Group items tagged

A great collection of free online physics games. You can even embed them directly into your website, wiki or blog.

Physics Games.net, as the name implies, is a website of games based on simple physics concepts. Physic Games offers dozens of games based on a physics concept or two. Each game can be played directly on the Physics Games website or embedded into your blog or website. The one downfall of the site is that before each game starts there is a short commercial. I checked out a few different games, and I did not see any advertising that would be unacceptable in a public school classroom. 

Play, design and share games.  Focuses on game design

a very popular web-based game design environment. Global Kids http://olpglobalkids.org/ is using it to run social benefits game design contests and badging programs. They are getting 100+ new game design entries per week. From the parents' guide: Gamestar Mechanic is currently supported by a partnership between the Institute of Play and E-Line Media. The game was originally developed by Gamelab in partnership with the Institute of Play and the Academic Advanced Distributed Learning Co-Lab (AADLC) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Initial funding for the game and companion learning guides came from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. The design of the game is based on research by some of the leading academics in the field including Katie Salen (Executive Director of the Institute of Play and curriculum author for the New York City Public School Quest To Learn) and James Paul Gee (author of What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy).

This site has students creating games from scratch and putting them out into the world for feedback within the Gamestar Mechanic community. Students use math, problem solving, writing skills and more to make their games interesting. I think this could be used in the classroom as a theme-based project or just to get students interested in coding.

Ben Sawyer is the cofounder of Digitalmill, where he is in charge of strategy, technology, and business development. Located in Portland, Maine, Digitalmill is a technology development firm with clients worldwide. It has worked on a wide variety of projects dealing with interactive game development, including support for The Sloan Foundation's Virtual U game project. The company has produced two books on game development, numerous articles about developing games, and several market research reports on the gaming industry. Currently Digitalmill is working on Virtual U 2.0, and consulting on other projects that integrate gaming, education, and training. Sawyer has authored or co-authored more than 10 computer trade books as well as numerous articles on a wide range of technology areas including e-commerce, interactive game development, software marketing, and computer graphics. Publications include The Ultimate Game Developer's Sourcebook, published in 1996 by Coriolis Group Books. To find out more about the author, please visit: www.dmill.com Contact the author: bsawyer@dmill.com

"This article examines the use of both game-based learning (GBL) and gamification in tertiary education. This study focuses specifically on the use of games and/or simulations as well as familiarity with gamification strategies by communication faculty. Research questions concentrate on the rate, frequency, and usage of digital and non-digital games and/or simulations in communication courses, as well as instructor familiarity with gamification. A survey was constructed with questions emerging from the game-based learning and gamification literature. It was distributed to communication faculty at public institutions of higher education in a southern state. In this context, the author argues that while the term gamification is novel, the approach is not. Based on the results, current gamification strategies appear to be a repackaging of traditional instructional strategies."

Game based learning.  Group games into categories to use with your students and classes.

Games offer rewards, challenges and victories that students may not find in the real world, according to researcher Jane McGonigal

"Gabe Zichermann is an entrepreneur, author, highly rated public speaker and gamification thought leader. He is the chair of the Gamification Summit and Workshops, and is co-author of the book "Game-Based Marketing, where he makes a compelling case for the use of games and game mechanics in everyday life, the web and business."

Lure of the Labyrinth is a digital game for middle-school pre-algebra students. It includes a wealth of intriguing math-based puzzles wrapped into an exciting narrative game in which students work to find their lost pet - and save the world from monsters! Linked to both national and state mathematics standards, the game gives students a chance to actually think like mathematicians.

Quia web - create your own ... costs 49$ 

IXL Practice makes perfect, and IXL makes math practice fun! IXL allows teachers and parents to monitor the progress of their students and motivate them through interactive games and practice questions. Widely recognized as the Web's most comprehensive math site, IXL offers a dynamic and enjoyable environment for children to practice math. Students who use IXL are succeeding like never before. Quia Web Quia Web provides educators with learning tools to create, customize, and share their curriculum online. Quia Web pioneered and brought the "create-your-own" concept to educators around the world-giving them the freedom to go beyond publisher-provided materials and create their own interactive, online experiences for their students. Quia Books Quia Books are Web-based versions of workbooks and textbooks, and are produced in partnership with the world's leading publishers. Built on our award-winning technology platform, Quia books engage students and make the learning process more satisfying through interactive exercises replete with vibrant color, sound, and images. Educators reap the timesaving benefits of computer-based grading and tracking and can fully customize Quia books based on individual course materials.

Excellent resources for including game-based learning opportunities

Ideas for Game-Based Learning and Assessment

A superb map based geography game. Download to play. Play games to find cities, countries, rivers, identify flags and more. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/PSHE%2C+RE%2C+Citizenship%2C+Geography+%26+Environmental

You can build just about any app you can imagine with App Inventor. Often people begin by building games like WhackAMole or games that let you draw funny pictures on your friend's faces. You can even make use of the phone's sensors to move a ball through a maze based on tilting the phone. But app building is not limited to simple games. You can also build apps that inform and educate. You can create a quiz app to help you and your classmates study for a test. With Android's text-to-speech capabilities, you can even have the phone ask the questions aloud. To use App Inventor, you do not need to be a developer. App Inventor requires NO programming knowledge. This is because instead of writing code, you visually design the way the app looks and use blocks to specify the app's behavior.

WOW! Very Scratch-like UI for programming Android mobile apps!!

These interactive whiteboard games are a great way to review units of study in the classroom. All are based on popular TV shows and are fun and engaging for the whole class. Download the templates, customize them to your own needs, and you will be ready to play these great games on an interactive whiteboard or LCD projector.

"While gamification is gaining ground in business, marketing, corporate management, health insurance,ecology and wellness initiatives, its application in education is still an emerging trend. This article presents a study of the published empirical research on the application of gamification to education.The study is limited to papers that discuss explicitly the effects of use of game elements in specificeducational contexts. It employs a systematic mapping design. Accordingly, a categorical structure forclassifying the research results is proposed based on the extracted topics discussed in the reviewed papers. The categories include gamification design principles, game mechanics, context of applyinggamification, consisting of type of application, educational level, and academic subject,implementation and evaluation. By mapping the published work to the classification criteria andanalyzing them, the study highlights the directions of the currently conducted empirical research onapplying gamification to education. It also indicates some major obstacles and needs, such as the needfor a proper technological support, the need for controlled studies demonstrating reliable positive ornegative results of using specific game elements in particular educational contexts, etc. Although mostof the reviewed papers report promising results, more substantial empirical research is needed todetermine whether both extrinsic and intrinsic motivation of the learners can be influenced bygamification"

These two terms get thrown around a lot, often interchangeably, but they're not really the same. They're both important concepts, and they're both useful. However, they are useful in different contexts and that's why I think it's important to define each one.

Socratic Smackdown is a fun discussion-based game to encourage students to formulate arguments and argue these points referencing textual evidence.

A versatile discussion-based humanities game to practice argumentation around any text or topic for grades 6-12.

A versatile discussion-based humanities game to practice argumentation around any text or topic for grades 6-12.

A flash-based maths pairs game where players must match questions with answers. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Maths

I gasped. "What about Ethics? Character? Kindness?", I wonder. I continue to wonder (now with my TEACHER LENS),  "I've never heard of a school based PD about Minecraft servers, or world bucket". Come to think of it, I've never heard of a mandatory in-service, PD session about any social gaming , or media tool or strategy. 

A flash based maths game where players arrange numbers to make addition questions make sense. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Maths