As we head deeper into the holiday season, parents and others with youngsters on their shopping lists are challenged to find the best toys of the year. Retail giants have compiled their lists, including the “Hot Toy” list for the 2013 Holiday Season from Toys R Us and the “Best Toys of the Season” from Barnes and Noble.

Photo credit: Flickr/Eric Peacock

Unsurprisingly, tech and electronic toys dominate the wish lists of many kids we know. About two-thirds of the toys on the Toys R Us list rely on supplemental power, requiring an electrical outlet or batteries. A popular playset this year, the Fisher-Price Imaginext Batcave, is also app-enabled, and features digital content like games, videos, and commercials when scanned with an iOS device. Such tech integration is increasingly common, however, both the toy’s advertising copy (which only mentions the app peripherally), and lukewarm user responses to the app suggest that the technology here is more an afterthought than an integral component to play, raising broader questions about toys that include technology for its own sake rather than purposefully incorporating it into the product’s design. Some user reviews lament that the app redirects children’s play to and through a screen, substituting children’s imaginations with computer visualization.

Tablets are hot items, too–in fact, PBS noted that parents planned to purchase more tablets than traditional game consoles this year. The most popular kids’ tablets range in price from $99 (Vtech InnoTab 3S with a 5” screen) to $229 (Kurio 3S with a 10” screen). Why purchase a children’s tablet instead of an adult tablet dedicated to children’s use? As speed and performance have improved in the latest generation of kids’ tablets, making them viable competitors on the market. Kids’ tablets feature built-in security functions for web browsing and content control, and while devices designed for adults are customizable with such features, parental control is at the heart of the models made for young users. Kids’ tablets come preloaded with apps and often feature libraries and web stores of pre-curated content. Apple’s Kids’ app store, launched this fall alongside the release of iOS 7, similarly helps transform the iPad into a kid-friendly device. The Kurio enables families to set up eight separate user profiles and to assign blocks of time for particular users, while the InnoTab 3S offers a “wish list” feature so children can earmark desired apps for parental review. A third main concern is durability, addressed by the rubber bumpers protecting these devices.

In addition to the fun and educational content pre-loaded onto each device, it is also worth considering how these tablets initiate children to particular interfaces and software platforms. Some, like the LeapPad Ultra and Vtech InnoTab run on proprietary operating systems, but others run on Android 4.2 Jellybean, potentially priming them to work with tablets running Android in the future. Tablets for kids are also geared toward a variety of age ranges, from the Innotab 3S for ages 3-9 and the LeapPad Ultra, for 4-9 year olds, to the Tabeo e2 (5 years and up) and Kurio (which boasts the broadest range at 3 and up). While those designed for younger children may not “grow” with them as readily, it is difficult to assess whether those for older children or a greater range of ages will keep better pace, given the rapidity with which both hardware and software obsolesce in an increasingly competitive market.

Of course, many kids still want to play console games, especially Skylanders (with its new line of SWAP Force figures) and Disney Infinity, a strong Skylanders contender released this August – both are available on a number of systems, including Xbox, PlayStation, and Wii. In both titles, the player places a character figure on a portal connected to the console, thereby “transporting” the character into the game as an avatar. Character figures (sold separately and in prepackaged bundles) store the avatar’s particular abilities and behavior, as well as save the player’s progress within the game. In one play mode, Disney Infinity enables players to combine characters from the worlds of different films, (for example, characters from The Incredibles and Pirates of the Caribbean) may team up for adventures and work collaboratively to create new levels. Similarly, the new Skylanders SWAP Force figures offer seemingly endless possibilities. Players are able to mix and match the top and bottom halves of the figures, creating hybrid creatures and combining characters’ unique abilities in innovative ways to aid players.

In addition to tablets, consoles, and video games, marketers are touting toys from more traditional categories (plush, construction sets, ride-on toys, games), many of which are, in their contemporary iterations, now battery-operated, such as the Imaginarium Mountain Rock Train Table ($129.99) and My Little Pony Princess Twilight Sparkle ($49.99). On the Toys R Us list, two of the toys hug, one flies, and nearly one-third talk or sing (not counting the tablets or video games). Two simulate flatulence, though their farting features are designed to elicit different reactions: the You and Me Tub and Toot doll, marketed to girls, produces “an unexpected surprise” when the doll’s arm is raised, while the Ugglys Pug Electronic Pet, geared toward boys, “makes over 30 disgusting sounds, including burps and farts.” Other popular electronic pets this year include Spin Master’s Zoom Pets Zoomer Dalmatian, which kids can train and take care of, and the Aquabot from Hexbugs, a fish that swims. Toys that plug in and power up are nothing new (before batteries, mechanical toys wound up), and it’s possible to find playthings without such features. Nevertheless, I’d argue that we should think about new ways in which traditional and tech-driven playthings are merging, bringing the physical and the digital together. It will be interesting to see which toys on these lists become top-sellers, enduring playthings, and short-term trends.

Meredith A. Bak is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Film and Media Studies at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, PA. Her research interests include media archaeology and the intersection of “old” and “new” media, particularly in relation to children’s media and material culture. Her current project focuses on how pre-cinematic visual media like early pop-up books and optical illusion toys helped cultivate children as media spectators near the turn of the twentieth century. A second project on augmented reality toys in development. Before completing her PhD, Meredith worked in museum education at the Museum of the Moving Image in New York, and as a teaching artist in public schools for the Urban Arts Partnership, instructing in the areas of animation, video production, and game design.

Twitter: @meredith_bak

** This survey is now closed. **

Are you the parent or guardian of a child between 4 and 13 years of age? Do your children play video games? If so, you are eligible to take a survey about digital games and family life, co-sponsored by the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop and Arizona State University. Parents who complete the survey will have a chance to win a $50 gift card to Amazon.com. Please read the information below before deciding to take the survey.

Taking this survey is completely voluntary, and you may stop at any time by closing your web browser tab or window. We are not collecting any personally-identifiable information in this study, such as your name or address. All of your responses will be kept private and will not be shared with any other person or organization. If you have any questions about this research, you may contact the Cooney Center at jgcc.research@sesame.org.

After completing the survey, you will also have a chance to enter your email address into a drawing for one of four $50 Amazon.com gift cards. Entering this drawing is also voluntary. Your email address will not be used for any other reason than to contact you if you win the drawing. Your email address will not be connected in any way to your survey responses, and will be deleted immediately after the prize winner is selected and contacted.

 ** This survey is now closed. Stay tuned for the results later this spring!**

edited 2/28/2014

A new study, called A-GAMES (Analyzing Games for Assessment in Math, ELA/Social Studies, and Science) has been funded by the Gates Foundation to study how video games support teachers’ classroom formative assessment practice. If you are a K-12 teacher, you can help shape and inform the research by completing a survey.

Photo: Flickr/ Pesky Library

There is growing support for the use of digital video games as part of K-12 teachers’ classroom routines. As with all educational technologies, the most frequently asked question is, “Do they work?” The answer — and the question itself — is complex. Work for what purpose? To help students learn? Learn what? Core content knowledge or 21st century skills? To engage students? In comparison to what? As with all educational technologies, the real answer to any of these questions is, “It depends.” It depends on lots of factors, including the features of the game and, most importantly, what teachers do with those features as part of their instruction.

The A-GAMES project is designed to study how teachers really use video games in their teaching to support formative assessment. Formative assessment is a set of practices to gauge student progress toward learning goals, and to adjust instruction to meet students where they are. Formative assessment is arguably one of the most important parts of a teacher’s instructional tool kit. When used well, it has been found to be among the most powerful ways to improve student learning outcomes, and it may be particularly important to the success of low-ability students. But as with any “best practice,” in order to be effective, formative assessment approaches must be both useful and used. And that’s where games — potentially — come into play.

A-GAMES is a collaboration between the University of Michigan and New York University, with BrainPOP providing professional development and implementation support. The first phase of the project (going on right now) is a nationwide survey of K-12 teachers designed to identify common formative assessment practices and common uses of educational games. Our survey builds on and complements similar work by the Joan Ganz Cooney Center and the Gates-funded GlassLab, which recently released SimCityEDU with a focus on data analytics for assessment. We want to build a broad picture of teacher practice, and need lots of input! If you are a K-12 teacher, or know K-12 teachers (especially those who use video games in their teaching), please take our share our survey: http://create.nyu.edu/survey. The second phase of the work will be case studies of grade 5-8 teachers in the NYC area using games from BrainPOP’s GameUp platform in their classrooms. We will select eligible teachers from those who complete the survey and indicate an interest in participating in the case studies.

Educational game developers employ a range of features to help monitor and gauge learner/player progress. Many of these features are modeled after commercial video games, such as dashboards that allow a player to see areas of strength and weakness or leaderboards that show how one stacks up against other players. Other features are meant to be integrated with in-classroom practices that surround game play, such as having students respond to “check in” questions, provide brief reflections on their game play experience, or giving brief, content-focused quizzes. And there are a host of others. But not much is known about how various tools for formative assessment are actually used by teachers, or to what effect. A-GAMES focuses on how different features and designs for formative assessment are used by teachers, how those designs fit with teachers’ conceptions of formative assessment, and what barriers exist in classrooms that make it hard for teachers to use formative assessment features as intended.

We expect to be able to share results from the survey portion of the study in winter 2014, and findings from the case studies by next fall. Our goal is to inform future designs of formative assessment features in games to better match the needs and expectations of teachers, hopefully leading to improved formative assessment practice and better learning outcomes for students.

A-GAMES is a collaboration between the University of Michigan, where I am the Principal Investigator, and New York University, where Jan Plass and Michelle Riconscente are Co-Principal Investigators. The work is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. BrainPOP, a well-regarded member of the games and learning community, is generously serving as our implementation partner and providing access to their new GameUp platform to support the study.

Please help with the study by taking or sharing the survey before December 16. We will randomly select 8 survey participants to receive a $50 Amazon gift card: http://create.nyu.edu/survey

Barry Fishman is an Associate Professor of Information and Education at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. His research focuses on games as model learning environments, on teacher learning with technology, and on the development of innovation through design-based implementation research.