Group items tagged

2012 Challenge announced, entries open in Nov. 2011, The Middle School Stream aims to motivate and engage middle school students (grades 5 through 8) in STEM learning, 21st Century Literacy Skills and Systems Thinking by challenging them to design original video games. The High School Stream aims to motivate and engage high school students (grades 9 through 12) in STEM learning, 21st Century Literacy Skills and Systems Thinking by challenging them to design original video games. The Collegiate Stream challenges emerging game developers at the graduate and undergraduate levels to design video games for children (grades pre-K through 8) that teach key STEM concepts and foster an interest in STEM subject areas. The Educator Stream challenges educators to design video games for children (grades pre-K through 12) that teach key STEM concepts and foster an interest in STEM subject areas.

NEW YORK, March 1, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- The Princeton Review (www.princetonreview.com) -- one of the nation's best-known education services companies -- today reported its third annual list naming the schools with the best programs to study video game design. The new list, "Top Schools to Study Video Game Design for 2012," recommends 50 schools in all.

abstract: "This literature review will discuss the efficacy of using video game programming as an attractor and entry point to engage middle- and high-school girls in a computer science curriculum. The review begins by exploring historical trends of female participation in the technology industry and in computer science programs at the high-school and collegiate levels, and the impact these trends have on women's opportunities. For additional background context, the review will then review a number of empirical studies regarding girls' attitudes toward computer science, as well as environmental and social influences that impact their participation in the field. It will then identify the educational and social goals of increased female participation in the computer science curriculum and briefly discuss various potential attractors that have been under investigation. Finally, the review will describe specific research studies that explore both how effective the teaching of computer game design is in attracting female students to a computer science course of study, as well as its efficacy in teaching important computer science concepts."

Abstract: "The purpose of this study aimed to construct an online competitive game-based learning system by using freeware for junior high school students and to assess its effectiveness. From the learning standpoints, game mechanisms including learning points, competition mechanism, training room mechanism, questioning & answering mechanism, tips, and feedback mechanism are taken into consideration while constructing the system. The system contains screens of Log-in, Game lobby, Waiting room, Player's room, Question & Answer, and Scoring. After the system was established, it was implemented in a 10 week teaching experiment. A total of 35 junior high school students participated in this teaching experiment. Both pre-test and post-test were administered and analyzed. A 5-point Likert scale questionnaire, containing domains of system operation, learning effectiveness, competition and incentive, and training room learning was also included to assess user's satisfaction. Descriptive analysis and independent t test were used to analyze the collected data. The findings of the study show that most students are satisfied with the four domains of the freeware constructed online competitive game-based learning system. Meanwhile, the online competitive game-based learning system is effective for junior high school students' learning."

Abstract: "In this study, we device a digital game, which possessed scientific and fun, base on the conception of insects (DGBI), then can use it to test elementary school student's conception about insect. The DGBI materials creating pattern use as the ADDIE model. First step is to analyze the DGBI materials. We analyze student's alternative conceptions of insect and what the teaching staff needs to teach in the section of insect, and then we develop three teaching units, namely the ―Bugs Adventure‖, ―Legs and Wings "and" Mouthparts and feeding habits‖. Second, design the DGBI. Making DGBI has a clear teaching aim, multi-learning strategy like conception puzzle, computer simulation and conception mapping etc, an artistic and convenient operating media interface and a learning content that is easy to understand by the words and video in the DGBI materials. Third, develop the DGBI. Developing DGBI includes making animation component and composing animation component, these animation components makes 94.4% of students prefer to use DGBI materials to learn the conceptions of insect, especially the constructional detail magnify function and interactive game design in the teaching materials increase the student's learning interest. Forth, implement DGBI. We invite Two national college professors and four senior science teachers to use DGBI, and then we interview them to collect the testing amendments, and corrected it.Fifth, evaluate DGBI. We use quasi-experiment design and questionnaire survey to evaluate DGBI. In the quasi-experiment design, we select 111 students for four classes in an elementary school in New Taipei City and ask them to use DGBI, and then we tested them by the ―Insects Conceptions test‖. We found that after using the DGBI materials, the student's post-test scores (13.64) is higher than the pre-test scores (7.55), and there are significant differences (t = 16.47,p = .00)and helps the student to establish the correct concept of insect

"The Kamloops-Thompson school district is taking its video-game design curriculum to the next level. What started as a summer-camp program in 2007 and grew into a limited course offering last year is set to assume full-course status - meaning area high school students will have the opportunity to spend an entire semester studying nothing but video-game design."

From the abstract: "In Northern Ireland a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) infrastructure is in place. However, statistics and government reports suggest that VLE use amongst the primary school sector is quite limited. In an attempt to redress the limited use of VLEs in the primary school sector this research investigates the potential of serious games and how they may compliment the National Curriculum with the development of AmbiLearn, an enhanced learning environment with a content neutral game-based approach and content creation and reporting modules. This paper presents the design and implementation of AmbiLearn. Preliminary analysis of data from evaluation of AmbiLearn shows promising results and directions for future work are discussed."

Student game showcasing project "first jointly planned effort between USC's School of Cinematic Arts' interactive media division and its Viterbi School of Engineering's department of computer science. The two schools have offered an advanced games class together since 2007."

Looking for sponsorship to save high school digital media awards in Canada, DIGIS

Overview of the Mass. game industry (Tim Loew is quoted extensively) and courses and activities in Cape Cod schools

Of the innovative science and technology school programs (with and without external funding,) the last mentioned here is an after school program Intro to Computer Programming and Intro to Video Game Design, sponsored by DeVry University, at the Tutorspree school in New York

Abstract: "Preparing medical students for the takeover or the start-up of a medical practice is an important challenge in Germany today. Therefore, this paper presents a computer-aided serious game (eMedOffice) developed and currently in use at the RWTH Aachen University Medical School. The game is part of the attempt to teach medical students the organizational and conceptual basics of the medical practice of a general practitioner in a problem-based learning environment. This paper introduces methods and concepts used to develop the serious game and describes the results of an evaluation of the game's application in curricular courses at the Medical School."

Abstract: "Adolescent obesity is an increasing challenge, and pervasive social health games hold much promise for promoting sustained healthy behaviors. Researchers and d esigners of these systems have many potential theories and existing best practices at their disposal. Our study, grounded in participatory design, shows which ones matter - both for pervasive social health games and within the cultural context of a community we studied over the course of three years. We worked with 112 US middle school students from a lower - income community in a series of participatory design exercises focused on social rewards for everyday physical activity. In our analysis, we discuss design implications in four key areas : social presence, gender effects, incentives and competition. We show how these themes manifested in students' designs and why they were particularly important to our participa nts. We then use our findings to suggest design strategies for youth - focused pervasive social health games."

"Gaming has proven to be successful in K12... can it work for undergraduates as well?"

abstract: "We present the second iteration of the Family Hedge, a tangible digital artifact that was re-designed to elicit enjoyment using principles of game design. The initial aim was to create a device crafted for a family to explore the rich social and relational aspects of their lives by making connections between people, objects and stories. The second iteration facilitated more open interaction and playfulness in its role as an artifact for school children. We examine the key role a game design approach played in its iterative development and a key element in this was ensuring any user, or "gamer", could appropriate the device for personal expressive use."

"We present the second iteration of the Family Hedge, a tangible digital artifact that was re-designed to elicit enjoyment using principles of game design. The initial aim was to create a device crafted for a family to explore the rich social and relational aspects of their lives by making connections between people, objects and stories. The second iteration facilitated more open interaction and playfulness in its role as an artifact for school children. We examine the key role a game design approach played in its iterative development and a key element in this was ensuring any user, or "gamer", could appropriate the device for personal expressive use."

Introducing high school students to biology concepts via Spore and designing their own science games via Spore Galactic Environment (SGA), over an eight week period with twice a week classroom meetings.

"a welcome trend in game design"

Evaluation of a six week course

More Than $100,000 Awarded to Students and Educators by The Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop and E-Line Media WASHINGTON, May 22, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The winners of the National STEM Video Game Challenge, a competition to motivate interest in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) by learning, playing and making video games, were announced today at The Atlantic's Technologies in Education Forum in Washington, DC.

Games Learning and Society Initiative at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Education