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"How do these teachers find and then evaluate the games that they use? The most common way of learning about any educational tools is from peers. While face to face networks are limited by the number of interactions with people in one's grade, school, or conferences, online professional learning networks have become invaluable."

James Paul Gee Answers questions about games in education

Very useful wiki for people looking at introducing gaming into their classroom or school. Loads of examples of games that could be integrated into the curriculum. I am about to loose some time checking some of these out.

Scott Traylor of 360KID interviews media theorist and educator Henry Jenkins about what educational publishers should consider when making learning games for classroom use. In this interview Jenkins discusses the problems with gamification and new ways to reinvent the textbook for game enhancement.

"Although most homes have video games there's been a lot of resistance to them entering the classroom, but that's changing as teachers recognise their educational benefits."

Thanks to technologies like GPS and QR codes, these games combine real-world experiences with virtual information. The games can capture geo-tagged audio recordings, for example, or photos and videos that student players can view when they reach a particular place or meet a particular character. Characters can talk with students, provide information, exchange items or respond to tasks. Authors can also create virtual items that players can retrieve and exchange. The key is the ARIS platform, which enables teachers, designers, artists, and students to create place-based narratives. Game designers say the open-source platform is easy to use; educators don't need a programming background to get started because the work is done with an online authoring tool.

A few months ago, two teachers, Santeri Koivisto and Joel Levin, decided to make the software more accessible and relevant to teachers. They joined forces to found MinecraftEdu and started offering discounted educator licenses to Minecraft. MinecraftEdu now offers a plug-in, which enables teachers to tailor the software to individual curriculum. And a fresh new wiki is dedicated to sharing ideas with topic suggestions such as "How To Use Redstone, (a fictional mineral) To Teach Electricity." Teachers can also work with others to co-develop lesson plans within the game software.

"Quandary is a free, online game that engages your students in ethical decision-making and develops skills that will help them recognize ethical issues and deal with challenging situations in their own lives. This page brings together all the information you need to successfully implement Quandary as part of your teaching, including a handy teacher guide, classroom implementation video, lesson plan and worksheet. We've also mapped the game to the Common Core standards. And don't forget to head over to the teachers' forum to share your own ideas and discuss tips and techniques from other educators."

Following on from my last feel-good link 'Stop Disaster' I received a response from a post I put up about the game at my blog - http://abcreative.posterous.com Melanie, the Manager - School Education, National Security Capability Development Division, Attorney General's Department came across the post and shared this link with me. 'Dingo Creek - the disaster' and 'Dingo Creek - The Recovery' immerses students in an emergency management situation and gets them to make decisions will change the course of the game. The great thing this has been developed for Australian students. There are also offline units and lesson resources to download from the site. Another great resource for incorporating games / simulations effectively into the curriculum.

"The new wave of educational tools include fresh ways of deploying phone and tablet apps, online games and videos, and social networking. The goal is to create effective learning tools, new methods of grading, and virtual classrooms of unprecedented sizes-even numbering in the tens of thousands online. While these goals have certainly been attempted before, the latest crop of mass-market, interactive learning tools are also intended for mass-market, global consumption. And enjoyment. "We should try to bring back the joy of learning because you want to learn, not because someone is going to give you a grade at the end of the semester," Schocken said in a recent interview."

"Game Changers: Education and Information Technologies is a collection of chapters and case studies contributed by college and university presidents, provosts, faculty, and other stakeholders. Institutions are finding new ways of achieving higher education's mission without being crippled by constraints or overpowered by greater expectations."

"Mystery Skype is an educational game, invented by teachers, played by two classrooms on Skype. The aim of the game is to guess the location of the other classroom by asking each other questions. It's suitable for all age groups and can be used to teach subjects like geography, history, languages, mathematics and science."

A BAFTA winning games studio making casual and social games with purpose

"...a pedagogical alternate reality game we developed over the course of two years under the aegis of The University of Texas at Austin's Digital Writing & Research Lab. Battle Lines offers a compelling game experience that allows student-players to develop rhetorical, community-building, and digital literacies, crossing boundaries between academic and ludic practices."

"Adventure Game Studio"

"Explore all kinds of virtual islands depending on your interests: health, aeronautics, genomics, environment, engineering and more. You'll find fun games, interesting facts and fascinating photos and videos - all on a science theme. "

"Microsoft Research today launched Code Hunt, a browser-based game for anyone interested in learning how to code by playing. The premise is straightforward: the player must write code to advance in the game."

Thank you for visiting our website and learning about what apps we are using in our elementary classrooms. While this list is extensive, we understand it is not exhaustive of all apps available. Feel free to join our website and add any additional sites that you use with your students. Creators are adding new games and tools to the app store every day, so continue to visit and do research to learn and share the latest and greatest tools. iPads are transforming the classroom. With shared resources like these we will continue to help educators here and around the world educate their students.

Teachers and students can use Gooru to search for rich collections of multimedia resources, digital textbooks, videos, games and quizzes created by educators in the Gooru community. Gooru is free (of cost and ads) and developed by a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization whose mission is to honor the human right to education.