Winners of National STEM Video Game Competition Announced…Including G4LI and CreateLab’s Very Own Dixie Ching
Published April 1st, 2011
Category News, Press
By Charles Hendee
Tags math games, mini-games, STEM,
The first ever CTO of the US, Aneesh Chopra, announced the winners of the National STEM Video Game Competition today. Included in the announcement are the winners of both the Collegiate and Impact Prizes:
NumberPower: Numbaland!, produced by graduate students Derek Lomas of Carnegie Mellon University, Dixie Ching of New York University [and G4LI and the CREATE LAB] and Jeanine Sun of the University of California at San Diego, are the winners of the Collegiate and Impact Prizes and will receive $50,000 in total. The collection of four games allows children in kindergarten to grade 4 to construct a set of skills that helps develop their sense of number concepts. The games will be available on different platforms, including the iPad later this spring. The prototype can be viewed at http://numbaland.com.
Congratulations, Dixie!!
READ MORE HERE: http://www.theesa.com/newsroom/release_detail.asp?releaseID=139
PLAY THE GAMES HERE: http://numbaland.com
G4LI featured in New York Times Magazine
Published September 18th, 2010
Category Press
By Jan L Plass
Tags
The New York Times Magazine publishes in its September 19 issue a cover story by Sara Corbett on Learning by Playing: Video Games in the Classroom, which features G4LI research. Our work was also described in the video Games Theory that was published online with the same article.
Kaelan Doyle Myerscough on gaming and the future of the world
Published September 17th, 2010
Category Press
By Charles Hendee
Tags
Kaelan Doyle Myerscough, G4LI scientific advisory board member, wrote this wonderful article for CBC news last week.
Kaelan Doyle Myerscough is a 16-year-old high school student and an advisory board member for the Games for Learning Institute, an initiative of New York University. Her favourite video games include the Pokemon and Ace Attorney series.
First, there are games aimed at learning. As an advisor to an institute trying to figure out what kinds of educational gaming work, I’ve looked quite deeply into the concept of games as an educational tool.
Since the dawn of video gaming, educational games have gotten a bad rap. Although it is true that some educational games are less a game than a math or grammar quiz with bright colours, some recent ones have come out that are quite good, and many of these are Flash- or Java-based games.
One excellent example is the McDonald’s video game — produced by Molleindustria, not by the famous fast food company. In this game, you are the CEO of the McDonald’s Corp., and you must make good decisions to run the company properly. It is an addictive lesson about business and finance. It also shows the large-scale effects a corporation can have on the world. It is subtle and humorous — and it’s a potent educational tool.
This, I believe, is where educational games are headed -learning is being blended more smoothly within the gaming experience. Soon, many gamers won’t be able to tell the difference between an educational game and a simply entertaining one.
G4LI featured in New York Times Magazine
Published September 16th, 2010
Category Press
By Charles Hendee
Tags
The New York Times Magazine publishes in its September 19 issue a cover story by Sara Corbett on Learning by Playing: Video Games in the Classroom, which features G4LI research. Our work was also described in the video Games Theory that was published online with the same article.
Game Design Expo
Published December 18th, 2009
Category News, Press, Found
By Lizzie
Tags
Thanks to all who attended the Game Design Expo last night, particularly those game developers who participated in the challenge! The event was a success by all accounts! The judges were impressed with the developers’ ability to build a learning game for the Xbox 360 or Microsoft Zune platform using a specific design pattern. The grand prize went to Super Transformation, by Alec Jacobson, Murphy Stein and Yongming Hong, a platform style 2D game, in which the user drives a character through levels by laying down geometric transformation portals. The 2nd place winner was Prime Beef by Eric Rosenzweig. The object of this game is to defeat all alien cows on the screen by selecting a factor that divides the number or polynomial on the cow and shooting it. The 3rd place winner was EcoSim, by Melissa DiFranco, Kai Johnson, Younyil Kim, an ecosystem simulation game in which the player creates and maintains an ecosystem with dynamic interacting elements through a series of game missions. The 4th place winner was The Recipe Ruler by Rachit Parikh, Edgardo Molina, Keith Grigoletto. Recipe Ruler is an interactive game that teaches mathematical concepts, with an emphasis on proportions and conversions. By adjusting the original recipe, players build math skills and successfully meet demands for varying quantities of different goods such as cookies.
Congratulations to the winners! Thank you all for celebrating these initiatives in learning game development with us.
Video footage of the event will be available via vimeo in the near future. Stay tuned!
PRESS RELEASE 11/25 – Games for Learning Institute’s Game Developers Expo Draws Field’s Top Minds-Dec. 17 at NYU
Published November 25th, 2009
Category Press
By Juan Barrientos
Tags Development, Game Expo, Media, Press, Press Release,
The Games for Learning Institute (G4LI), a joint research endeavor of Microsoft Research, New York University, and other universities, will host “The Game Developers Expo” on Thursday, December 17, 5-7 p.m. at NYU’s King Juan Carlos I of Spain Center (53 Washington Square South/between Thompson and Sullivan Streets). Subways: A, B, C, D, E, F, V (West 4th Street). The event is free and open to the public. For more information, call 212.998.3342 or visit the website.
The Expo will include presentations by leading researchers, designers, developers, educators, and representatives from Pragmatic Solutions, Inc. In addition, G4LI will announce the winners of its Game Design Challenge, in which contestants build mini-games for learning on Microsoft’s XNA Game Studio 3.1 platform. The contest’s four winners will receive a total of $2,000 in cash prizes and detailed critiques of their designs from G4LI researchers.
Reporters wishing to attend must RSVP to James Devitt, NYU’s Office of Public Affairs, at 212.998.6808 or james.devitt@nyu.edu.
Socially Relevant Computing
Published November 25th, 2009
Category Press
By Juan Barrientos
Tags Media, Microsoft, Perlin, Plass, Press,
G4LI was featured in this publication from Microsoft Research.
G4LI Featured in NYU Alumni Magazine
Published October 30th, 2009
Category Press
By Jan L Plass
Tags
NYU Alumni Magazine
The NYU Alumni Magazine features G4LI in the article Mind Games by Ken Stier
Microsoft Research, NYU and Consortium of University Partners Create First Scientific-Based Game Research Alliance to Transform Learning
Published October 7th, 2008
Category Press
By Charles Hendee
Tags
Article about the announcement of the Games for Learning Institute:
NEW YORK, Oct. 7 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Speaking to New York University faculty and students today, Craig Mundie, chief research and strategy officer at Microsoft Corp., unveiled details about a first-of-its-kind, multidisciplinary, multi-institutional gaming research alliance that will provide the fundamental scientific evidence to support games as learning tools for math and science subjects among middle-school students. The Games for Learning Institute (G4LI) is a joint research endeavor of Microsoft Research, New York University and a consortium of universities. The partners include Columbia University, the City University of New York (CUNY),Dartmouth College, Parsons, Polytechnic Institute of NYU, the Rochester Institute of Technology and Teachers College. The G4LI will identify which qualities of computer games engage students and develop relevant, personalized teaching strategies that can be applied to the learning process. More…
