Learn Genetics With Rigglefish

Rigglefish is an educational game designed to immerse middle school students in genetics and the process of scientific inquiry. Developed by VelScience, Rigglefish represents a collaborative effort between the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and Texas A&M and it was a gold medal winner at the 2011 Serious Play Conference.

You do have to request a guest login to access the game and you should plan to spend at least an hour investigating the game world.

Attention: Sensory bling and a good story
Rigglefish grabs your attention from first with a bit of sensory allure in the form of a video that introduces a mystery. You’re Dr. Waters, sent to an underwater lab to breed a superior race of fish that can produce the lipid, Omega-X, a protectant against a deadly bioweapon. That’s the emotional hook that adds to your perceptual arousal, but that’s not all you'll need to do. There are other desired genetic traits you need to select for— like pressure insensitivity, spikelessness, and less wriggle—in order obtain a fish that’s easier to handle in the lab.

These multiple thinking challenges sustain your attention, along with the different tasks you need to complete as you:

• Catch fish for breeding (use your trusty bathysphere!) 
• Characterize them in the sample lab 
• Breed them and then characterize their offspring

Relevance: Real (though virtual) lab work with lots of personal control
While playing Rigglefish, you’re focused on relevant real-world genetics tasks (characterizing, selecting, and breeding fish to obtain desired traits in their offspring) while your curiosity is stimulated to solve an imaginary problem. You have quite a bit of control over different aspects of the game, which enhances your sense that the game is personally meaningful. For example, you can choose which fish to catch and at what depth to catch them (which has an impact of fishes’ traits—there are more yellow fish at lower depths). The satisfying “glug glug” sound the bathysphere makes as it descends is also pretty cool!

Back at the lab, you can choose to characterize fish in sample tanks or make the riskier choice of going straight to the breeding tank. Although the game has some “rails,” you can make varied decisions along the way and get feedback as you breed fish with more or less desirable traits. The game also matches the motives of players by allowing you to choose whether you receive points or not. I did choose scoring to see what it was like when I explored the game.

Confidence building: Help when you want it
Although genetics can be a daunting subject, there’s lots of ways to build confidence in the game. The introductory video (which can be skipped) sets the stage for what you need to do to succeed in the game. Additionally, you can access a help icon at any point and pull the information you need (versus being forced to proceed linearly through a tutorial).

You also get feedback as you breed fish. Choose the right genotypes and you’ll get more yellow, less spiny fish, for example. Although the visual feedback you can obtain from “your” offspring is an extrinsic motivator, it’s intimately connected to the intrinsic satisfaction of mastering a genetics puzzle, so it’s actually a lot more satisfying than the points feedback, in my opinion.

From time to time you’ll get an audio message from someone on the surface who will comment on your progress and pose challenge questions, providing verbal reinforcement and further opportunities to consider your actions.These are unexpected and variable in timing, which tends to make them interesting and more satisfying.

While your fish sampling can be a matter of luck (not all genetic traits are readily connected to visual cues or phenotypes), your breeding outcomes can be stacked in your favor by your own skill in picking the right types of fish to breed, enhancing your feeling of satisfaction.

Conclusion
This is one of those rare educational games that’s engaging, fun, and manages to achieve some learning objectives along the way.I think this is because the learning objectives are integrated with the mechanics of the game (versus being tacked on as an afterthought). The only downside is that you only have access to the game for 24 hours at a time so give yourself a bit of continuous time to enjoy it. It’s worth it!

 

Learn to Read with Starfall

I was just searching for educational games that might help my 2 1/2 year old son Orion recognize letters and their sounds a little more consistently. I stumbled upon Starfall and started playing some of the A, B, C games and I now realize that I know some elementary teachers that use it. Although it is somewhat excruciating and dull for me to play the games, I think that they would be engaging to a beginning reader.

In the alphabet game, the letters of the alphabet appear on ordered blocks. The child can click on the letter they would like to learn about and then are presented with both the uppercase and lowercase letter while experiencing a word that starts with that letter. For example, the letter 'H' is introduced with the sound and image of a horn. Once a letter has been presented, the sound it makes is made and then animated words that start with that letter and sound are shown. The words are said aloud by either adult or child voices. After several words are sounded out with the initial letter, the child is given a game to play. The progression through a letter activity seems appropriate and engaging.

There are a number of more advanced games where children can practice phonics as they read a story. My husband and I will definitely be using this site with our son.

Heidi Thibodeau AKA Heidi Beezley

Triage Trainer - Morbid Yet Clearly Useful

TruSim is developing a serious game for the purpose of training health care workers that are the first responders in the case of a violent disaster. The gamer interacts with a three dimensional environment where the camera views the world through the eyes of the first responder. As the player walks through the world, they encounter debris, injured people with visible wounds of various types, etc. The graphics and imagery are realistic enough to make the squeamish uncomfortable as they move through the environment.

When an injury is encountered, the player can perform an examination and then must decide whether the patient is in urgent need of attention or not. If an injured party is well enough, the player should ask them to walk to the ambulance crew. If the injury is more serious, the player should begin treatment.

The player must make decisions constantly. For example, when the player decides to perform an examination, they must decide the level of examination they will perform since some examinations take longer than others. Once the examination is complete, the player must tag the injured party as to level of priority with four options available ranging from priority 1 (immediate treatment) to priority 4 (deceased).

Article in Government Technology

I guess I can count myself one of the squeamish because the prototype video demonstration below is a little tough for me to watch. There is constant alarming noises such as sirens, moaning, etc. and it is a little unnerving seeing bodies littering the streets even in a simulation. Despite that, the game is compelling and seems like it will achieve its educational goals quite well once it is released.

Heidi Thibodeau AKA Heidi Beezley

Itzabitza - Creativity & Reading in a Drawing Program

A small Seattle-based company called Sabi has recently teamed up with Microsoft to develop an interactive drawing/reading program called Itzabitza for the Microsoft platform. The game is unique because of its ability to recognize drawings and create interactions with the drawings that have been created.

The goal of this educational egame is to inspire creativity and promote reading in target audience of children ages 4+. As children draw, their drawings come to life. The program is able to recognize what has been drawn with the help of a drawing recognition program incorporated into the game called Living Ink. Because the game can recognize what has been drawn, the characters in the game can interact with it in natural ways. So for example, if a child is asked to draw a house, the computer will recognize the various elements that compose the house that is drawn and insert interactive components. A door and windows will appear, and once they have appeared, they can be opened. If the child draws doors, windows, or chimneys for example, the program recognizes them and uses them in the story. The characters can enter the house that has just been drawn by the child, climb the stairs, and be visible in the window on the second floor.

Children play the game by initiating quests. Each quest will prompt them to move or to draw. When they draw, their drawings become a part of the story. Part of the motivation, in addition to seeing your artwork incorporated in a story, is that you can only proceed to the next quest, or story line, after you have received enough stars. This unlocks the next quest.

The game has received high praise as an enticing way to inspire kids to read. Words, when they appear are clickable and can be read aloud. As the child begins playing, words will appear that will begin the quest. Once a child chooses a word, the child is prompted to do something related to that word.

More info.
Itzabitza Website
The Itzabitza Blog
Itzabitza Video Demo - Highly recommend the demo video. It's pretty amazing.

Heidi Thibodeau AKA Heidi Beezley

Ant War Game

I learned all about how to build a successful ant colony by playing the Ant War Game.  This game has you first pick which type of ant colony you would like to develop. It gives you a brief description of your ant species to choose from (leaf cutter, harvester, weaver, carpenter or fire).   From there you establish how much of your colony you want to do the different activities. The grandfather ant will give you tips on what you should be increasing or decreasing.

Once you have decided how to distribute your forces, clicking on the "go" button takes you to your ant hill.  Here you will see how your choices have played out for you. You will earn or lose points as seen at the bottom of the screen. Again on this screen grandpa ant gives you more advice on what you should be doing to create the best aunt colony.

I found the game to be very simple. My daughter, age 8, was  interested in playing once she saw the game.  The only thing that I would like to see improved in the game is the instruction. There is no "help" or "how to play". I see that there are other screen shots in the game of the ants going to war, but I have no idea how far I have to be in the game to go to war.  There is also a store that I can purchase things with the gems I have earned, but I don't know

 what everything is.  Even looking at the screen where I decide how to distribute the forces of the colony, I can't tell what all the graphics represent.  It would be helpful if as I scroll over them, there was text that tells me what it is.  I would also like a screen prior to the game being started that gives me a chance to read the objective of the game and how to play.

This game could very well be used in a classroom to teach students about the different species of ants.  In addition it could be used to show how ants increase their colony size and what their predators are.  I think kids would be receptive to playing it, and I think they could play it many times since the game offers such variety with the various species of ants and the choices you can make.