Tag Archives: games

The topic of kids and technology is a hot topic again. This would normally be a good thing, if the questions that are being discussed weren’t fundamentally the wrong ones. It is, however, a familiar situation. We are going through a normalization of a new technology, and it will be met in the same way that technology has been met before: with skepticism, doubt and the occasional hint of technophobia. Discussions like these cloud the interesting part—the choices that parents…

The Games for Change Festival is the largest gaming event in New York City and the leading international event uniting “games for change” creators with those interested in accessing the positive social impact of games. The event invites developers, researchers, educators, policy-makers, and anyone interested in the field of games and social impact to engage in a conversation on, and demos of, games for change. This year, the Cooney Center will co-curate a day of events on Games for Learning…

Recently in one day, I witnessed two expert panels discussing critical issues for our educational system: the first one was on implementing the Common Core for English-language learners, the second was on how games offer an exciting new frontier for student learning and engagement. In the morning, I listened in to an Alliance for Excellent Education panel including Stanford professor Kenji Hakuta and Carrie Heath Phillips, director of Common Core implementation at the Council of Chief State School Officers. That…

Today we are thrilled to release a new report, T is for Transmedia: Learning through Transmedia Play. This report, which we have co-authored along with Erin Reilly, and which begins with an introduction by Henry Jenkins, is the product of a year-long collaboration between the Cooney Center and the Annenberg Innovation Lab at the University of Southern California. Transmedia is an idea that has evolved over the past decade to describe the complex relationships that exist between media texts, media…

Today we are living in a world where our lives are being shaped in fundamental ways by the products of science and their application in technology. For millions of youth, videogames are a big part of some of their earliest and up-close encounters with advanced technologies that incorporate computer simulations, visualization, communication, and digital art among other things. Playing videogames is gaining increased recognition as a valuable educational activity both within formal (in-school), and informal (out-of-school) settings. Research studies have…

I’m old enough (or young enough, based on whom you ask) to have fond memories of experimenting with both SimCity 2000 and SimCity 3000, the first two sequels to Will Wright’s popular SimCity game. The ability to design and wreak havoc on my own community offered mixed feelings of power and helplessness that, as a 9-year-old, I would have had few opportunities to experiment with beyond the computer. My mother, an urban planner, would use my city’s pitfalls as a…

On a bright sunny morning after a February snowstorm, kids and their parents were lined up outside the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in Manhattan. But they weren’t there solely to see the many museum treasures. They were there to attend a workshop to make video games that they will enter into the National STEM Video Game Challenge. The excitement was palpable as the kids funneled into a room outfitted with laptops. “Do you have an idea for a…

A little while back I was playing Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare with one of my patients, we’ll call him Alex*.  Twenty minutes into our game, I was clearly losing badly and dying a lot.  Although I am a gamer-affirmative therapist, first-person shooters have never been a favorite of mine.  In fact it was only recently that I started playing them at home and with patients at all.  The game ended with me having died 25 times to his 2. …

The nation’s largest independent game festival comes to New York to celebrate the importance of indie games in the artistic community and invites artists, designers, and players to a weekend of panels, discussions, and game-design workshops. Co-hosted by the Museum of the Moving Image, IndieCade East will feature a weekend-long game jam for aspiring designers, industry panels, and an evening of game-play for visitors. Learn more.

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…