live Twitter chat and Google Meet featuring Educator David Lockett
An excellent opportunity to learn during a live Twitter chat and Google Meet… Thank you David Lockett!!
Aug
17
An excellent opportunity to learn during a live Twitter chat and Google Meet… Thank you David Lockett!!
Jul
13
Pokémon GO dominates social media; since July 6, it has been mentioned on Twitter 6.6 million times. At one point on Sunday night, 130,000 tweets about the game per minute (Source: Adweek). The huge popularity caused Nintendo’s stock to rise over 24.5 percent. The game is currently available in the U.S, Australia and New Zealand (Source: Variety).
Dec
8
Please read this post, “A Simple Family Gift” at That One Great Idea by an innovative and retired teacher: http://thatonegreatidea.blogspot.com/2015/12/a-simple-family-gift.html
Included in this post is a link to a downloadable game board–perfect for holiday gaming!
Jun
12
RUNNING HEAD: Nanocrafter Game 1
Academic Game Review: Nanocrafter
Helen Teague
EDLT 728: Game, Simulations, and Virtual World for Learning
Dr. Mark Chen
Summer 2014
Abstract
Research verifies the important role of exploratory play in the development of cognitive ability, creativity, and concept management (O’Rourke, et al, 2013). Nanocrafter is the newest game to leverage exploratory play, offered in Beta from the Center for Game Science at the University of Washington (CGS). Announced at the Games for Change conference in April, 2014, Nanocrafter offers progressing levels of skill building for players as they visualize and build nanoscale representations of synthetic protein bonds. Synthetic protein bonds do not exist naturally and must be combined by scientists through synthetic biology. Synthetic biology and DNA protein bonds can be the medical solution to real-world challenges, such as disease treatment and debilitating medical conditions.
Educators will notice how Nanocrafter leverages the cognitive precepts of Wiggins and McTighe’s Understanding by Design (UbD), Strategic Design, and socio-affective attributes such as peer-review and collaborative groups. High-school students will find an engaging portal to strengthen STEM core competencies.
Keywords: games, simulations, protein bonds, synthetic biology
References
Finnish Innovation Fund (2014). Helsinki Design Lab. Retrieved from: www.helsinkidesignlab.org
Minoff, A. (2014). Can we game our way to better health? Science Friday podcast, April 24, 2014. Retrieved from http://www.sciencefriday.com/segment/04/25/2014/can-we-game-our-way-to-better-health.ht
O’Rourke, R., Butler, E., Liu, Y., Ballweber, C. and Popovi´c, Z. (2013). The Effects of Age on Player Behavior in Educational Games. Foundations of Digital Games. Center for Game Science Department of Computer Science & Engineering, University of Washington.
Retrieved from http://homes.cs.washington.edu/~eorourke/papers/age_behavior_fdg.pdf
The Center for Game Science at the University of Washington. Retrieved from http://centerforgamescience.org/
Wiggins, G., McTighe, J. (2005). Understanding by Design. Pearson.
Jun
3
Being Able to Just Play.
Give a listen to four crucial minutes discussing games and their systemic engagement characteristics. Colleen Macklin, Parsons The New School of Design has a limitless quote (at about .30)
“Games themselves are not going to contain all the learning…they provide players with the disposition for future learning about a topic.”
“Ultimately,” says Macklin, “games are a cultural form of systems thinking and systems understanding.”
Being Able to Just Play. MTMDC 2014 | Digital Games: Persuasive Play for Social Impact
Jun
2
Hung 2011) chronicles the political and historic trajectory of play and gameful experiences. So glad to read about the serious treatment of play. I learned a lot from Alice Kolb and David Kolb’s research in “Learning to play, playing to learn: A case study of a ludic learning space.”
After listening to Jane McGonigal’s youtube video and seeing the prehistoric picture of dice, I was stunned that games went as far back as prehistoric fire!!
Exogenous and Endogenous are words that popped out as I read. I noticed them in an earlier article and I am glad to see them again. I think they are part of symbiotic vocabulary of economics being applied now to games. (At least I first learned about them in Eco class so that is their origin for me.)
I think the game Oscar devised that we were fortunate enough to be included on his team, is an example of an “endogenous game” because players must know about coding terminology and absorb basic facts before and during play. This is why I love “Knowledge Tree” so much, because there is a direct application for the time spent in Level 1 learning.
I think Hung would agree!
~~~
Hung, A. C. (2011). Serious Games and Education. The work of play: meaning-making in videogames (pp. 10-30). New York: Peter Lang.
Alice Y. Kolb, D. A. K. (2010). “Learning to play, playing to learn: A case study of a ludic learning space.” Journal of Organizational Change Management 23(1): 26-50.