Have you ever wondered what it would be like to run your own university? Here’s your chance to test your skills and knowledge as you become the university’s president. The player will gain a better understanding of management practices in our colleges and universities. Virtual U was developed by William Massy, among others, of the [...]

For the past few years, I’ve been trying to find a web site that provides educational software reviews using a formal methodology. I still haven’t found any really strong sites (If anyone knows of any, I’d like to hear about them), but a number of years ago I ran into SuperKids Educational Software Reviews. This [...]

The Mattel Corporation (manufacturer of Barbie and Hot Wheels) was recently victorious in the High Court of Justice in London. Mattel’s claim of copyright infringement against Simba Toys and the “My Style” doll line was determined to be valid. The line was a copy of Mattel’s “My Scene” dolls. Mattel has maintained the highest standards [...]

It looks like the producers of the newest sims-like online role-playing game, There.com are hoping that the Lizzy McGuire set will flock to this virtual getaway and once they ARE there that they will shell out real cash to buy virtual things like “hip” clothes or floating surfboards. Admittedly, this sim looks very cool. QuickTime [...]

While the toy business in general is not doing especially well, BusinessWeek reports in a November 24 article, that board games are one of the few bright spots. The overall board-games category is up 10% so far this year and toymaker Hasbro reports sales up 50% in that area. Two former Microsoft executives stumbled upon [...]

Did you know that winning online games can pay big money? Yep, the gamers have gone pro, forming the Cyberathlete Professional League. After Counter-Strike became wildly popular, tournaments began to appear, and with them, a group of players so expert that they went professional. They have sponsors, some of them can make as much as [...]

Game Research attempts to bring together knowledge on computer games from the areas of art, business, and science. I like their cross-discipline approach to gaming. This site presents short introductions to important areas of gaming issues and gaming research, and provides access to a database of links and references to literature. The “research articles” should [...]

Spike TV is presenting the 1st Annual Video Game Awards scheduled to air on Thursday December 4 at 9PM ET/PT. You can even vote for your favorite games in a number of categories. While the competition includes categories for online games, PC games, handheld games and many others; sadly, it does not include a category [...]

Sure, they’re drills. But still, here is a resource for the K-12 classroom: scweb4free.com has designed math games in Flash for elementary and middle school students. I like the fact that students can set their own goals before starting by selecting a time limit (from 1 to 8 minutes) and the number of problems to [...]

Last weekend I stumbled across a great game store here in San Diego. It is called Game Empire and is located in Clairemont off the 805 freeway. Billing itself as “Land of a Thousand Games,” Game Empire has a tremendous selection of games of all kinds: chess, backgammon, mahjong, independent board games, educational games, puzzles, [...]

BBC Learning has a simple game they use to promote their training development services. The game actually encourages the user to wad up their notes from training (Gasp!) and toss them into a wastebasket. Of course, there’s a wonderful twist that makes this a very engaging game to play. Give it a try! This game [...]

And you thought your Xbox was only for games…According to Andrew “Bunnie” Huang, a recent MIT grad, you can get around the many security features in an Xbox console and take control of the device, essentially converting it into a computer that costs less than $200. He has written a book, Hacking the Xbox, which [...]

This simple simulation is a great exercise for those who need to experience the feel of the trade-offs which policy makers need to make in creating federal budgets and dealing with deficits. The National Budget Simulation, asks you to adjust spending and tax expenditures in the the 2004 budget proposed by the White House in [...]

It looks like the producers of the newest sims-like online role-playing game, There.com are hoping that the Lizzy McGuire set will flock to this virtual getaway and once they ARE there that they will shell out real cash to buy virtual things like “hip” clothes or floating surfboards. Admittedly, this sim looks very cool. QuickTime [...]

I ran across this web page while performing a Google search looking for computer troubleshooting simulations. The Simulation Argument is both a web page and a hypothesis by Nick Bostrom, a Philosophy Research Fellow at Oxford University. Dr. Bostrom posits that it is likely that we either are, or soon will be, living within a [...]

This game is pretty interesting! Vanished Planet is a cooperative board game, meaning all players work together to win. Either all the players win or they all lose. The object of the game is to strategically plan ship movement, resource management, and technology building while trying to delay the creature from destroying your world. Not [...]

GameDev.net has news, tutorials and all kinds of information related to game development, including the ever popular job offers. Information ranges from tutorials on C++ to news of a bachelors degree in game development to articles on many aspects of game design.

It might make more sense to the kids if they could role play some of the important events in the history as part of their learning experience. Here is a website presented by Distance Simulation Group, a Division of Historical Learning Foundation (HOLF). They have two simulations for now: (1) Civial War OnLine – a [...]

If you are a science teacher for grade 6-12, you can’t miss the chance to surf on the website of explore learning. This is a site with a whole collection of educational simulations and games for subjects in science: Maths, Earth and Space, Life Science, Biology, etc. You name it!

This is a great collection of a variety of educational simulations – Virtual Labs & Simulations. They have hundreds of links to simulations on different subjects, from light simulations to wave simulations, from color theory to maths and computers. This is a good resource for teachers at schools.

Wanna take a trip to the future? There is a simulation site called “The Fourth Planet: A Colony of the Future“, where you could find a very unique community of students who are making their new homes on Mars, virtually. They chose to relocate in Mars mostly because of environmental issues. So they started building [...]

Our neighbor down the road, UCSD, is offering a video game programming seminar for anyone interested in learning about the software involved in creating video games. It covers graphics, collision detection, physics simulation, character animation, 3D sound, special effects and for those who are way into it, artificial intelligence. Definitely worth checking out!

Are you interested in becoming a Historian? If so, Plimoth Plantation is the place for you. Come join Sarah and Dancing Hawk as they guide you through what really happened at the harvest festival in 1621. This is also referred to as “The First Thanksgiving”, but is this true? You will need Macromedia Flash Player [...]

The Liemandt Foundation, a non-profit foundation focused on promoting technology-enabled education, is hosting a college student video game development contest to challenge students to build entertaining games that “secretly” teach middle school subjects. Games will be judged in May for a chance at the grand prize of $25,000. Advising the contest are Richard Garriott and [...]

Here is a website for the amateur astronomer. It appears to be a website for an introductory astronomy class. It contains various simulations that include measuring the stellar parallax, eclipsing binary stars, a binary star system and Stellar Evolution. When you click on one of these simulations you view each in motion. Underneath each simulation [...]

This is actually a simulation game from educational simulations. The name of the game is called “real lives“. It is an interactive life simulation that enables you to live one of billions of lives in any country in the world. Through statistically accurate events, Real Lives brings to life different cultures, political systems, economic opportunities, [...]

Frog dissection has been an indispensible part of biology class. However, back in 1994, a program called “Net Frog” was first created by Richard Strauss, Jean Foss, and Mable Kinzie and later developed into an online tutorial as a valuable preparation tool or even a useful substitute for laboratory dissection. This may not be anything [...]

It is said that the doppler effect is comparatively easy to be recognized than explained or simulated. Here is an interactive lesson with vivid wave simulations. You can learn about the doppler effect by playing several different simulations on this site, watch mini-movies, and get further resources recomended by SMEs. This is really an educational [...]

In an article on the TechTV website, Paul Reiche III, a game designer at Crystal Dynamics provides a series of tips and a “course catalogue” for would-be game designers. Not surprisingly, he points out that game design is a “mongrel discipline” that involves a broad range of skills. While most designers have a core skill [...]

Yikes. Zounds. Another disappointing teachers website. This one is called Educational Educators, and is sponsored by About.com. It purports to be Your guide to hundreds of educational web sites. And it is, if you define ‘Your guide’ as ‘A series of hyperlinks to hundreds of sites with little input as to the purpose or usefulness [...]

Buzzcut.com is a really awesome site that discusses everything about video game theory and critcism. Edited and produced by David Thomas, it features an open forum on a variety of topics including critical writing, games and society, books and articles, etc. On this particular page, David features video game vocabulary and a poster that describes [...]

Have you ever wanted to play the stock market with someone else’s money? Well here’s your chance. FantasyStocks.com, in it’s fourth year, will generously give you $100,000 (fantasy dollars) to build your portfolio. All trades will cost you $25.00 from your fantasy dollars. Sounds interesting to me. This on-line challenge is a FREE educational tool [...]

Chris Musslewaite, CEO of Discovery Learning, proposes a system to classify the levels of complexity in simulations in an article in ASTD’s Learning Circuits Magazine. The goals of the sytem are to help trainers and facilitators become more confident in using simulations by giving them tools to describe their functionality and complexity when talking with [...]

I’ve worked as a computer support technician at a handful of elementary schools in the Cajon Valley Union School District; each school has a teacher designated as the Site Lead Technology Teacher, whose responsibility it is to help deal with technology issues on campus, including computer problems and, to a somewhat lesser extent, to attempt [...]

The Collective Detective is one of the newest forms of online communities. They participate in what are known as ARGs or Alternate Reality Games. These games can involve many elements both from the real and virtual world. These may include real world clues, phone calls, voicemail, email, and real people playing roles in real life. [...]

This website is an add on to the original Ghost Recon game. It is has been improved. What ghost recon is a simulation war game. People experience this game and get the feeling of what it is really like to be in a war-time situation. The creator of this website says military people who have [...]

In an article in the October, 2003 edition of his on-line newsletter, Play for Performance , Thiagi writes about the effectiveness of instructional games compared with other training methods. His response to the question of which is better can be summed up by the title of the article, “Stupid Research Questions.” He says that comparing [...]

Canadarm2 is a 35-foot crane-like machine aboard the International Space Station. Among other things, it is used to capture satellites and other free-flying objects in space. This is a difficult task that requires training in manual and visual dexterity. However, no practice was available once the astronauts arrived at the station. Through collaboration between Russian [...]

http://www.whatifsports.com/locker/default.asp Here’s one for the sports fans out there. This site provides inquisitive or wager-oriented sports aficionados with SimMatchup™ and SimLeague™. These simulations allow fans to pit teams against each other in simulated games based on team and individual player stats. Users aren’t just limited to past teams either, since current and future teams can [...]

Not surprisingly, Disney Online has a graphically rich selection of “learning” games for younger kids on their site. Actually, once you get through the very commercial sections promoting the latest movies and theme parks, these games and simulations seem to offer a nice variety of creative activities for younger kids. There is also an overview [...]

Do you want to brush up on your mental mathematics? Then, this game is for you. You are given 4 numbers that you must add, subtract, multiply, or divide to get the result of 24. Look at the example to the right. Can you get 24? How long did it take you? Can you get [...]

I have used this drill and practice math program in summer school to test the speeds of incoming sixth graders. QuarterMile Math is appropriate for grades K-9. The problems are randomly generated and the user receives plenty of practice. There are a variety of topics to choose from at each grade level. I have mainly [...]

While researching the many flavors of wiki on the net, I came across a spin-off on Wikipedia. Disinfopedia is the home of the encyclopedia of propaganda. This site was started in March of 2003, and is now home to nearly 2,500 articles. The site is laid out like the Wikipedia site but has a stronger [...]

The Museum of Jurassic Technology is located in Los Angeles California and is an educational institution devoted the advancement and public appreciation of the lower Jurassic. It is geared not only to the academic looking to do scientific research, but also the general public. It gives visitors a “hands-on” view of Jurassic Technology. It puts [...]

http://gamerschool.com/ So, you want a job in the video game industry? Well, you need a degree first. This university offers just that. The University of Advancing Technology has tracks in game design and game programming for those who want to create games for a living. The courses available range from 2D and 3D game design [...]

I came across this news release announcing Dollars and Sense, a new fun educational site produced by Maryland Public Television aimed at helping teenagers better understand money issues. Boy was I excited! While the press release claims that Dollars and Sense was “developed in collaboration with educators and economic organizations, incorporates a hip design with [...]

As teachers search for new ways of rewarding appropriate behavior and increasing student motivation, Candystand.com may serve as an effective tool. This website is so visually appealing that one visit there may cause your students to never crave the “real thing” again (not). The reverse may actually be true however, as this site’s design could [...]

FlatWorld is a project at the University of Southern California that mixes reality with an immersive virtual environment. Using rear projection screens and motion tracking, a specially designed room displays computer animation and graphics that change based on the position of the user. With stereoscopic technology, elements can even appear to move into the room. [...]

Hey ladies (and gentlemen), here is a site worth checking out! WomenGamers.com, whose slogan is “Because women do play,” aims to inform its audience of the latest industry trends and offer product reviews, game reviews, and informative gender-focused articles written by gamers for gamers. The “Reviews/Previews” portion of the site analyzes video games and gives [...]

This simulation allows players to learn about PVA- Population Viability Analysis- a method that lets students study the process of extinction without having to travel to the far regions of the world to do so. Simulations have been run on the Florida Panther and Key Deer, Bairds Tapir, Sumatran Tiger, and Puerto Rican parrot. The [...]