Here’s an interesting article about a scientific study evaluating the use of a computer game to help 4-6 year-old-children focus their attention: Computer games help train kids to pay attention Although the article says that the study is inconclusive (what scientific study isn’t?), initial indications seem to be that the game did help the children [...]

Gee I was trying to teach kids the food pyramid with a low tech card game! My humble efforts have been totally eclipsed by the mighty United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). Check out the “My Pyramid Blast Off” interactive game available free from the USDA. It is designed to inform 6-11 year olds about [...]

Do you work for an organization or agency that’s just a bit hesitant to use games in training? If so, you might benefit from the following URL put out by the U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration.Titled “Public Involvement Techniques For Transportation Decision-Making”, this page lists several valid reasons why games-based training makes good [...]

The Learning Annex is offering Finding Flow with Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi on the evening of November 15. You’ll be reading about his flow theory in a few weeks, so this is extremely relevant. Thanks to 670 alum Jolie Kennedy for letting us know.

dontclick.it is an interesting site put together to demonstrate a website whose interface requires no clicking. I’m not sure I exactly get why (it seems to be more of an experiment of curiosity than an attempt to solve a serious problem), but it is a very elegant site with a fascinating interface and some interesting [...]

Someone in class asked whether a game always had to have a winner. Coincidentally, today I ran across this review of a cooperative game, Shadows Over Camelot, written by the always witty defective yeti. Players compete agains the game itself. Either they all win or they all lose. Check it out!

You can tell that people are taking something seriously when they start holding conferences in Washington, D.C., and charging hundreds of dollars to attend. There is an upcoming conference there on October 31 and November 1 called the Serious Games Summit. Early birds can attend for $595 plus travel expenses. They have quite a lineup [...]

This is a link to an article from Computer Edge magazine titled “Virtual Soldiering: Training, Recruiting, and Entertainment.” The article describes that the U.S. Army has created a free downloadable game called “America’s Army,” that has nearly 6 million registered players. The game takes players through boot camp, and then on to Ranger and Airborne [...]

Regarding Everything Bad is Good for You, I think the author is correct. I think my son’s education has been greatly enhanced by the computer games and simulations that he has been exposed to since being a young child. A much richer educational experience than I had growing up, for sure. My son and I [...]

When people of my generation see kids glued to the tube or attached like an umbilical cord to their Sony PS2s, we assume that IQs are dropping and neurons are stopping. Not so, argues Steven Johnson in Everything Bad Is Good for You. Here’s a quote from the dust jacket:A video game will never be [...]

I am asking (making!) my son (who is an avid gamer) go through some of these online games with me this weekend. I am pretty game deficient and need help navigating. I’ll report back after I try a few. I did look at Professor Fizwizzle. Really cute but I still didn’t know what to do. [...]

Here’s an interesting article on how more colleges and universities are offering minors and even majors in computer games: More colleges offering game theory courses, from the MSNBC web site. Courses have titles such as Animation 1 and Cognition and Gaming. The article compares the computer gaming world of today to the rock world of [...]

Some of the best fun I’ve ever had learning a subject was with the books of Raymond Smullyan. He uses puzzles to make learning logic fun. He starts with puzzles about knights that always tell the truth and knaves that always lie and then leads you to puzzles with combinatory logic and even to puzzles [...]

Seeing Bernie’s post reminded me about a site I came across this last summer that features online games (mostly Flash-based) that center around a good user experience. Good Experience Games – it has an RSS feed, too. I think you’ll find some inspiration there as you work on your projects this semester. Have fun – [...]

The course hasn’t really heated up yet, so you probably have lots of spare time on your hands. The Free Multiplayer Online Games site might provide an excellent way to blot up those pesky extra minutes in your day. And because they’re multiplayer games, you can drag your friends and family down the road of [...]

Hello all, I just came across this site which is a repository of all things related to board games. The URL is http://www.boardgamegeek.com/ Enjoy!

Thanks Paul. This KartOO site is pretty incredible. I did a search on Dressage and got this map of sites from all over the world. Its amazing how they link the various categories together. The little genie that pops up is cute.

Welcome to the wonderful world of blogging. I was introduced to blogging when I joined the EdGames blog two years ago. It remains on my blogger dashboard along with 3 other blogs I’ve started. Even though my class ended two years ago, I still enjoy reading the EdGames posts for the class. I enjoy it [...]

The discussion yesterday on branches in the path, and choices and decisions as they relate to board game content and structures got me thinking about a meta search engine called KartOO that uses a visual display interface. Search queries are sent to a set of search engines; gathered results are compiled and represented by KartOO [...]

This post is related to the class only because I was leaving the building after today’s class to find the sky populated with clouds and the nicest red-hued sunset I’ve seen in a while. Bursting upward, over the tops of the nearby buildings, the rays of the setting sun brightly tinted the closest clouds. As [...]

The EdGames blog goes dormant from December to September in between class offerings. But now it’s yawning, stretching, scratching the crud out of its eyes and getting ready to be a useful source of information sharing for this class and others. It’s good to be back.