Educational Gaming

Last week I had the opportunity to listen in on a webinar titled "Wii Learning: Engaging Students through Gaming Technology," presented by Meghan Hearn and Matthew C. Winner.  As the title suggests, the speakers shared how they use the Wii (and other gaming "toys") as a learning tool.  They specifically looked at how students can practice math skills and vocabulary in real-world scenarios.

• Listen to the audio archive
• View the "handout"
• Wii Instructional Network

For additional reading on the topic of gaming in education, consider:

• "How Social Gaming is Improving Education" (Mashable, 2010) takes a cursory look at educational gaming and how it can create a fun and engaging learning environment.
• The curated topic are you game gathers some great reading material on the topic game based learning.
• "From Age of Empires to Zork: Using Games in the Classroom" (Academic Commons, 2008)
• Educational Games Research blog surveys the current research in educational gaming, providing suggestions for implementation and commentary.
• Microsoft's Games for Learning Institute supports research in educational gaming. The site includes links to math and science games, as well as research supporting the use of games in learning.
• "Penn State’s Educational Gaming Commons  is a group devoted to to exploration of games as a tool to improve teaching, learning and research." There a 8 games available for use. Some require a Penn State login, but the game descriptions may inspire you to create a small scale game for your classroom.  One that is accessible without Penn State credentials is Chemblaster, a game that will help students recall core chemistry concepts.

Have an idea but don't know where to begin? Looking for a brainstorming partner? Contact Mrs. Bond.