Yes, it's easy to dismiss game-based instruction as just the latest in a long line of passing educational fads. But don't laugh: the same game-based approach to classroom instruction is being used by college professors like Dr. Anthony Crider at Elon University, the United States Military, Fortune 500 companies, multinational healthcare providers, and billion-dollar pharmaceutical corporations.
The UMass Amherst Digital Media Lab has an HTC Vive virtual reality system but its expensive and we have only one system. I've been exploring low cost, quick access VR for classrooms. One I found was from Merge VR, https://mergevr.com/. It has a soft headset that a user places their smart phone in and has an interactive cube. The cube and headset are about $45. Has anyone else used this system? How are the apps? Are there better options?
Twine is an open source text adventure application that is free to use. Features include web standard technology, embedding 3rd party apps like Google Forms, and a simple mark up to modify the basic operations.
I've seen one example of Twine being used in a Classics course, but would love to here from others who has used it in their classrooms.
I work in an academic maker space at UMass Amherst and was wondering if anyone has used Scratch for Arduino or S4A? I'm not a programmer and wanted to check it out, but wanted to see what teachers and students felt about it and what projects they found interesting and beneficial.
https://www.freetech4teachers.com/2018/09/three-apps-to-explore-potential-of.html