Category Archives: Games and Learning

This article originally appeared in Mass Digi’s State of Play blog on Boston.com on February 21, 2013. Albert Einstein once said that play is the highest form of research, yet many students seem to experience less play as they grow older. That’s true even as videogames are earning more respect as learning tools; and as some educators buck the trend and encourage students to learn through play. That said, there can be real obstacles to training teachers how to use…

January 10, 2013 marked the kick-off for Phase II of the Joan Ganz Cooney Center’s Games and Learning Publishing Council. Funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Council aims to expand the role of games and gaming in the educational lives of children by providing new research and analysis of the field of games-based learning. In its first year, the Council has expanded research and set forth a rigorous agenda for future work. Representing the diversity within the…

Welcome back! In our first post, we told you about Connected Foundations, a digital literacy program funded by the US Department of Commerce’s Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP) and managed by the NYC Department of Education and the NYC Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications. In this post, we’ll describe the “badged and blended” formula we use in courses for NYC high school students. What does “badged and blended” mean? Instructional content in our online platform, BadgeStack, is grouped into…

As part of our ongoing efforts to understand the ways that teachers approach digital games in the classroom, the Joan Ganz Cooney Center is preparing a second national survey that we will be launching this year. We are even more excited about crowd sourcing some of the topics that will be included in this year’s survey. If you are classroom teacher interested in learning what other teachers think about games and learning, please contribute your own topic ideas via this…

One of the most exciting things about receiving a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is the opportunites the foundation provides to connect and collaborate with other organizations.  Last week, Michael Levine and I had the chance to attend the Gates Foundation’s annual convening of organizations working on Teacher Effectiveness.  The groups who attended and presented at this meeting, including The Center for Teaching Quality, VIVA Teachers, Educators 4 Excellence, Purpose, Student Achievement Partners, The Hope Street Group…

How can you use technology to grab a struggling student? How does access to high-speed Internet open a world of learning? What combination of pedagogy and curriculum can deliver the magic blend of fun, interest, academic content, and the many component skills that lead to academic success—especially for students who need to make up for lost time?

For this video case study, our fifth in the series, we interviewed three educators at St. Philip’s about their goals for using games: third grade classroom teacher Regina Lauricella, Director of 21st Century Learning Katrina Allen, and Director of Technology Jerri Drakes. All three speak eloquently about the process of introducing digital games into the curriculum and how using games has affected the way they think about teaching and learning at St. Philip’s Academy. It’s an evolving effort, but one that has a team of dedicated educators and enthusiastic students behind it. We hope to check in with St. Philip’s again and see their progress!

This post originally appeared on the Education Nation Learning Curve Blog. Last week, President Obama announced an innovation and competitiveness initiative designed to stimulate children’s interest in math and science careers. It was filled with solid ideas for engaging both struggling and advanced students in rigorous and relevant science and math study, but fell short in one arena that youth crave:  the use of digital technology.  In fact, a few weeks earlier the President asked parents to encourage kids to…