GBL
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Valve has announced plans for ‘Steam for Schools’, a program that aims to provide a free, limited version of Steam to classrooms for educational purposes. Valve’s director of educational programs Leslie Redd unveiled the initiative earlier today at the Games for Change festival in New York City. “We have a limited version of Steam, which is called 'Steam for Schools', And what we're doing is asking for teachers, after school programs, organizations – anywhere where there's a student relationship, which includes homeschooling – for them to submit a form to be part of it.” Educators will be able to apply this summer for beta inclusion, which includes a limited version of the Steam platform that includes Portal 2, the game's level editor, and its workshop for hosting and organizing user-created levels. This new version of Steam will be free for administrators, and will provide administrator access to customize what students can and can’t do with the programs.
Valve launches 'Steam for Schools' program
Video games help autistic students in classrooms
From wire service reports Read more by staff and wire services reports At the University of Michigan, software engineering students this spring designed several Kinect games for children with autism. On-screen, Michael Mendoza’s digital avatar stands before a wonderland of cakes and sweets, but his message is all business: “I.
Purported Xbox 720 To Cost $299 With Blu-ray Support, Kinect 2 And Virtual Reality In Time For Holiday 2013
The current gen Xbox may be a year past its halfway point but a purported “leaked” document dating back to August 2010 from a Microsoft presentation details the next gen Xbox 720 in great detail. Features for the next Xbox, according to the document, will include native Blu-ray playback, full support for HD and 3-D, and beefed up hardware (graphics and processor) under the hood. Other bits and pieces from the doc include PVR functionality, a low power mode setting during media playback and what amounts to an always-on mode. Gates did say years ago that the Xbox would eventually become the nerve center for any living room. And based on recent events, it’s not entirely out of the realm of possibility that Microsoft is making a play to turn the Xbox into a stand-alone set-top box for all things video.Why Teachers Use Digital Games and Why Schools Teach Gaming
5.14.12 | A national survey of teachers who use digital games in K-8 classrooms found that the majority—60 percent—report games foster student collaboration and help students to stay focused on specific tasks. The survey of 505 teachers also found that half of those who identified as “very or moderately comfortable” with digital games in the classroom use games regularly: 32 percent use games two to four times per week, and 18 percent use games daily. The Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop released the findings, based on research from the Games and Learning Publishing Council initiative .
Digital | Social media and video games in classrooms can yield valuable data for teachers
Photo by BarbaraLN Social media, video games, blogs and wikis are playing increasingly important roles in classrooms across the country. Some worry that incorporating more social media and other technologies into education is leading to too much computer time, as well as to a generation of students deficient in the face-to-face social skills needed to survive in the workplace.
Create, Capture, Upload: New Site Features Kids’ Digital Projects
DIY.org By Katrina Schwartz Refrigerators and fireplace mantles might still be covered with children’s projects, but more and more, those projects are finding a home online. That’s just one of the purposes for the launch of DIY.org , a site that allows kids to upload photos of their projects and share it with their friends, family, and the public. Here’s how it work: Parents help their children set up a profile that’s linked to the parent’s email, which gives parents access to a dashboard showing everything that’s been posted on the account. To protect kids’ privacy, kids choose an animal character and a nickname (the prompt clearly says “Please don’t use your real name!”)The unit came bundled with a single cartridge: Tetris, a simple but addictive puzzle game whose goal was to rotate falling blocks — over and over and over and over and over and over and over — in order to build the most efficient possible walls. (Well, it was complicated. You were both building walls and not building walls; if you built them right, the walls disappeared, thereby ceasing to be walls.) This turned out to be a perfect symbiosis of game and platform. Tetris’s graphics were simple enough to work on the Game Boy’s small gray-scale screen; its motion was slow enough not to blur; its action was a repetitive, storyless puzzle that could be picked up, with no loss of potency, at any moment, in any situation. The pairing went on to sell more than 70 million copies, spreading the freedom of compulsive wall-building into every breakfast nook and bank line in the country.
Angry Birds, Farmville and Other Hyperaddictive ‘Stupid Games’
Throughout my time investigating the SDK, I have managed to build up a library of Kinect Applications. I realise that some of these have been way back in June and In order for you to find them it might be a little tricky. This is why I have compiled a page of all of the applications. You can now scroll down and find the blog entry, the files and the description of what the program does! Feel free to download and use these but please ask before hosting the file in other places.
Kinect Applications | Ray Chambers
Video Games for Learning? Why Not?
Editor's Note: This post was originally posted on career advice expert, Penelope Trunk's Homeschooling blog. If you'd rather read it (and the comments) there, go here . The Atari-generation often defaults to an automatic mindset that books are for learning and games are for play. However, many have no accurate frame of reference. The types of games kids are learning with today, were not available to them when they were children.
I haven't felt the need to define what Games Based Learning is on my blog as I've been too busy trying out different strategies and resources. However, at TeachMeet Play in February half term, I presented for 7 minutes (yeah right, more like 30 minutes!) on these strategies and what Games Based Learning meant for me. Alongside me at the event, Ray Chambers (@lanky_boi_ray) and Bill Lord (@Joga5) also presented and discussed their experiences of gaming in the classroom.
What is Games Based Learning? My reflections on #gbl from #tmplay - Enabling Environments
Ten reasons why game based learning works in education | connectED
1. Familiarity – Students are already familiar with many of the devices, regularly using iPads, iPhones, PSPs and (soon no doubt) the new PS Vita at home so adopting use inside the classroom can be quick and simple. See ‘For The Young, Smartphones No Longer A Luxury Item’ http://techcrunch.com/2012/02/20/for-the-young-smartphones-no-longer-a-luxury-item/ via @techcrunch 2. Engagement – Engages the disengaged. Teachers report regularly on how using digital resources in class captures student imagination. See a wonderful example here on the Guardian blog ‘An English teacher discovers digital literacy really works’ http://www.guardian.co.uk/teacher-network/2011/dec/05/engage-disengaged-students-digital-literacy 3.m-learning expanding educational opportunities Via: mGBL – mobile Game-Based Learning Project Within the mobile Game-Based Learning project (mGBL) eleven partner organizations from Austria, Croatia, Great Britain, Italy, and Slovenia have joined forces to work on the development of a platform for the presentation of educational content in a playful and emotional way on mobile devices. This work is co-funded by the European Community under the Information Society Technologies (IST) Program of the Sixth Framework Program (FP6).
Innovative Learning Based on Mobile Games | FUTURE-MAKING SERIOUS GAMES
Assessment in game-based learning (GBL) programs can be far superior to your typical weekly multiple-choice test. Games are all about constant assessment. Games do not actively “teach” – they don’t say “here is some knowledge for you to remember” – but rather they provide constant challenges and then give you feedback on your decisions, and that is how you learn. So, in order to better understand how to design effective GBL programs, let’s take a look at some characteristics and considerations of assessment in GBL. More formative feedback
Assessment in Game-Based Learning « Game-Based Learning Talk
Does games based learning work? «
One of the questions educators ask me about games is “ Does games based learning work?” . It’s a reasonable question, but it’s not the what people mean. Firstly, I can’t begin to answer without also asking them in return “ Is play a serious activity?”Game Based Learners
Game Design
Game Based Learning