to create interactive animations and small games without writing a single line of code. This simple concept removed the need to learn the syntax of a formal programming language, and made teaching and learning the basics of computer science accessible to younger learners and to teachers with no formal coding background. Outside of the classroom though, coding has always been, and still remains, a process of typing letters, numbers and symbols. This text-based programming, used in programming language such as C, Javascript and Python, requires coders to obey and conform to formal syntax. Despite the pain of dealing with typos in names of variables and inevitable syntax errors, no other coding method designed to be more "user friendly" has really caught on. Tools have been offered for managers to define business logic through a graphical user interface without writing lines of codes. Or for web developers to add interactive behaviors to their websites without learning Javascript. But in reality, neither of those substitute the power and flexibility of text-based programming. And with neither winning significant adoption, the demand for the classic skill of text-based coding continues to grow and grow."

"Please, No More Professional Development! By Peter DeWitt on April 17, 2015 8:10 AM Today's guest blog is written by Kristine Fox (Ed.D), Senior Field Specialist/Research Associate at Quaglia Institute for Student Aspirations (QISA). She is a former teacher and administrator who has passion for teacher learning and student voice. Kris works directly with teachers and leaders across the country to help all learners reach their fullest potential. Peter DeWitt recently outlined why "faculty meetings are a waste of time." Furthering on his idea, most professional development opportunities don't offer optimal learning experiences and the rare teacher is sitting in her classroom thinking "I can't wait until my district's next PD day." When I inform a fellow educator that I am a PD provider, I can read her thoughts - boring, painful, waste of time, useless, irrelevant - one would think my job is equal to going to the dentist (sorry to my dentist friends). According to the Quaglia Institute and Teacher Voice and Aspirations International Center's National Teacher Voice Report only 54% percent of teachers agree "Meaningful staff development exists in my school." I can't imagine any other profession being satisfied with that number when it comes to employee learning and growth. What sense does it make for the science teacher to spend a day learning about upcoming English assessments? Or, for the veteran teacher to learn for the hundredth time how to use conceptual conflict as a hook. Why does education insist everyone attend the same type of training regardless of specialization, experience, or need? As a nod to the upcoming political campaigns and the inevitable introduction of plans with lots of points, here is my 5 Point Plan for revamping professional development. 5 Point Plan Point I - Change the Term: Semantics Matter We cannot reclaim the term Professional Development for teachers. It has a long, baggage-laden history of conformity that does not

"Over the past five years, we have developed a computational thinking framework based upon our studies of interactive media designers. The context of our research is Scratch - a programming environment that enables young people to create their own interactive stories, games, and simulations, and then share those creations in an online community with other young programmers from around the world. By studying activity in the Scratch online community and in Scratch workshops, we have developed a definition of computational thinking that involves three key dimensions: (1) computational concepts, (2) computational practices, and (3) computational perspectives. Observation and interviews have been instrumental in helping us understand the longitudinal development of creators, with participation and project portfolios spanning weeks to several years. Workshops have been an important context for understanding the practices of the creator-in-action."

The hot air balloon pilot needs your help to answer questions correctly so that he can refuel his balloon and fly to the next level. Very imaginative game. Great illustrations. Challenging for younger students. Good for Gr 3 + BBC - KS2 Bitesize - Games -

"What games do you play with sight words? Sight words are words that we all need to be able to read quickly and automatically in order to be strong readers, and the more we allow emerging readers to interact with these words, the better!"

"Immersive environments can be good learning vehicles if constructed and used correctly. Here are a set of virtual worlds that use the latest in game mechanics to deliver instruction in fun and interactive ways. Consider them as a supplement to a classroom or for use with students that respond well to such immersion."