In the World of Game-Based Learning, Do Console Games Belong at All? Who would have thought that Mario could actually teach you something? Well, actually, maybe he can’t. But teachers across Scotland are using a variety of console games to engage, motivate and hook content to create robust learning experiences for students of all ages.…

WhiteBox Learning has created an engaging hands-on teaching tool which simulates, but simplifies a realistic development process of using CAD to build a structure (bridge or dragster), which they can then analyze and test through virtual gameplay (drag race or monster truck rally) to evaluate performance. Learning is subtle and simulates the scientific method, offering…

A little over a year ago, the MIT Education Arcade“ the Learning Games Network’s sister Research & Development lab “ published the white paper, Using the Technology of Today, in the Classroom Today: The Instructional Power of Digital Gaming, Social Networking and Simulations,” which describes the potential, practices and pedagogies of using these technologies for learning.…

Scot Osterweil comments on an article in the New York Times about New York City’s school Quest to Learn. The New York Times Magazine September 19 issue has a lengthy article about New York City’s Quest to Learn school, an experimental public secondary school that organizes learning around games and other 21st century literacies.  The school was founded by our…

When we talk about the “classics” of video game design, we often jump to games like Super Mario Brothers or Pac-Man. Yet, alongside Solitaire, Chess still remains one of the most played computer games online. The fundamental rules of Chess themselves are older than our understanding of electricity. Really, the only change in the digital…