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15 Serious Games Aiming to Change the World

15 Serious Games Aiming to Change the World
Using games for purposes other than entertainment is nothing new. There are war games, educational games, throne games. But a new class of games has sprung up in recent years, designed to create awareness and raise support for a variety of global issues. Such serious games seek to harness the power of competition and/or novelty to attract players and get the word out for a good cause. Here are 15 games you can play and be a better person for it. Catalysts for Change: On April 3, 2012, Catalysts for Change went live online for 48 hours. A Closed World: Game designers in Singapore created this game because of the shortage of content concerning LGBT issues.

Branches of Power Do you like running things? Do something that no one else can: control all three branches of the U.S. government. Our new Branches of Power gives you the ability to introduce presidential agendas, write legislation, sign or veto bills, and even judge passed laws. That’s a lot to juggle, so don’t let all the power go to your head! In Branches of Power you: Pick leaders for each branch of governmentCreate a presidential agendaIntroduce bills and pass laws out of CongressApply judicial review to passed laws For English and Multilingual Learners: Use the support tool, Spanish translation, voiceover and glossary. Are you an educator?

Create Your Own Games There are hundreds of places to find educational games and quizzes on the Internet. That said, sometimes you still cannot find quite what you're looking for. In those cases you're better off creating your own games. Here are seven good tools you and your students can use for creating games. Sharendipity makes it possible for students and teachers to quickly create and share simple video games. Sharendipity's drag and drop creation tools can be used to create a game in as few as four steps. ClassTools.net is a free service teachers can use to create their own educational games. Purpose Games is a free service that allows users to create custom games, share games, and play games. What 2 Learn is a website offering more than two thousand educational games for middle school and high school age students. YoYo Games hosts hundreds of relatively simple online games created by amateur and professional game developers.

Ten games that make you think about life At the start of this year, we decided to come up with a list of Flash casual games with a philosophical bent. To be honest, we struggled. After days of research, we could only find a handful of games that had the thought-provoking depth we were looking for. Our list (which you can view by clicking here) was therefore only five games long. Fast forward to now, and it is remarkable how much difference a few months can make. Thanks to the work of pioneers like Daniel Benmergui, Gregory Weir and PixelAnte, there is now an abundance of clever arty Flash games to pique our intellects, and as a result creating this follow-up list of games that make you think has been a doddle. In a wonderful twist, it seems it is the Flash gaming space - until now known more for the throwaway nature of its games rather than depth - that is leading the way in this exciting new area of gaming, as we hope the following games prove. 1Immortall The game starts with you crash landing on a planet. 2Loved 5Coma 6Loondon

KIDO'Z - Fun & Safe Play Mode for Kids 3D GameLab | Heroic learning, come play! Language Arts Games - Grammar, Punctuation, Capitalization, Vocabulary Sheppard Software's Language Arts page features a variety of games for different grade levels. Elementary students (and anyone who needs a refresher) can play the animated grammar and punctuation games, which review basic punctuation and grammar concepts. This section is continually being refined and expanded, so check back often! Middle school, high school, and adult learners can review their SAT and advanced vocabulary through the SAT Words and Vocabulary in Context games. Let’s Play! 20+ Sites for Young Learners Part of the Cool Sites series Sometimes, the teachers of young learners get a bad reputation for playing all day in their classes. Let me tell you a secret. Any great teacher of young learners is definitely playing a lot in and out of the classroom! problem solvingcompleting a small task before a larger taskpacingfollowing instructionscollaboratingdeveloping skills to accomplish tasks Play and Video Games Many more lessons are learned by today’s digital games which have the social component to them. 9 Digital Sites that Make English Fun for YLs Kindersite- The Kindersite spearheaded by Joel Josephson (@acerview54) has 1000s of educational and fun content specifically designed for preschool, kindergartens, elementary, primary schools and special needs students. ELT Digital Play- This blog lists reviews various games, describes their value and how to play them. Brainnook- a free online virtual world for kids to develop math and english skills with children worldwide. YL Curriculum Resources

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