Game Review: Playground Sessions
Published December 2nd, 2011
Category White Papers
By Jan L Plass
Topics Game Review,
G4LI recently reviewed Playground Sessions, recently released by brand invention firm ZAG, is an innovative new way to learn to play the piano. Employing a “Play to Learn” approach, this downloadable software hopes to revolutionize the music tutoring industry by bringing the allure and motivation of triple-A games such as Guitar Hero and Rockband to the often dull and tedious world of learning to play an instrument. While not a game per se, Playground Sessions borrows many of the features of successful video games to support learning and to help maintain interest and motivation.
We give Playground Sessions 4 stars on our 5-star scale, based on the application of our evaluation rubric for games for learning.
Read the Full Review: G4LI Review–Playground Sessions
G4LI Report of May 28th, 2010 Meeting—A Discussion of the Potential of Video Games to Transform the Future of Learning
Published September 19th, 2010
Category White Papers
By Charles Hendee
Topics
Click on the image to download a PDF of the report.
The permise of the day, as written in the program, was as follows:
PREMISE: After 30 years, digital educational products are going unused in homes and in schools. These materials are short on educational quality, and their impact on students is as yet unknown. We have yet to develop a means of knowing whether these products are effective for learning. Furthermore, we still have no way to assure that effective reach all students equally.
In our conversations today, we challenge you to brainstorm about how we can meet the following challenges:
How do digital media, especially games, help us respond to critical challenges in education, such as an emphasis on learning 21st Century skills, to bridge formal and informal (in-class and out-of-class) environments, to foster inter-generational construction and transfer of knowledge, and support the lowest performing students, as well as ELL students, with learning materials designed to follow Common Core Standards?
What new forms of assessment can capture students’ level of proficiency in these new skills?
We are especially interested in discussing how the potential of games can be leveraged to address these challenges?
How can any (game-based) solution we may identify be brought to scale (designed, produced, marketed)?
G4LI Report of May 28th, 2010 Meeting—A Discussion of the Potential of Video Games to Transform the Future of Learning
Published September 19th, 2010
Category White Papers
By Charles Hendee
Topics
Educational Game Design Pattern Candidates
Published December 10th, 2009
Category White Papers
By Helen Zhen Zeng , Jan L Plass and Bruce Homer
Topics design pattern, game design,
The NYU/CUNY team (Jan L. Plass, Catherine Milner, and Bruce Homer) conducted three months of research in an NYC middle school from April – June 2009. This preliminary research indicates several game design elements that either engaged players or that increased players’ levels of experienced fun.
History of Play in Education
Published October 19th, 2009
Category White Papers
By Tsu Ting Huang and Jan L Plass
Topics history of play, play, Salen, Zimmerman,
Game designers, Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman, describe the relationship between game and play as mutually subordinate (2004). Engaging in games is a kind of playful activity. Play, on the other hand, is one major element that constitutes a game. To create an effective educational game, understanding the concepts of play in education is important. G4LI thus creates an annotated bibliography, collecting various educators’ and psychologists’ ideas of play throughout history. The goal is to find out how play is related to education and human developments. The results can be adopted in the educational game design in later phases of research.
Following is a summary of the annotated bibliography. It is sorted by how play is related with education to distinguish various scholars’ points of view.
Research on Educational Impact of Games A Literature Review
Published October 11th, 2009
Category White Papers
By Jan L Plass , Andy Phelps and Tsu Ting Huang
Topics gaming, learning, Literature review,
Gaming Literature Coding
In response to researchers’ calls for more systematic investigations of the use of games for learning, we conducted an extensive literature review on this topic. By surveying prior research, we examined the themes that emerged, the methodology employed, and the findings yielded, the ultimate goal being to identify knowledge gaps in the literature. To this end, we reviewed the relevant research conducted in the last 15 years by following the procedures outlined below.
