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Gaming across the curriculum: Finding and evaluating educational games.

This post shares resources from Trevor and my games workshop at ISTE 2010.

We kicked the workshop off with a brief talk. Here are the slides for that short presentation.

ISTE Gaming Presentation

View more presentations from tjowens.

Integrating Games in Instruction

•    Remember there are a lot of ways to introduce games in your classroom, you can start by simply recommending them to families, media resource leaders, or special educators
•    Make sure learning objectives can be met within the amount of time you have dedicated in the classroom period
•    When evaluating a game, consider how the game helps you meet learning objectives more effectively (more engaging? Better visual explanation? More efficient?)
•    Have a student volunteer help you evaluate games you consider.
•    Make sure you know the source of the game. Games on dedicated educational website from a familiar place are less likely to have unwelcome pop-ups or comments.

Learning Games Directories

Playing History:      Open directory of history and civics games
Playing Science:     Open directory of science games
Games for Change:     Directory of social issue games
Super Smart Games Wide range of free and commercial
PBS Kids Games:     Great  set of early childhood k-6 games
**NOTE: Many of these directories link out to external sites. Over time links may break and we have no control over the content of external sites.

Game Recommendations

Marjee Recommends
Coaster Creator
Students learn about potential and kinetic energy in order to build a successful roller coaster that provides riders with lots of thrills, but brings them to the end platform safely!

Gravitee 2
A “casual game” meant for entertainment but is an “addictive” and fun way to examine satellite/ falling body behavior.

Trevor Recommends
Do I Have A Right
From Justice Sandra Day O’Conner’s iCivics project, Do I Have A Right, does a great job helping students explore and understand the Bill of Rights.

The Jamestown Online Adventure Game
In this alternative history game students chose different strategies for the Jamestown pioneers. The Jamestown Online Adventure Game does a nice job helping students develop a sense of both what happened and why it happened.

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We won CODIEs!

We submitted our 3 energy unit games as one packet of games to the Software and Information Industry Association’s award for Best Educational Game.

This is very much an “its just nice to be nominated” situation. Winning was highly unexpected and a huge honor. I’m really proud of our energy suite of games as it highlights the most important learning objectives in a middle school energy unit using a variety of game mechanics that are all engage and all privilege engagement, learning, and classroom usability.

Check them out!

Best Educational Game 2010
Best Educational Game 2010
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Classroom constraints & the pass-back effect: Games designed to transcend generational divides

I am excited to be giving a talk today with Nina Walia as part of Games for Learning: Research and Design Innovation at NYU. It’s a quick talk, but I wanted to make sure those interested could take a look at our slides and dig into some of the links to games from our presentation.

Classroom constraints & the pass-back effect: Games designed to transcend generational divides

Play the Games I Mentioned Right Now:

Operation Resilient Planet, Mentioned on Slide 4: It is a big, 6 hr game. We also allow teachers to pick small 20-25 min experiences from the game to use in classrooms.
Transform-It and Energy City: Mentioned on slide 5: Free browser based flash games that provide a range of different challenges. Both have something you can do in 20 minutes in a class but provide hours of play later at home.
Coaster Creator and Eco Defenders. Mentioned on Slide 6: Both of these games provide spaces for direct classroom objectives, but also provide deeper experiences for players to try to best their own scores.
Here is an example of how videos model practices for classroom teachers. Mentioned in Slide 10:

You can log into the Jason Mission Center to browse some of these supporting classroom materials. Mentioned in Slide 11.