Category Archives: Guest Posts

This spring I’ve spent a fair amount of time playing two of last year’s most anticipated new games: Disney Infinity and SWAP Force, the latest iteration of the Skylanders franchise. I look at these two games as part of my broader interest in how contemporary toys bridge physical and digital play experiences. Both games operate on a similar premise: users connect a USB peripheral, a “portal” or “base,” to the console and collect plastic character figures (sold separately and in…

At LEGup (the London Educational Games meet up) we recently hosted an event on gamification and its potential to improve educational outcomes in the classroom. Gamification is something of a hot potato at LEGup – many of our members dismiss it out of hand as nothing more than the “pointsification” of educational products in a desperate attempt to make them more engaging. Increasingly though, others are taking a more nuanced view of gamification, looking at it as a method or…

Last month, here at TribePlay, we celebrated the two-year anniversary of Dr. Panda games. Since its initial release, the Dr. Panda series has expanded to over 14 educational games for kids. Dr. Panda games are uncommon in the sense that they do not focus on math and languages, but on life skills: skills that help kids recognize and deal with situations in everyday life. In the two years we’ve been making kids’ apps, we have become strong believers in the…

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…

As a parent of a 4-year-old, I know that mobile apps are a) incredibly popular with preschoolers and b) that getting my daughter to brush her teeth twice a day is HARD.  In my professional role as VP of Digital at The Ad Council, I recently had the opportunity to work on developing Toothsavers, a mobile app for our Children’s Oral Health campaign. The challenge for this campaign was to motivate parents to take action to reduce their children’s risk…

Dale Kunkel, Ph.D. is Professor Emeritus of Communication at the University of Arizona. He spoke as a provocateur at the Learning at Home Forum on January 24, 2014 in New York. Here, he shares his thoughts on the dearth of quality educational content for older kids on various platforms, including television, mobile devices, and video games. A video of his remarks is available below. Kids spend several hours every day with screen media – watching TV, surfing the Internet, playing…

Debra Sanchez is Senior Vice President for Education and Children’s Content Operations for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. She spoke as a provocateur at the Learning at Home Forum on January 24, 2014 in New York. Here, she shares her thoughts on media as a learning tool for children both as a public media professional and a mother of two. I am the mother of two media-savvy and media-driven kids, a daughter who is ten and son who is seven.…

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. Unsurprisingly, tech and electronic toys dominate the wish lists of many kids we know. About two-thirds of the toys on the Toys…

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.   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…

The London Educational Games Meetup group (or LEGup, as it’s become known), was started just over two years ago by Kirsten Campbell Howes, an educational specialist and game designer. At first, it was a small gathering in a room above a pub, where a few like-minded games makers and enthusiasts would show what they were working on, ask for feedback, and share their experiences. Two years later, LEGup has nearly 800 members (including games developers, teachers, investors and others), has…