THE SIMS ONLINE ... COMING SOON!

On Sunday, National Public Radio's On the Media had a story about a computer game know to over a million players as The Sims. Touted as the #1 PC game, The Sims is a simulation game about a world that sounds very close to our own. An objective of the game is to acquire material goods, though I'm not sure this is a end goal is (?). There are many interesting things about this game (e.g., it appeals to females as well as males and it's widespread popularity). It's going to be interesting to see how this game and others based on this game evolve in the future, especially as the creators of The Sims get ready to release their online version (coming in the very near future).

For Girls

THE GAMES CAMP FOR GIRLS

G.A.M.E.S. stands for Girls' Adventures in Math, Engineering, and Science. The camp is held during the summer at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for gifted and interested sixth to eighth grade girls. The camp provides an opportunity to explore math, science, and engineering through the use of projects and games. There is now one full section devoted to girls and computers. Take a look at the supportive and innovative approaches to support girls interested in math and science at The Games Camp.


Participants in the 2002 camp

Teaching Complex Systems

AERA Symposium on Complex Causality and Conceptual Change is a web site set up to encourage dialog as followup to two years worth of sessions at AERA, the flagship conference for educational researchers. Lots of good background info here, especially for the groups using StarLogo.

Research-Based Games

Research-Based Games Enhance Children's Learning
This 1998 article published in the "American Psychological Association Monitor" presents educational computer games that used research on what makes children motivated. They have focused their studies on school-age girls and their math skills. They discussed a game that leads children on a scavenger hunt through San Francisco landmarks, during which they solve math problems. I learned that competitive elements in a game seem to motivate boys more highly than girls. The article also seems, however, to be an advertisement for the educational software games at Sparkle Productions.

IGDA meeting

Thursday, November 21st is the next IGDA meeting. It starts at 6:30. They offer free pizza and soda. The atmosphere is casual. Most people are in jeans and t-shirts. I think it's one of the coolest industry meetings.

http://www.igda.org/Chapters/sandiego/sd_nov_mtg.htm

Spatial Temporal Animation Reasoning

The trion model of higher brain function (Gordon Shaw, UC Irvine, M.I.N.D. Institute) sheds insight into how the brain reasons spatial-temporally. Spatial-temporal reasoning involves the ability to maintain a mental image and perform a temporal sequence of spatial operations on that image. This ability is crucial in such activities as music, chess and mathematics.

A computer game named STAR (Spatial Temporal Animation Reasoning) developed by Shaw heavily exploits the brain’s built-in spatial-temporal operations. The game trains elementary school children on sophisticated math and science concepts that have traditionally been difficult to learn, such as fractions and proportions. Having already been shown to improve standardized math scores, STAR has great potential to change how elementary school math is taught.

learn more

Rock Paper Scissors

Ever wonder if your hobby makes you an oddity? Stamp collectors, swirly straw collectors, professional curlers (the sport--think Winter Olympics), etc. have nothing to ever feel nerdy about... EVER!Welcome to the World RPS Scoiety, the place where professional, and novice, Rock Paper Scissors players unite, discuss strategies, and register for the World Championships. Seriously.

What will Canada think of next?

Toddlers and television

I knew I was one step ahead of all of my friends with young children when I plopped my newborn son in his bouncy seat right in front of Barney and Dragon Tales and ordered him to stay there and watch. Because the cover story of last week's Newsweek magazine was "Why TV is Good for Kids" . I've always been an advocate of quality television, and in fact I think my child has learned better behavior from educational television than from me-- not to mention problem solving, Spanish, the alphabet, and even reading skills (I always keep the closed caption on). The subtitle of the article is "Guilt Free TV"-- but I've never felt guilty! The article discusses the research involved in creating an educational show for toddlers including why certain shows keep a child's attention and how educational components of a program are tallied. The follow-up article blasts television for kids. You can decide for yourself. I think that as long as it's not being used like heroin, quality educational television is for certain a beneficial component to a well-rounded toddler's schedule of activities.

Nudity in Console Games!

AKA Acclaim game developer has introduced a new game titled "BMX XXX." What's the catch? Topless women on bikes. Digital Game Developer recently interviewed the game developer regarding their decision to include the controversial content. The game also includes violence and sex. How is this for motivation?

Learning Games for Your Kids

For all you parents out there who want to give your kids a head start on learning and mastering their reading, writing, and 'rithmetic skills, Executive Parent offers a number of award winning games available for purchase. These games include multiple subjects for multiple age levels up to eighth grade.

American Army Recruits with Games

The news this past weekend was spotlighting this new game America's Army designed by the army and available for download for young people to play in the hopes of initiating new recruits. The media was concerned about the violence in the 3-D game but the Army argues that there is no real violence and that the game is a good indicator of army life and expectations. See for yourself.....

Yavsoft

Yavsoft.com offers "non-violent educational games for the entire family." The site offers free trial versions of what are touted as "addictive computer games with a friendly interface and attractive graphics." Games listed on the home page for the site range from an animated jigsaw puzzle game to a humorous pirate game. The focus seems to be to create games that appeal to fantasy and challenge (Malone and Lepper, anyone?). Although I didn't download any, I thought I'd include it here as a resource for e-game designing. Complete versions of the games can also be purchased through the site, but I want to point out that I'm not affiliated with Yavsoft.com in any way. :-)

Coming Soon to the Mac: EverQuest

According to Macworld UK, the world's largest multiplayer game will be arriving for Macs next February. This is good news for those of us who use Windows as seldom as possible.

"With OS X and Apple's desktop systems there will be an incredible gaming environment that will take full advantage of EverQuest's huge and seamless 3D world."

The SOE executive discussed Apple's work in making Mac OS X a good gaming platform: "It seems Apple is making great strides in making OS X an easy platform to work with for gaming, and that's very key in our continued interest. If Macintosh is going to compete with the very mature set of tools for gaming development on the Windows/Intel side, it has to start with the OS and Apple."

EverQuest has attracted a huge international audience (375,000 active players on PC). It has also attracted major media support: USA Today calls it the "next generation computer role playing game." The US Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences awarded it the title of 2001's best massive multiplayer/persistent world game.

The Puzzle Solvers at Cryptic Manor

How good are you in solving puzzles? The Puzzle Solvers at Cryptic Manor was developed by the National Security Agency to share the fun and excitement of solving challenging problems. Explore the rooms of the Cryptic Manor to find hidden links to puzzles that involve codes. Codey the owl, will be your guide in this exploration. The site contains both interactive puzzles and ones to print out and work with paper and pencil. The puzzles are challenging and you'll need both time and brainpower to work out the solutions.

Dr. Clue Scouts San Diego

One of the participants in a session I attended at NASAGA was Dr. Clue, otherwise known as David Blum. He's created a company that designs Team Building Treasure Hunts

"Ok, admit it. Ever since you were a kid, you've always loved treasure hunts. And now, as "an adult," you're charged with hunting up a fresh, new, business-focused team building activity for your corporate group. Your quest, at last, is over! Treasure hunt master Dr. Clue is the national leader for customized, team building treasure hunts. Always convenient to your office or meeting, our off-site hunt events take place in America's most exciting neighborhoods, museums and theme parks."

That sounds like great fun to me. While down for NASAGA, he was looking around San Diego for some good locations for a new treasure hunt. Someone suggested Seaport Village but I hope saner minds prevail. Downtown or Balboa Park would be a lot more content-crunchy.

Maybe next year I'll offer treasure hunt design as an optional alternative to the board game project.

A Contest!

Now that you're all expert game designers, here's some news you can use: About Board Games and Abstract Games magazine are sponsoring the 3rd Annual Game Design Competition, this year with the theme of Simultaneous Movement. The goal is simple: design a great two-player game with simultaneous movement using pieces most people are likely to have around the house.

Doesn't that sound like something you could do? Deadline is 12/31/02.

When Intrinsic Motivation Goes Bad

Wired News reports on the British and Dutch enthusiasts being tried for espionage in Greece in Plane Spotters: Hobbyist or Spy? Their crime? They were caught copying down the tailfin numbers of jets at a Greek airport. Were they going to pass their info on to Turks or terrorists? No... it's just a hobby like birdwatching in which the goal is to see as many individual planes as you can. The hobby is deeply popular in parts of Europe. It would be interesting to analyze this from the perspective of the ARCS model or Lepper & Malone's categories of fun. What's the appeal behind this obsession?

See the Plane Spotting Home Page and Obsession - PLANESPOTTING for more info about the hobby.

And stay the hell out of Greece.

Learning to Vote

The biggest story during this year's mid-term elections may have been the record low voter turnout. The group with the lowest of the low, tends to be those most recently eligible to vote. NPR's Morning Edition program ran a story on election day about high school students learning about voting and citizenship. The issue for most of these students seemed to be that they didn't find it relevant. Americans don't vote for many reasons, but maybe a little instructional intervention when people are young might help form more positive attitudes towards voting. If the lessons incorporated some game activities -- perhaps role-playing games might work well here -- students might be more motivated to vote.

Listen to the report

Froguts

As Al mentioned, some students don't enjoy dissecting a frog. Fortunately now students can dissect a virtual frog. Froguts is a virtual online frog dissection tutorial. It is a great tutorial and is available online for free!

Construction Zone

My Iowa mom, of all people, sent me a cool link to sodaconstructor, an online modeling site that enables you to create wireframe-type models that move. You can build your own or modify models that others have created. I added some big feet to one of the models and watched them flop around the screen. You can turn off or reverse gravity and see the effect on the model.

I think this type of quick modeling has many applications for teaching physics, math, and other sciences.

Cutting Class

Students who detest the funky smell of formaldehyde and are a bit squimish about dissecting a frog may opt to dissect a virtual one instead.

In a recent article out of The Southern Illinoisan, biology teacher, Renee Goodson of Frankfort high school said, "Dissection Works CD-ROM which features simulations of worms, frogs, fish, and pigs for dissection; is not only more cost-effective, but is also much quicker to set up. The computer dissection is more self-paced, and there's no mess, no stink."

Teach English with Fun and Games

This is a website that might be of interest to those of you who teach or know of someone that teaches ESL. They have games, songs and other activities targeted towards kids.

eslgames.com says, "You can easily use each game and technique in your classroom because you get simple instructions and examples to show you exactly how to use fun and games to make extraordinary progress with your students. "

Virtual Learning Indeed

According to eSchool News online, ..."at St. Bonaventure Parish Parochial School, technology literacy education is integrated throughout the entire curriculum at every grade level. Instead of learning computer basics and software skills, however, every student in the school will increase his or her technology literacy by helping to design and build a virtual reality game."

Personally, I'm a little skeptical about the educational merit of this. At this point in the technology curve, I wonder how much learning bang there is for all the bucks this involves, and how scaleable it is.

This is your brain... This is your brain on games... maybe

Controversy please! Japan says our brains will turn to mush if we play too much, but some Yanks disagree. This article debates the finding of a Japanese study on game use in children.

Nomia for Windows...

There is no such animal. After attempting to download my new addiction (Nomia), I realized that it's only for Macs. Desperate to get my fix, I searched for almost 2 hours before finding something almost as compelling... Wordzap. Wordzap is kinda like Boggle... you make words out of 8 letters that are given to you. Try to make 7 words (at least 3 letters) before the computer makes one of your words and starts zapping (deleting) your words. Talk about flow... this game is better than... (use your imagination here!). Click here to find out more and download the game to your PC. Wordzap

Online Games for Children, ages 3-6

BABY-PLACE.comThis website might be of interest for those with babies and children in the family. It offers a few games for 3-6 year old children. For example, there is a game that introduces children ages 3-4 to the use of the mouse. They have to "catch" a moving square by clicking on it with the mouse. What a relatively simple idea to get children acquainted with the computer at an early age! Other games include: color matching (3+), adding and subtracting games.

Debunking Stereotypes

Here’s an interesting read... a two-year, ethnographic study suggests that women play games online for a variety of reasons; and not just to socialize and chat. Strong motivators for women are the opportunity to forge an identity in a virtual world, the competitive nature of the game, and exploration (Not unlike motivators for men, in fact). The details are going to be published in a paper called "Multiple Pleasures: Women and Online Gaming", examining the motivations behind female participation in online computer games.
Read Debunking Stereotypes, Women Flock to Computer Games

Synaptic Soup

This website is really meant for those individuals interested in developing video games. Synaptic Soup is the name of a company in the UK that develops games and technology. They work to bring video games to the mass market while providing middleware to game developers. The website lists a variety of games currently being developed.

Puzzles.com

Remeber those puzzle toys in cereal boxes? Puzzles.com takes those along with illusions, tricks, brain teasers, and the like, and brings them into the realm of the Internet. You can spend hours trying to solve them, I sure did. Have fun!

Figure This!

Check out Figure This!

Here are math challenges for middle school families. The challenges cover many of the skills reguired of middle school math students.There are currently 80 listed. It also provide parents with support and resources for working with their sons and daughters around the issues of homework.

PrimaryGames.com

PrimaryGames.com is a site that provides free educational games for elementary school students. The categories for these games are Language Arts, Math, Social Studies, and Science. There is other game content on the site as well that is not tied to classroom learning explicitly, but are fun and appropriate for elementary school students.

Making Faces, 21st Century Version

When I was a kid, Mr. Potatohead was one of my favorite toys. There was something hilarious about putting together my own combinations of noses, eyes and lips. Now there's the Evil Clown Generator, a Flash page that does away with the need to visit the produce section. Surely this might inspire a less sinister version with some educational merit? Or would that take the fun out of it?

Games & Puzzles - Jefferson Lab

Jefferson Lab is managed and operated by Southeastern Universities Research Association (SURA) for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). While the main page has links and articles about high level thinking in physics, they do provide a games page with content that is suitable for middle school and high school students. These games focus on math and science but there is one on reading comprehension.

Check out Apples to Apples . It is a party game created by Out of the Box Publishing, a company known for innovative games that can be learned in seconds, played in less than an hour, and that feature dynamic player interactions. In Apples to Apples, the judge for the round plays a green apple (adjective) card. Players must respond immediately by throwing down a red apple (noun) card that is best described by the green apple card. The Apples to Apples context has proved quite flexible; Out of the Box offers a “core” game, 2 expansion sets, and a junior version. This month, Apples to Apples and Out of the Box received high accolades from Bernie DeKoven of deepfun.com:

“It turns out that that very iffiness is what makes the game such a delight to play. There are no right answers. It's up to the imagination of the players, the judgment of the judge, and whatever subtle pressures one puts on the other…And then there's the BERNIE that goes to Out-of-the-Box itself. Every game I've looked at from them so far has that well-designed, carefully considered, made-for-easy-fun feeling.

QBInternational

QBInternational offers customized solutions to businesses that desire high-result, low-cost eLearning tools for complex technical products. They claim their games and simulations are more fun, more efficient, and less expensive than traditional eLearning tools. QBInternational has developed Framegames, shells of learning games that can be quickly modified to fit any content area. Framegames are based on the work the company’s chairman, Dr. Sivasailam "Thiagi" Thiagarajan. Framegames allow learners to receive new ideas, apply these ideas to a task, and receive feedback on their performance. This process is repeated until expert fluency is achieved, changing the challenge level of the games as needed to prevent boredom or frustration.

Visit QBInternational’s Playground to play samples of Framegames, that include game types such as Categorize, Choices, Chunks, Infoquest, Matrix, and Simulation.

Game On

Today more and more teachers use project-based learning as a method for teaching their students advance problem solving skills and prepare them for the new technological era. Project-based learning enables students to use technology in innovative ways. Barbican Education has developed a series of six units, for a classroom project across the curriculum, inspired by computer games. The units help teachers create the concept of a new game with their students. The six units provide information on thinking about games, developing the story, creating game characters, designing environments, composing the sound and putting together the final game concept. Can you and your class take on the challenge of creating the concept of a new game? Check Game On.

Educatoys

www.educatoys.com - A really great site for purchasing educational games for a variety of subject areas (math, science, geography, nature, etc.). The site gives a nice description of each game and it's objectives. The site also offers resources for parents and educators, especially intersting is the information for homeshoolers which gives information and resources for people who are teaching their children privately. There are not a ton of games available (only two or three per subject), but they all seem worthwhile and well designed.

E-JIST link

www.usq.edu.au/electpub/e-jist/

E-JIST: Educational Journal of Instructional Science and Technology

www.usq.edu.au/electpub/e-jist/
I just came across this web site. It's really great for accessing information and research on Teaching and Technology. There are a couple good articles on gaming. Check out Volume 3, Number 2 for articles like "Does Learning Occur Through Gaming" and "Case Study: Development of a Corporate Learning Game". There are also a number of useful sources listed on the site for further information related to instructional technology.

New Hortizons for Learning

Need some inspiration... a chance to see what others are doing and thinking about learning? This site is for you. It has grown as a e-resource for students, teachers and parents alike for ten years. Find out about brain research, people who use MI- in their approach to teaching, students doing project based learning and much more. Articles are archived here, and new articles are posted regularly. Check out New Horizons for Learning

Making Substance Abuse Education More Fun

D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education), the program for substance abuse prevention for middle school kids, is revamping its curriculum to make the program more effective. Previously, the program consisted of mostly lectures delivered by police officers. Studies demonstrated the program was not effective in helping kids avoid drugs. The new lessons are more interactive and include games and role-playing. Initial test results show the new curriculum to be more effective in giving students the skills and knowledge they need to stay away from drugs. Read all about it in the San Diego Union-Tribune.

Online Game Giant Eyes China Market

NCsoft, Korea’s online game giant, expects to top $54 million in profit this year thanks to its wildly popular medieval adventure "Lineage." Three million global users pay a monthly fee to participate in this multi-player game where they descend into dark dungeons and slay dragons. NCsoft's latest business strategy has been to enter a joint venture with Taiwan’s Gamania with the intent to lock down the Chinese market. With more than 45 million citizens logging on, China has the third largest Internet population. A very lucrative move indeed.

read the article

Virtual Lemonade Stand

A fun game for kids (and even adults) to learn about running a lemonade stand and making their own virtual profits. I thought it was fairly simple to get started on this game and the game does a good job of teaching kids the fundamentals of math in a contextualized way that afffirms the need for understanding math as well as currency flow.

A Lesson in Making Learning Fun


In Heidi Anderson's article "A Lesson in Making Learning Fun" she presents evidence for the argument that incorporating games into learning motivates learners, even (or especially!) adults. The History Channel wanted to show history teachers how they could use The History Channel's resources to teach both in the classroom and at home. The marketing challenge was to get as many teachers as possible to log in to the website and download the study guide. By offering a chance to play the game Save our History - Frontier Homes The History Channel enjoyed the kind of success that marketers can only dream of.

Read the article

The Tycoon Games and Csikszentmihalyi's Flow

Despina describes Zoo Tycoon and how it can provide hours of entertainment. This is very true! My children love it and like Rollercoaster Tycoon even better. In Rollercoaster Tycoon they build and run an amusement park, complete with rides, attractions, landscapes, and weather challenges. I enjoy listening to them plan business strategies and troubleshoot a poorly performing ride without even realizing they are learning! I have seen them so engaged in the game that "self-consciousness disappears," a true sign of Csikszentmihalyi's flow. One of the newer games in the Tycoon line is Mall Tycoon. My twelve-year-old daughter has been hounding me for this one. It is advertised as "every mall goer's ideal simulation." With the game, she'll learn basic retailing and marketing. The simulations are quite complex and difficult, but users find these games are gratifying in and of themselves - a great example of flow. These games also have online forums where users can discuss such things as strategies for beefing up security to get rid of the "punks" in the mall.