Tag Archives: game-based learning

Jessica Millstone was an Education Fellow from 2011-2014, where she honed her expertise in edtech and game-based learning. I first learned about the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at a pivotal moment in both my life and career. After years of working in K-12 schools and cultural institutions as a technology integration specialist, I had just invested in an advanced master’s degree from Bank Street College of Education and also gave birth to my second child (who is turning 12 next…

Every day, information is collected on our daily habits, from the groceries we purchase, the music we stream, the websites we visit, and even our physical locations. What happens to all this data? Some are sold for advertising purposes, some may be used for research, while other data is used by particular interest groups. It might be reported as line graphs, bar graphs, or heat maps. But how do we learn to read and accurately interpret the reality presented by…

This guest post by Anusha Subramanyam, PhD, BCBA-D and Tammy Kwan of Cognitive Toybox describes results from a pilot study in which Cognitive ToyBox, a game-based assessment program, was implemented in preschool classrooms to help teachers monitor their students’ progress.   Early childhood education programs require accurate, ongoing assessment to help students reach their school readiness goals. Our recent report, The Promise of Game-Based Assessment in Early Childhood Education, describes the challenge of current assessment systems and opportunities where direct assessment…

The potential of digital games for education is enhanced by the fact that digital games are everywhere. In 2008, the Pew Internet and American Life Project found that 97 percent of those ages 12–17 played computer, web, portable, or console games, and 50 percent of them reported daily or near-daily gameplay. Another Pew study reported that digital games generated $25 billion in sales in 2010. Studies have demonstrated the potential of digital games to support learning through conceptual understanding, process skills and practices, and…

In the part two of a roundtable discussion on teaching with games, Sandhya Nankani talks to Paul Darvarsi and Aleksander Husoy about what teachers look for in learning games and explore some of the qualities that make the teaching games successful. See part 1 here. Teachers on games for learning   Sandhya: A recent study found that 91 percent of children in the United States ages 2-17 play video games! What an opportunity they present as a tool for learning, right? It makes sense, therefore, that…

On March 23, Michael Levine presented “Teaching with Digital Games,” a webinar for the Share My Lesson Virtual Conference with Rebecca Rufo-Tepper from the Institute of Play. The session was attended live by nearly 500 participants, and is now available for view on demand on the Share My Lesson website until March 22, 2016. Participants who take the webinar are eligible to receive one hour of professional development credit. Register online to view the session.

On November 19th, I covered the biannual Social Innovation Summit held in San Francisco for the Cooney Center and my colleagues at the Disruptor Foundation.  The summit brought together over 1,000 leaders interested in identifying, exploring, and actualizing partnership opportunities across the Business, Technology and Community sectors. I came to the conference eager to learn more about the future of game-based learning (GBL) and its potential to effectively engage students, boost their learning outcomes and put them on a path…

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,…

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…

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…