Here's what INTE 4320/5320 Games and Learning is reading during the Spring 2016 semester. A few practical notes: The links below - to both websites and PDFs hosted through this blog - guide our social annotation via Hypothesis. Students and visitors alike are encouraged to use these links as the primary means of navigating to -…
ARLearn is a toolkit for mobile field trips and (serious) games. The ANDROID app is already for some weeks available via Google Play. It has been successfully piloted with cultural science students in Florence and an ARLearn security simulation has been organised with employees of UNHCR.
TaleBlazer is a new rich Internet application from MIT's STEP lab to author smartphone location-based augmented reality (AR) games. Announced during summer '11 and demo'ed for the first time at CSCL in Hong Kong, it will break new ground in location-based AR game building. Features will include:
Visual blocks-based scripting - prevents syntax errors, while enabling programming of rich interactivity.
Interactive data layers and sampling - create models for player exploration and discovery of thought provoking scientific topics.
Conditional dialog creator - interact with characters in new ways; no more single-track conversations
No local installation - the TaleBlazer Game Maker will be entirely web-based for easier implementation in schools and elsewhere
Save to cloud, download to smartphone - logon with your account, and have instant access to games from any computer attached to the Internet, then play from any iOS or Android smartphone with GPS.
SCVNGR is a game all about going places, doing challenges and earning points. The game is played from a custom app on iPhone and Android as well as via SMS. It is not a text message scavenger hunt. Instead of riddles to guide you to a place, SCVNGR concentrates on completing challenges at a particular location.
Electronic Games Take on Violence Against Women
PMC has partnered with the Emergent Media Center (EMC) at Champlain College in an exciting project aimed to engage, educate, and change attitudes of boys between the ages of 8 and 15 to help end violence against girls and women. With support from UNFPA, this mark’s PMC’s inaugural endeavor in adapting our expertise in the use of entertainment-education strategies for positive behavior change to the world of gaming.
Electronic games are experiential and immersive and increasingly popular, especially among adolescent boys. Games encourage change from within by presenting opportunities for the player to think critically about actions. Employing the world’s most popular sport, soccer (football), our game links the winning benefits of respect on the field to respectful behavior toward girls.
P. Backlund, and M. Hendrix. Games and Virtual Worlds for Serious Applications (VS-GAMES), 2013 5th International Conference on, page 1-8. (September 2013)