Group items tagged

"Organizers say the contest is designed to 'captivate and engage the viewer by revealing the hidden meaning and intricate details of our world in visual form'."

Talk about high stakes tests! These soldiers in basic training are learning about the tools of the trade in simulations designed to evoke emotional reactions not dissimilar to the ones they may face if deployed to a war zone.

Professor uses game design principles in college classes.

Discusses game design and using the gamers' imaginations to your advantage.

"The MMO will also be designed to promote "science, technology, engineering, and mathematics learning," and NASA intends to allow it to actually offer course accreditation to players. "

"Two teams of computer programmers from the University of Houston are being honored in a national competition. They created a couple of video games designed to entertain and educate."

Article provides examples on how game developers benefit from interacting with their own children (e.g. able to observe what features excite children that were not anticipated by designers)

Kids get to be eye-glass designers

study cites a 50% increase in bad behavior based on internet games -- would be nice to know research design

Quest to Learn supports a uniquely vibrant learning community that brings together students, educators, game designers, curriculum specialists and parents. - See more at: http://q2l.org/about#sthash.zlTuuiwE.dpuf

By now, we're used to letting Facebook and Twitter capture our social lives on the web -- building a "social layer" on top of the real world. In his talk, Seth Priebatsch looks at the next layer in progress: the "game layer," a pervasive net of behavior-steering game dynamics that will reshape education and commerce.

Yes, indeed. The ideal is to intrinsically integrate. That's a good idea. Why not? In fact, maybe the alternate reality games qualify as "real world" layer over games because in such games, whatever happens in games impact the reality in certain ways. We could also design games to work the other way around, e.g. a diet game, where only when you do exercise in a gym in the real world, can you advance levels in the game.

Haha yes!! I recall a rowing machine which actually had a game in front of users so that they could compete with 'other rowers'. It was great and definitely made the workout more fun. I stopped though after a friend slipped his disc on the machine...

This article provides a great overview of the new technologies profiled at SXSW and makes the case that it's now cheaper than ever before to bring prototypes to market. The author notes, "The dropping costs of designing and building inventive new hardware products has prompted a wave of creativity and innovation that echoes the software boom a decade or two ago in Silicon Valley." Makes me wonder... what's next?

Schell's talk ends with a simple but important question. How can we design games to not only motivate us in life but to help us be better people?

I agree that some students may be more musically inclined but will integrating music into all aspects of the curriculum, as the article suggests, really help students learn?

Thanks for sharing Sandra. I think it depends on how well the teacher designs the activity. It also depends on how the music is used. For example, music in a game is really important, but it's in the background. So the player doesn't really pay attention to it, until it's turned off. I think music can really help us learn, but it depends on the context in which it's used.

Thanks for this link, Matthew, and for the comment on it, Sandra! I think that music is a great avenue for learning. From personal experience, I seem to study better and with more focus and future recollection when music is playing in the background. It would be great to see if music truly does have a connection with the acquisition and recollection of knowledge.

Interesting article about games and values. In the middle, the author suggests that for game designers, it is important to get people who aren't like them to play the game. This would make for a more inclusive game.

Professor Rosalind W. Picard, ScD is founder and director of the Affective Computing research group at the MIT Media Lab, co-director of the Things That Think consortium, and leader of the new and growing Autism & Communication Technology Initiative at MIT. In April 2009 she co-founded Affectiva, Inc., where she serves as chairman and chief scientist.

Thanks for sharing Rupangi. This tool could provide so much valuable feedback to educators as they design formal and informal learning environments for students. There are two things which I think any educator should be very aware about before implementing it though: 1. The privacy of the data and who has access to it 2. The steps that can be taken to prevent a misinterpretation of the data.