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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.