EDUCAUSE | Contributed by Organizations or Campuses; Articles, Papers, and Reports; and Games and Gaming

Envisioning the Educational Possibilities of User-Created Virtual Worlds

elilly — Tue, 06 May 2008 12:03:10 -0500

Educational games and simulations can engage students in higher-level cognitive thinking, such as interpreting, analyzing, discovering, evaluating, acting, and problem solving. Recent technical advances in multiplayer, user-created virtual worlds have significantly expanded the capabilities of user interaction and development within these simulated worlds. This ability to develop and interact with your own simulated world offers many new and exciting educational possibilities. This article explores the technical capabilities and educational potential of these new worlds. Additionally, it presents and illustrates a model, which uses interaction combinations, to identify course content and topics having educational applications in virtual worlds.

Emerging technologies for learning

ckeller — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 11:46:24 -0500

'Emerging technologies for learning' aims to help readers consider how emerging technologies may impact on education in the medium term. The publications are not intended to be a comprehensive review of educational technologies, but offer some highlights across the broad spectrum of developments and trends. It should open readers up to some of the possibilities that are developing and the potential for technology to transform our ways of working, learning and interacting over the next three to five years.

Second Life: It's not a game

drupal — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 09:53:47 -0600

"Fortune's David Kirkpatrick reports on why IBM's Sam Palmisano and other tech leaders think Second Life could be a gold mine."

Are Video Games Evil?

drupal — Fri, 10 Nov 2006 17:02:50 -0600

"The important thing to find out about video games isn't whether they are teachers. The question is . . . what do they teach?"

Scavenger Hunt Enhances Students' Utilization of Blackboard

drupal — Wed, 06 Sep 2006 12:01:28 -0500

Distance education courses present some unique challenges for both students and instructors. One of the first challenges students experience occurs when they try to navigate through the technology environment itself. While it is true that traditional-aged students are much more technology savvy than ever before, their acumen in technology does not ensure that they will automatically understand how to navigate a technology-driven learning environment.

As students initially learn how to work in a distance education learning environment, they can become frustrated because of the time it takes to "get around." When this happens, the instructor often has to spend a great deal of time responding to a variety of trouble-shooting questions. Regardless of the distance education courseware in use or the level of sophistication with technology that a student has, problems typically surface with each new course.

As a strategy for addressing this issue proactively, the author created a solution that was specifically designed to highlight the technology skills needed throughout the course. The goal was to reduce the amount of frustration that students often felt as they learned the new technology so that they could focus more readily on course content. The solution was the development of a preliminary assignment -- an on-line Scavenger Hunt -- that prompted students to learn or review all the technology-related skills they would need in the on-line course in a fun, non-threatening and purposeful way.

The use of the Scavenger Hunt game has made the use of a web-based course management system, like Blackboard, less threatening for students and has significantly reduced the need for additional instructor time to deal with technology-related issues throughout the course.

Games, Cookies, and the Future of Education

drupal — Thu, 09 Feb 2006 09:44:36 -0600

FAS President Henry Kelly explains how games, simulations, and other information technologies can revolutionize and personalize education.

Meet the Gamers

drupal — Wed, 03 Aug 2005 11:52:36 -0500

"They research, teach, learn, and collaborate. So far, without libraries."

Video Games and the Future of Learning

drupal — Wed, 03 Aug 2005 14:41:39 -0500

Will video games change the way we learn? We argue here for a particular view of games—and of learning—as activities that are most powerful when they are personally meaningful, experiential, social, and epistemological all at the same time. From thisperspective, we describe an approach to the design of learning environments that builds on the educational properties of games, but deeply grounds them within a theory of learning appropriate for an age marked by the power of new technologies. We argue that to understand the future of learning, we have to look beyond schools to the emerging arena of video games. We suggest that video games matter because they present players with simulated worlds: worlds which, if well constructed, are not just about facts or isolated skills, but embody particular social practices. Video games thus make it possible for players to participate in valued communities of practice and as a result develop the ways of thinking that organize those practices. Most educational games to date have been produced in the absence of any coherent theory of learning or underlying body of research. We argue here for such a theory—and for research that addresses the important questions about this relatively new medium that such a theory implies. Video games and the future of learning

Wireless Interactive Teaching Simulations

drupal — Mon, 25 Jul 2005 11:12:30 -0500

Undergraduate lecture courses at many institutions of higher education are quite large, making it difficult to actively involve students and maintain their attention. Ongoing and current budget crises make it difficult to hire additional instructors and reduce class sizes to levels that would allow for more faculty-student or student-student interaction. Wireless interactive teaching simulations (WITS) are seen as one solution to this dilemma.

Video Games and Health

drupal — Mon, 18 Jul 2005 13:00:59 -0500

Although playing video games is one of the most popular leisure activities in the world, research into its effects on players, both positive and negative, is often trivialised. Some of this research deserves to be taken seriously, not least because video game playing has implications for health.