Group items tagged

"Spies with surveillance agencies in the United States and United Kingdom may have spent time undercover as orcs and blood elves, infiltrating video games like "World of Warcraft" in a hunt for terrorists "hiding in plain sight" online." I find this very believable for this reason. I had a student in Teen Second life several years a go and he came across a "meeting" of sorts that was obviously something very strange. When he tried to interact with the players they had a way to throw him out and port him other places. It was obviously some sort of strange thing happening. I have no doubt that games are just another way to have "secret" meetings for those who want to hide. That said, it would be hard to tell the difference between those gaming and those doing other things as the games themselves have people plotting and planning so I'm thinking the language used would be hard to separate the real world from the game itself, which, in some ways makes it the perfect way to hide in plain sight.

Information Literacy Games: Finding Kermit This blog post features a great video of Kermit the frog singing It Ain't Easy Being Green. It follows up with an explanation of a search game that can be used with the whole class in a lab or on an individual workstation. It's part of a free series of online information literacy / information fluency games available from 21cif.com. Finding Kermit was the inspiration for one of the first Internet Search Challenges created by Dr. Carl Heine. The task is to track down a picture of Kermit ready for graduation in the least amount of time. The search game is embedded on the page so you can try it without going to the main site. Many teachers use this as a whole class lab activity. Put up a search challenge and then it's off the races! Most of these games were developed for middle and high school students. Adults find them challenging as well.

Fact Monster website

Found this cool site, Fact Monster, to use with my son for flash cards. I've made flash cards but they like the online video game versions better. I just type in his answers for him and we make a game out of it.

As an online student, there are plenty of free educational video games at your fingertips, with material targeted to every age

Excellent article on designing a game based learning e-course. There are a lot of links and great ideas. Since hearing Jane McGonigal speak at Microsoft HQ I have using Interrobang and other games as a priority for integrating into my classroom. (Hat Tip @juandoming on Twitter)

We Make Learning Fun! Our educational video games offer an innovative approach to teaching basic academic skills by incorporating features of arcade games and educational practices into fun online games that will motivate, intrigue, and teach your students.

Angry Birds is a wonderful game for teaching all sorts of maths and physics. Play an online version of Angry Birds Rio. Play full screen at http://www.physicsgames.com/flash/angry-birds-rio.swf http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Educational+Games

I'm embarrassed to admit, but two weeks ago I didn't even know anything about  Angry Birds. It looks like this addicting little game has been around for a while. I know … Where have I been? I guess I've been spending time with a less angry little bird … I'm really not the angry type! I guess I see Twitter as better use of my time and professional collaborative learning than shooting birds out of a slingshot. A casual conversations with my hairdresser a few weeks ago about the game led to a quick demonstration on her phone. Another reference came last Friday while attending a session on Instructional Coaching for principals. Some areas that Instructional Coaches can assist schools with are referred to as the Big Four: Classroom Management, Content, Instruction, and Formative Assessment. While the presenters facilitated dialogue around the topic of formative assessment the analogy was made to video gaming; and specifically Angry Birds. This piqued my curiosity.

Tetris is a great game for practising spatial awareness and this is a good online flash version of the game. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Educational+Games

A collection of maths games and activities to play online and download. The games can be set to a maths subject and age group. Play both single and multi-player games. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Maths

Online Games for children filtered by (USA?) librarians

"Students who are passionate gamers can talk a blue streak about the virtual online worlds where they invest their free time and energy. Usually, of course, they get to play only when they're not at school. But why not bring gaming into the classroom? Could teachers tap that same passion to spark learning?"

PurposeGames.com is host to educational quiz and trivia games created by its members. In just a few minutes, you can create your very own game to share with your friends!.

"I've written extensively about how I use online video games with English Language Learners. They're great language-development activities when students play them by following "walkthroughs" (instructions on how to "win"). Here are four new ones, along with their walkthroughs:"

Learning and game-play collide in Conspiracy Code, the first in a revolutionary new series of courses. An innovative, complete online class, Conspiracy Code engages students in interactive learning while maintaining all the engagement of a high-quality entertainment product. All Conspiracy Code courses are teacher-supervised, academically-viable, complete classes that fuse the best of online gaming with proven pedagogical techniques and standards to produce a truly unique learning environment for high school students.

Got an email from this group - would love to hear from those who have played Karooba -- here is the information they sent me: "The Karooba site includes the following features: * One the largest collections of education-based (over 100,000) trivia questions * Educational games that allow you to: o Challenge friends around the world in one-on-one trivia games o Join a tournament on education based topics or set up a tournament of friends or classmates o Try your luck in a new Find-it game o Create your own quizzes and see how others score on your test * State-of-the-art avatar tool (Karoobatar) - create your near real life or cartoon characters * A real time communications tool (Karoobacator) - Instant message with your friends without the risk of foul language. Karooba was created and is maintained by a computer consulting firm based in Minnesota. The firm's staff, which is mostly comprised of parents with school-age kids, is very concerned (like most parents are these days) about what their children view on the Internet. With this in mind, Karooba was designed to be a 'safe haven' where kids can go to play online, as well as learn…and more importantly one that parents (and teachers) can trust. "

For parents who want fun things for their students to do over the summer that will help students learn more and move forward in math and literacy skills - this is a website to check out. "Students enter the tournament by going to www.DimensionU.com/SummerChallenge. Once registered (parental permission is required) they will compete in math- and literacy-based games for a chance to win gift cards and summer-related prizes like inline skates, inflatable pools, beach volleyball sets, or tents. Five lucky players will be randomly selected to win an iPod Nano each. New this year is a social networking component that encourages students to build online "learning communities" of friends, family, community members, or even teachers - basically anyone who wants to help support the child's academic efforts during the summer. Participants who earn the highest number of social network points in each tournament round will win prizes separate from those awarded for game play performance."

Suggest this to parents.

This is a MUST TRY site. It's not often that I'm amazed be an educational resource, but I am with this one. Pora Ora is a stunning educational virtual world for Primary school aged students. Play truely fun educational games which practise skills in English, maths and many other subjects. The graphics and useably is superb. Online safety is at the heart of this site. The parential admin account can set the student's account to free chat with everyone to completely locked down where they have the world to themselves and everything in between. The site has a language filter and users can report any incidents of trouble. Also, the first task requires the user to complete an online safety task. The site is free with a few premium features coming out later. You have got to try this one! http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/ICT+%26+Web+Tools

JeopardyLabs allows you to create a customized jeopardy template without PowerPoint. The games you make can be played online from anywhere in the world. Building your own jeopardy template is a piece of cake. Just use our simple editor to get your game up and running. Not interested in building your own jeopardy templates? Well that's cool too. You can browse other jeopardy templates created by other people. It doesn't get any better than this! via Jennifer Dorman http://groups.diigo.com/discovery-educator-network/bookmark/cliotech

Create your own jeopardy template online, without PowerPoint. Or browse the pre-made templates created by other people!

Simple Jeopardy game builder.

A site with logic games, word searches, crosswords, sudoku and many other puzzles. You can create your own and embed them onto your site. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/ICT+%26+Web+Tools