Category Archives: Educators

He called himself MechaStayPuft. That was the username and avatar he would use across all of the game design platforms we used. It struck me as an odd choice for a teenager, a compound reference to Ghostbusters, which turned 30 this past June, and Gozilla vs. MechaGodzilla, which predates Ghostbusters by a decade. How did a student who couldn’t have been born before the Clinton administration be acquainted with two relics of 70s and 80s counterculture? Regrettably, I never found…

Part 13 of MindShift’s Guide to Games and Learning. In education, it seems as if innovation and revolution play like the song of the Sirens in a culture of perpetual obsolescence. It seems as if we’ve got an unhealthy fetish for new-ness, indiscriminately choosing the convenient disposability of shrink-wrap over the sustainability of the well-worn. Digital games can be amazing tools, but only when used to make it easier to contextualize the gifts we’ve received from Shakespeare, Socrates, Euclid, and…

Part 6 of MindShift’s Guide to Games and Learning. As game-based learning increases in popularity, it’s easy to get pigeon-holed into one particular way of thinking about it or one way of employing it. This is true regardless of how teachers feel about gaming in the classroom, whether they’re for or against it. One common objection to game-based learning is that students will sit in front of screens being taught at. Sure, games are interactive, but on some level, don’t…

It seems that hardly a week goes by without a news story touting that digital games like Minecraft are gaining a stronger foothold in American classrooms. Publishers and game developers are eager to make headway in the educational technology marketplace, and school districts throughout the country are rolling out one-to-one computing and BYOD classroom programs. But what do the teachers themselves have to say? In 2013, the Joan Ganz Cooney Center conducted a survey of 694 U.S. K-8th grade classroom…

Part 5 of MindShift’s Guide to Games and Learning. Nobody likes high-stakes testing. The problems are well documented. But maybe games can help to change the way we approach assessment. At least since John Dewey, educational theorists and scholars have been clear about the inherent shortcomings of thinking about education in terms of standardized, quantifiable outcomes. In order for instructional strategies to be successful at a large scale, they need to take individual differences under consideration. Not all students are…

This post is part 1 of the MindShift Guide to Game-Based Learning and originally appeared on MindShift. By now, you’ve probably heard the buzzwords: “game-based learning” and “gamification” are pervading headlines in education coverage. Video games have always been popular with kids, but now increasingly, educators are trying to leverage the interactive power of video games for learning. Why? It turns out games are actually really good teachers. Think about the compounding way in which Angry Birds teaches the rules,…

Are you a K-8 teacher who lives and teaches in the United States? If so, you are eligible to participate in a Joan Ganz Cooney Center survey about using digital media—including games—in the classroom. Teachers who complete this 15-minute survey will receive no payment, but will instead have the chance to win a $25 Amazon gift card. Researchers at the Cooney Center are also interested in speaking with K-8 teachers about their use of digital media in the classroom. If…

This year the Cooney Center attended SXSWedu in full force, with three separate opportunities to share our work on how teachers, researchers, game developers, and investors are bringing true games-based learning to K-12 classrooms.  After presenting with Allisyn Levy of BrainPOP and Julie Evans of Project Tomorrow on Monday, I was able to relax and enjoy the rest of conference, including Michael Levine’s Digital Playground talk on Tuesday and the Games & Learning Publishing Council session later that afternoon. Here…

One of the great opportunities I’ve had here at the Cooney Center is being able to meet a diverse group of people from academia, industry, and non-profits that really cares about the question, “How can digital media help children learn?”  I’ve recently had the privilege of sharing my work and research at The New York Hall of Science in Queens, NY (NYSCI). I was invited by my good friend, Matty Lau, Director of Pre-Service Science Teacher Education Program, to give…

When twelve-year-old Amy O’Toole spoke at TED last fall, she took the stage as one of the youngest people ever to have published a peer-reviewed science article. Amy’s inspiring article, which she wrote with her classmates as part of a playful participatory science program, is perhaps the only peer-reviewed science article to begin “Once Upon a Time”; it is both good science and a good story. As Amy’s article and TED talk show, play helps students learn science, and storytelling…