This class taught me some useful concepts and ideas about the way educators can motivate and challenge students though e-games. The skill I am now lacking, and I am sure it will come with time, is the ability to gage how much time to spend on an e-game and how to correctly implement it. I [...]

While not an environment like Second Life, Conflict Lab, winner of the 2004 Apple Design for Education, offers media-rich, interactive web-based role-playing based on national and international conflict scenarios. Currently used in university level courses, Conflict Lab offers students the opportunity to participate in opposite sides of a structured negotiation process. Unique resources provide just-in-time [...]

“Gaming achieves new respect and market acceptance” predicts Mark Anderson in his prognostications for 2006 in the article, Industry Expert’s Predictions for 2006. This expert claims a 70 to 80% accuracy for his predictions. Of course, we could all predict this as well. BTW, I wonder if there’s a game like “last word” where siblings [...]

If you’re having trouble seeing stuff you’ve uploaded to eprentice, it’s likely because file permissions don’t seem to be getting assigned correctly within eprentice right now. I’m taking care of the problem by using Filezilla to reassign permissions after uploading files. (Once a file’s permission is correctly set, it will stay correct on subsequent file [...]

Hi All, Well….it’s not at all educational. But if you’re like me, you are working very hard trying to finish your last few projects….particularly the egame project. A little diversion never hurt anyone as far as I know, and it certainly lightened my spirits and made me smile. Hope it does the same for you. [...]

I ran across this simulation game in a Distance Learning email. This Canadian company comes up with a holiday-themed exercise every year. Last year it was regarding Negotiations. This year was Time Management. So Santa’s Little Helper guides you through a project where you have to set up a Santa event at the mall with [...]

Here’s The Onion’s hilarious take on a (fictitious, of course) video game that turns the motivation models on their heads: Electronic-entertainment giant Take-Two Interactive, parent company of Grand Theft Auto series creator Rockstar Games, released Stacker Tuesday, a first-person vertical-crate-arranger guaranteed not to influence young people’s behavior in any way. “With Stacker, the player interacts [...]

I was able to get Second Life to function on my lap top to some degree, but wish I could get it to operate adequately on my PC. I have always been one to want to create a “new me” and personalize things, so could easily see myself spending some time exploring. I am far [...]

I just read this article. http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,69806,00.html?tw=rss.TEK It wasn’t this way when I went to school. I am out of the loop in terms of high schools and their implementation of technology in the classroom. Is this article the norm?

I use the Miriam Webster online dictionary often. Once upon a time they had some very interesting vocabulary-building word games on their site, that I accessed everyday while studying for the GREs. Recently they changed the types of games they offer. While not vocabulary-building games anymore, they are more animated, and actually more fun, than [...]

I’m having the same problem over and over in SL and just wondering if I am the only one? Every time I click on the file menu the program crashes and my computer freezes. I have to force quit all programs because nothing on my computer will run…. so I have to restart every time. [...]

While designing our e-game I’ve been online with two different virtual schools. They are very different from each other. Virtual Schools is one and Sim Teach is the other. I was overwhelmed by both of them. I wanted to just log in and start playing. One of them had to many directions and the other [...]

While doing some research for my e-games project I found an option for educators in Second Life. You can create a private island, which provides the space for a secure “intranet” for restricted membership only. You can restrict access of the classroom to individual students enrolled in the class. Any educators interested in using Second [...]

As a side note to Bernie’s entry about SL businesses, I want to find out what others think about the direction this kind of virtual world might take. I think there is both an amazing side and a disturbing side to the virtual business phenomenon that seems to be growing out of Second Life and [...]

Interesting article from Australia about money making in virtual worlds. This is only the beginning, I think!

Interesting article from Australia about money making in virtual worlds. This is only the beginning, I think!

Last night’s review and discussion of some of the motivational issues involved with game design got me thinking about a challenging word game I came across recently. The importance of challenge, according to Malone and Lepper, “depends critically on whether one is intrinsically or extrinsically motivated to participate in an activity,” and whether or not [...]

Last night’s review and discussion of some of the motivational issues involved with game design got me thinking about a challenging word game I came across recently. The importance of challenge, according to Malone and Lepper, “depends critically on whether one is intrinsically or extrinsically motivated to participate in an activity,” and whether or not [...]

Up until a month ago, I didn’t know what Second Life was. I saw the words “Second Life”, but had no clue what it was all about. So I downloaded the software and thought I would give it a try. I began just playing around, not attempting to read the directions. (Something I do quite [...]

Up until a month ago, I didn’t know what Second Life was. I saw the words “Second Life”, but had no clue what it was all about. So I downloaded the software and thought I would give it a try. I began just playing around, not attempting to read the directions. (Something I do quite [...]

I have been reading about Peace Gaming. This concept, described by Utsumi Takeshi, involves global simulations involving “civilian” factors such as economy, manufacturing, and trade. It is an answer to the concept of war gaming, which is competitive and zero-sum. Utsumi Takeshi’s paper on Globally Collaborative Environmental Peace Gaming is a particularly interesting read. In [...]

The December 2005/January 2006 issue of Innovate, the journal of online education, has an interesting article titled Applying Gaming and Simulation Techniques to the Design of Online Instruction, by Carolyn Rude-Parkins, Karen Hughes Miller, Karen Ferguson, and Robert Bauer. The article offers a number of considerations for software designers and educators seeking to incorporate gaming [...]