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GamificationofEdu

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Portal Gaming for Educators. Through STEMulate Learning, I have been attempting to find different techniques and technologies that will appeal to young learners and encourage them to develop an interest in STEM studies. STEM is an acronym for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics – the “hard science” subjects. Valve, the video game maker behind popular titles like Team Fortress, Left for Dead and Half-Life, has made their wonderfully entertaining Portal game into a tool for educators. Portal is a reasoning game in which players must solve puzzles and bypass obstacles using only objects in the environment together with a device (the Portal Gun) that can create linking holes between two locations.

There is no single “correct” solution to get through the maze of barriers in Portal. A common strategy for bypassing wide open gaps is the put one portal on a vertical wall and the other portal on the floor and then jump down into the hole. LevelUp gamifies learning Photoshop so you can win prizes (and skills) How to teach history (and lots more) with Minecraft. Randy Fujimoto has a mission statement on his website: “A quest to transform education through game-based learning.” That’s a big idea, to be sure, but we think he might have a chance to succeed, especially with his new model for teaching history using, of all things, Minecraft, the new indie gaming sensation that has players exploring, mining and creating in an open, sandbox world.

The new project shows the unintentional, creative consequences that result when developers create an open world game. We were able to chat a bit yesterday on the phone with Fujimoto about his current and future projects involving using Minecraft to teach students, and we came away almost as excited as he is about the potential. Inspired by his own Minecraft experience as well as other educators using the game, Fujimoto set out to create a workshop to teach high school and middle school students about the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II.

Don't let cyber attacks kill your game! 3 Social Learning Trends to Watch in 2012 : Innovation. Integrate these social learning techniques into your training procedures this year. January 11, 2012 Investments in training appear to be on the rise. Many experts expect that training will be a major focus for organizations in the upcoming year. It makes sense. As our economy continues to move in a positive direction, consumers will demand better service. This translates to a need for customer-service training, as well as management and leadership training. These are all poised for increases in 2012. The amount spent on training jumped about 13 percent from 2010, according to the 2011 Training Industry Report. Along with the increased attention on training, a conversation about value and retention is happening. Here are three areas that combine social development with learning. 1. Tony Bingham, president and CEO of the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD), is helping, is helping define social learning.

Companies are paying attention to the benefits. 2. 3. Summit on Science, Entertainment, and Education - Will Wright.