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"This paper describes a research project on Year 3 primary school students in Malaysia in their use of computer-based video game to enhance learning of multiplication facts (tables) in the Mathematics subject. This study attempts to investigate whether video games could actually contribute to positive effect on children's learning or otherwise. In conducting this study, the researchers assume a neutral stand in the investigation as an unbiased outcome of the study would render reliable response to the impact of video games in education which would contribute to the literature of technology-based education as well as impact to the pedagogical aspect of formal education. In order to conduct the study, a subject (Mathematics) with a specific topic area in the subject (multiplication facts) is chosen. The study adopts a causal-comparative research to investigate the impact of the inclusion of a computer-based video game designed to teach multiplication facts to primary level students. Sample size is 100 students divided into two i.e., A: conventional group and B conventional group aided by video games. The conventional group (A) would be taught multiplication facts (timetables) and skills conventionally. The other group (B) underwent the same lessons but with supplementary activity: a computer-based video game on multiplication which is called Timez-Attack. Analysis of marks accrued from pre-test will be compared to post- test using comparisons of means, t tests, and ANOVA tests to investigate the impact of computer games as an added learning activity. The findings revealed that video games as a supplementary activity to classroom learning brings significant and positive effect on students' retention and mastery of multiplication tables as compared to students who rely only upon formal classroom instructions."

Abstract: "The purpose of this study is to propose a design principle and framework of educational control (in particular, method for collaborative learning support) that induces and activates interaction between learners intentionally to create a learning opportunity that is based on the knowledge understanding model of each learner. In this paper, we explain the design philosophy and the framework of our game-based learning environment (GBLE) called "Who becomes the king in the country of mathematics?". In addition, we describe the method of collaborative learning support control that incorporates a "learner support agent" to support each learner and a "game control agent" to control the game into the learning environment."

From the abstract: :The first aim of this discussion is to suggest a framework for designing serious games based on game features in commercial games, opinions of fourth graders and their teachers, literary studies, contemporary learning theories, as well as successful and unsuccessful similar endeavours. The second part of this paper describes a concrete example of a maths game based on the proposed framework that implicitly tests math and collaboration skills. The game is made of three components: the game itself, a social network, and a teacher reporting tool. Despite a growing interest in GBL, some teachers are reluctant to use serious games in school. To increase usage of serious games as resource, it is important to equip teachers with information and address their concerns. The paper concludes with the idea that serious games need to be designed well in order to provide the immersion and collaborative active learning that most learning theories recommend."

Abstract: "This research seeks to look into the design process that promotes the development of an educational computer game that supports teaching and learning processes. The research specifically looks at the design of an educational computer game for teaching and learning of the topic of functions. The topic is essential in the teaching and learning of Mathematics courses such as Discrete Mathematics, Real Analysis and Calculus among others at Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT) Kenya. The computer game was developed using the Basic Unified process (BUP) which is a streamlined version of the rational unified process (RUP). This is an object oriented methodology mostly used for small projects with few end users. Due to the few numbers of end users we used interview method of data collection to gather requirements for the computer game. A paper prototype was used to validate the requirements. Use cases were used for both analysis and design of the game while Class diagrams and activity diagrams were purely used for the design of the game. Owens' six top level design anatomy aided in the design of the computer game. The overall computer game design was based on Crawfords' computer game design sequence model. The well designed and developed game met all its user requirements and was able to facilitate the teaching and learning of functions to Bachelor of Science in Mathematics and Computer Science students who were taking Discrete mathematics in their first year of study at JKUATs' Taita/Taveta campus. Development of heuristics for measuring interest, fun and motivation are recommendations given to aid in the evaluation of user satisfaction of educational computer games."

"As a medium for learning, digital games provide promising possibilities to motivate and engage students in subject learning. In this study, a game-based learning system, My-Pet- My-Quest, is developed to support pupils' math learning. This is due to the fact that most students in Taiwan have relatively lower positive attitude towards math learning, even though their math performance is prominent. To this end, a three-tire framework is proposed to guide the design of the My-Pet-My-Quest system. A quasi-experiment was conducted to examine the influence of game quests on pupils' enjoyment and goalpursuing in math learning. The results revealed that game quests were favored by students in terms of enjoyment, goal orientation, and goal intensity. Possible reasons for these results and a discussion of related issues are presented in this paper."

Play these online or on the Wii

The website says: "THE Place For Educational Games!Our research-based and standards-aligned free educational math games and language arts games will engage, motivate, and help teach students. Click a button below to play our free multi-player and single-player games! In the future we'll add features enabling you to save records, tailor content for differentiated instruction, and pinpoint student problem areas." I think using the games in conjunction with a holistic approach to developing skills would make for a great way of getting students to practices some skills. Let students play, set goals, monitor those goals, reflect on their progress, and apply strategies/heuristics to specific problems they struggle with would create an environment in the classroom where learning was fun, self-monitored, and successful. 

Lure of the Labyrinth is today's innovative catch Lure of the Labyrinth is a game for middle school pre-algebra students designed to improve math and literacy skills. It includes intriguing math-based puzzles embedded in a narrative game in which students work to find their lost pet and save the world from monsters. Linked to mathematics standards, the game gives students a chance to think like mathematicians. Lure of the Labyrinth Home Page In Lure of the Labyrinth, students progress through three sections, or wings each related to a different math strand that is part of a the typical pre-algebra curriculum: * Proportions (including fractions and ratios) * Variables and Equations * Number and Operations (including geometry, order of operations and modular arithmetic) Each of the three wings includes three puzzles, and each of the puzzles has three levels progressing from easy to hard. Students have to successfully solve each puzzle three times before they can advance through the game. Lure of the Labyrinth Library Page A professional development video specifically designed for pre-algebra teachers takes them step-by-step through the things they need to do to make this engaging game the focal point of great classroom learning experiences. Planning resources include links to standards, directions for working with specific puzzles, lesson plans, explanations of the background math, and graphic organizers. Video - Lure of the Labyrinth Lure of the Labyrinth was created by Maryland Public Television and MIT Education Arcade in cooperation with FableVision.

For prealgebra students.

Abstract: "Together, brain science and learning design inform Adaptive Interaction Design (AID), a technique for curriculum planning and development. Mathematics is a particular case in which AID can help. The Way of the Game is vital to learning design. There are many definitions of "game." Here, we mean game to be the means by which spontaneous play becomes responsible learning. That innovative games figure as the centerpiece of many 21st century curricula is no accident. Games are a critical element in modern theories of learning design especially when related to insights from neuroscience and online learning/teaching methods. But beyond simple gamification, can games provide the disruptive transformation to mathematics education that is required to effect substantive and sustainable improvement? Can we game the educational system to ensure students' success in mathematics? To find out, we will look at the AID process and two sample products for the development of mathematical thinking and practice based on the Way of the Game."

"Math Quest is a role playing game that could be used as a tool to learn numbers and basic mathematic operations. The Math Quest package consists of two main modules; learning and game modules that can be executed separately. The use of the learning module as a tool in learning will allow for a highly individualized and interactive environment. This paper presents the design of the learning module for numbers and their mathematics operation. Due to its interactive and stimulating nature, the module is suitable for school children age 9 to 12 years old to learn the subject. The development takes into consideration of constructivism learning theories where learning is based on students' active participation in problem solving and critical thinking regarding activity that they are involved in. The framework for each of module is as follows: objectives, concept, examples, exercises, quizzes. A heuristic evaluation on the design was conducted and positive feedback was obtained."

Abstract: "A mobile learning research project was conducted in Trinidad and Tobago to determine if mobile learning can assist high school students in learning mathematics. Several innovative techniques were used in this research to address the problem of high failure rates of mathematics in high schools in the Caribbean. A mobile learning application was developed based on a subset of the high school mathematics curriculum used in the English-speaking Caribbean. Game-based learning, personalization and multiple learning strategies were used in conjunction with mobile learning to assist students in improving their performance in mathematics. Three evaluation studies were conducted with the mobile learning application. During the studies, usage data was captured automatically by the system and this was used to determine the extent to which the students actually used the mobile application. At the end of each study, a questionnaire was used to capture student opinions of the mobile learning application. Questionnaire data is based solely on student responses and there is no guarantee of its accuracy and reliability. This paper focuses on the responses of the students to the questionnaire and seeks to determine if the usage data can increase the reliability of the questionnaire data. It summarizes the behaviour patterns of the students gleaned from the usage logs and compares this to the students' responses to the questionnaire. Generally it was found that the students' responses agreed with the usage data, though there were occasions when the responses diverged."

Abstract: "We encounter mathematical problems in various forms in our lives, thus making mathematical thinking an important human ability [6]. Of these problems, optimization problems are an important subset: Wall Street traders often have to take instantaneous, strategic decisions to buy and sell shares, with the goal of maximizing their profits at the end of a day's trade. Continuous research on game-based learning and its value [2] [3] led us to ask: can we develop and improve the ability of mathematical thinking in children by guising an optimization problem as a game? In this paper, we present Bublz!, a simple, click-driven game we developed as a first step towards answering our question."

abstract: "A large number of studies carried out on pupils aged 8-14 have shown that teachable agent (TA) based games are beneficial for learning. The present pi- oneering study aimed to initiate research looking at whether TA based games can be used as far down as preschool age. Around the age of four, theory of mind (ToM) is under development and it is not unlikely that a fully developed ToM is necessary to benefit from a TA's socially engaging characteristics. 10 preschool children participated in an experiment of playing a mathematics game. The partic- ipants playing a TA-version of the game engaged socially with the TA and were not disturbed by his presence. Thus, this study unveil exciting possibilities for further research of the hypothesised educational benefits in store for preschoolers with regard to play-and-learn games employing TAs."

Abstract:"Prime Climb is an educational game that provides individual support for learning number factorization skills in the form of hints based on a model of student learning. Previous studies with Prime Climb indicated that students may not always be paying attention to the hints, even when they are justified (i.e. based on a student model's assessment). In this thesis we will discuss the test-bed game, Prime Climb, and our re-implementation of the game which allowed us to modify the game dynamically and will allow for more rapid prototyping in the future. To assist students as they play the game, Prime Climb includes a pedagogical agent which provides individualized support by providing user-adaptive hints. We then move into our work with the eye-tracker to better understand if and how students process the agent's personalized hints. We will conclude with a user study in which we use eyetracking data to capture user attention patterns as impacted by factors related to existing user knowledge, hint types, and attitude towards getting help in general. We plan to leverage these results in the future to make hint delivery more effective."

Discusses theory of motivational learning in educational games and presents a research study involving 115 elementary school students in math class using digital game-based learning

"The focus of this digitally mediated learning activity centers on the mathematics department in the Easton and Redding (ER9) school district in Connecticut. Currently, ER9 teachers have technology in the classroom, but many teachers have expressed uncertainty about how to implement this technology in their classrooms. Based on the foundations of the constructivist learning theory, math teachers will learn how technology fits into the student learning cycle. Interested teachers will form a community of practice (CoP) to learn about and apply engaging technology in the classroom. Some technologies discussed include game-based learning, mobile/Web 2.0 apps such as Prezi, Animation and Edmodo. As a result of this technology CoP, teachers will learn to implement at least one new technology into their classroom and engage in communication between CoP members using MOODLE. "

Learnalot is an exciting educational portal that uses high-quality game-based learning resources to engage and challenge its students in maths.

Abstract: "How can smartphones apps enrich the learning of mathematics in vocational education? This article examines how mathematics teaching can be enriched by apps using smartphone sensors such as gyroscope, compass, camera, and touch screen in a gaming context. An iterative and participatory design process involving two classes of carpentry students from different vocational colleges resulted in two highly successful and course-relevant games based on trigonometry. Each game consists of quests and missions whose successful completion unlocks more theoretical multiple-choice exercises for the classroom. The combination of competition to unlock exercises, competition for placing on the high-score list, and physical activity proved very motivating for the students and was also approved by their teachers. In this article we describe our design principles, the overall game architecture and the games themselves. We talk about our experience in implementing our design process and subsequently summarize the pros and cons of the application and the smartphone platform and how the app developed contributes to vocational mathematics teaching"

"In this paper, we will describe work that we have done in this direction using as a test-bed an edu-game for number factorization, Prime Climb. This game includes a pedagogical agent that provides adaptive interventions during game playing based on a model of student learning [13, 18]. Here we focus on how we re-implemented the original Prime Climb game into a framework that enables rapid prototyping and testing of different design hypothesis. We also discuss preliminary work on using eye tracking data on user attention patterns to better understand if and how students process the agent‟s adaptive interventions." (from the introduction)

Game based maths from the uk.

"a weekly activity for students of grades 8 to 12 and post-secondary students. The activities are something beyond classroom traditional in-class and curriculum-based learning. Presentations by Circle members or by invited mathematicians and scientists, discussion about specific topics and solving math problems, puzzles and games; review math/science history and preparation for maths contests and Olympiads are the main activities in the GMC."