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The latest issue of Computers in Classrooms is now available, with the following games-related articles:

It’s not about the game! Dawn Hallybone discusses activities surrounding games to maximise the benefits of games-based learning. Red Mist, the prison-based video game. Jude Ower tells us about a game which is won or lost by the state of your emotions! Creating a game – a positive impact on learning? David Luke reports on research he and colleagues undertook to determine, amongst other things, whether games-based learning disadvantages girls. Games-based learning: a personal view. Mother and computing graduate Amanda Wilson gives her opinion of games-based learning. Battling the barriers of games-based learning. John McLear explains how he set about developing a search engine for educational games.

Colleges no longer simply want to know what their students know, but how they think.

Higher-order thinking skills are "something that schools are paying a little bit more attention to these days," says Jeffrey Steedle, a measurement scientist at the Council for Aid to Education, whose Collegiate Learning Assessment essays are used at several hundred colleges to test students' abilities to synthesize arguments and write persuasively. "It's largely in response to the recognition that these skills are needed to be competitive in the global marketplace."

But educators also say that paper-and-pencil examinations have limits—for one thing, knowing that you are being tested can drag down performance—and they are looking for new methods to measure skills like critical thinking, creativity, and persistence.

Can a videogame teach you to be a better person? Given that many centre around shooting people in the face, that might seem ridiculous. But games have been used for centuries to teach skills: it is theorised that chess was developed as a training tool for Persian army officers.

Information and communication technology (ICT) education is failing UK students and the country's technology industry as a whole, but a curriculum that includes video game-related subjects could help resolve the matter, experts say.

So, here are some general resources for teachers considering bringing games into the classroom.  In my presentations, I often reference folks I read, bloggers I follow, and resources, so, I’ve tried to compile some of that here.

So, what in the world does this look like?  How is the Moodle set up?  Though we’re not quite ready to offer guest access to the Moodle yet, I thought I’d give a sneak-peak of some examples of what we’re doing.

One feature we’ve added recently, and as instructors are having a blast with, is in-class achievements.  For example, we challenged students to successfully “friend” each of their classmates in the game.

The video game World of Warcraft was the text studied, the laboratory, and the classroom for the online course "Warcraft: Culture, Gender, and Identity" at Inver Hills Community College.

The overarching goals of the course involved using the game's immersive environment, learning strategies, and culture to encourage and support student learning.

In addition to achieving the intended course outcomes, students successfully transferred the concepts they learned between the real and the virtual worlds.