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.
PlayReal is a massive multiplayer online and offline game (MMOOG). The first of its kind, and with just as unique a goal. To help create solutions for a sustainable planet.
How? By helping young gamers think in that direction while using their typical digital skills. And then translate that to the outside world. By doing so on a global scale we aim for the new generations to come up with new solutions. Both online and offline.
Calculation Nation® uses the power of the Web to let students challenge opponents from anywhere in the world. At the same time, students are able to challenge themselves by investigating significant mathematical content and practicing fundamental skills. The element of competition adds an extra layer of excitement.
“The games on Calculation Nation® provide an entertaining environment where students can explore rich mathematics,” said Jim Rubillo, Executive Director of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM). “Through these games, students are exposed to the same mathematical topics that they see in class as well as those that are recommended in Curriculum Focal Points.”
Calculation Nation® is part of the NCTM Illuminations project, which offers Standards-based resources that improve the teaching and learning of mathematics for all students. Its materials illuminate the vision for school mathematics set forth in NCTM’s Principles and Standards for School Mathematics and Curriculum Focal Points.
Illuminations is also part of Thinkfinity.org, a comprehensive educational website funded by the Verizon Foundation to provide free educational resources to parents, teachers, and students. Thinkfinity.org is the cornerstone of Verizon Foundation’s literacy, education and technology initiatives. The goal of Thinkfinity.org is to improve student achievement in traditional classroom settings and beyond by providing high-quality content and extensive professional development training.
The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics is a public voice of mathematics education, providing vision, leadership and professional development to support teachers in ensuring equitable mathematics learning of the highest quality for all students.
Dr Fox appears to have surpassed even his own exacting standards of idiocy this week, by calling for a forthcoming video game set in Afghanistan to be banned.
The defence secretary, Liam Fox, has launched a stinging attack on the forthcoming first-person shooter Medal of Honor, requesting that retailers refuse to stock the game. EA's relaunch of its hugely successful series is set amid the war in Afghanistan and the single-player campaign follows US troops as they seek to defeat the Taliban. However, the multiplayer online mode allows players to take part as terrorist operatives, gaining points for killing allied soldiers, and this is the element that Fox objects to.