During my research about famous or relatively famous educational game designers I never imagined I would come across an article about former Supreme Court Justic Sandra Day O’Connor in this field. The original article, published in June 2008 discusses O’Connor’s role as a key note speaker at the annual Games for Change conferance at Parsons [...]

Video Game Designer, Critic, and Researcher: Ian Bogost http://www.bogost.com/games/ I came across this site created by Dr. Ian Bogost, who is a videogame designer, critic, and researcher. He is Associate Professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Founding Partner at Persuasive Games LLC. His research and writing considers videogames as an expressive medium, and [...]

Am I on the right track? Like many of my colleagues in this class, I had very little previous knowledge about game design and the people behind it. In researching information for this blog post I went on a long (I guess “relatively long” is more appropriate) search for educational game designers and their organizations. [...]

I began my initialresearch feeling a little under prepared. I knew little to nothing about educational games. So I Googled educational game conferences, and found the Game Education Summit. One thing that struck me as I did my research is that educational game designers come from all walks of life and all disciplines-which makes sense when [...]

In James Nance’s article Wizard 101, he looks back one year after launching the game and offers the lessons he learned. The game is multiplayer game for children that at the time of creation only had ToonTown as a competitor. One of the reasons he gives for the games success was that it was the [...]

Educational Games that Create Social Change

I was searching for information about the Barnum Software Company, and found more links about the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus than about the educational software company responsible for countless school-related materials.   This does not mean that the company is necessarily on the small side, but I found it interesting what the search [...]

I came across an interesting article by game designer Tim Lang, which I soon found was only one of his many blog posts offering tips on how to succeed in the game design industry.  This particular post was about “5 Ways Game Designers Communicate.”  Here’s a little background on Tim: Tim Lang has been on [...]

Like much of Euprope, the Prussians spent a large portion of the early 19th century getting their butts kicked by Napoleon and his French Armies.  The Prussian-Franco war of 1870, however, yielded a much different result.  The Prussian Army handedly defeated the French Army, marking the downfall of the second French Empire and the creation [...]

GAME ON!
USING COMPUTER GAMES TO TEACH WRITING

While reading an article about the “Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2006 Curriculum Workshop” on the “International Game Developers Association” (IGDA) site, I came upon several interesting comments made by some of the speakers at the conference. A large portion of the article was focused on how to educate up-and-coming game designers and how game development [...]

The Handheld Learning Conference will take place October 5-7 in London.  According to the website, the Handheld Learning Conference, now in its fifth year,  “is the world’s leading event about learning using mobile and inexpensive access technologies, attended by more than 1,500 international delegates.”  This year’s theme is “Creativity, Innovation, Inclusion and Transformation.”  Of interest [...]

Designer A famous and very recognizable name in the computer gaming industry since the beginning is Sid Meier. He almost always places his name in front of his game titles. If you’ve ever played any of the Civilization series then you’ve dabbled in some of Sid’s creations. Meier became the second person to be inducted [...]

Although Joseph Saulter is not necessarily an educational game designer, he does provide opportunities for youth in underprivileged neighbors of Atlanta, Maryland and Washington D.C. to be introduced to careers in the educational design field. He is co-founder of the Urban Video Game Academy, and annually sponsors young people to participate in a program offering [...]

Want to become a game developer?  Well then look no further than DePaul University in Chicago.  The program at DePaul University focuses on four different areas: Game programming, deesign, production, and animation. The program has some amazing faculty members, one of which is Alex Seropian, who created the Halo computer game franchise.  Many of the faculty [...]

I’m only distorting the facts a little. The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) was formed in 1945 by scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project and the FAS does have a keen interest in educational games, including video games. In fact, Learning Technologies is one of the three primary programs listed on the FAS home [...]

My favorite game of all time?? SET. Definitely SET. And, in all my 15+ years of playing it, not once did I think about the person behind it. Recent research revealed, drum roll please, . . . Cambridge University population geneticist Marsha Jean Falco.   Here’s the story, in her own words, about SET’s creation: [...]

Who remembers Blinky, Pinky, Inky and Clyde?  Maybe you don’t remember them by name, but they are the blinking ghosts in Pac-Man.  I thought back to the arcade game that stood out to me the most as a kid and came up with Pac-Man.  I spent countless hours chasing dots as a child.  I looked [...]

I can’t find the original post now, but thought I would share this. (from PBS Frontline) http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/digitalnation/learning/games-that-teach/

In 2003, the Center for Computer Games Research was established at the IT University of Copenhagen over in Denmark (http://game.itu.dk).  The center is comprised of a group of researchers from varied backgrounds including the Arts, Humanities, Social Sciences and Computer Sciences.  One of their most published researchers is a man by the name of Simon [...]

Scrape, Scuff, Scour and “Scrabble”!! – Information about a (relatively) famous educational game designer, or researcher. In the midst of the Great Depression of 1930′s, he attempted to create a game that would use both “chance and skill”. He had a degree in architecture from the University of Pennsylvania. He frequently did painstaking calculations of [...]

When asked to discuss an educational designer, researcher, or organization of note, I found myself hard-pressed to come up with subject matter. My gaming experience, as compared with many of my peers in what might be termed “the dawn of the gaming age” (a completely unofficial and fabricated term) is virtually nonexistent.  However, I do [...]

Henry Jenkins, a Professor for Communications and Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California, advocates for the “YouTube Generation” and is a proponent of utilizing technology in and outside of the classroom to enhance learning. Specific to educational game design, Jenkins has regularly collaborated with game designers and fellow scholars to push initiatives that [...]

At Purdue University there is a Teaching and Learning with Technology Conference (TLT) every year.  This year the keynote speaker for the conference was Sarah “Intellagirl” Robbins.  She is a PhD student at Ball University and author of multiple articles and a few books including, Second Life for Dummies. She initially drew attention when she [...]

The Games for Health project is a community of researchers and developers of games created for education in health care.  The project was created out of the Serious Games Initiative, an effort by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholar, which was developed to link the game industry with the education, training, and public health.  The Games [...]

Clark Aldrich is the founder of SimuLearn, a company that designs serious games and educational simulations for professional use.  He writes the ‘Clark Aldrich on Simulations and Serious Games’ blog, and has authored books on the subject such as ‘The Complete Guide to Simulations and Serious Games’ and ‘Learning Online with Games, Simulations, and Virtual [...]

A few years ago, a coworker got us all reading this book – Michael Allen’s Guide to e-Learning. Does anyone remember Authorware?  Michael Allen was the creator of this flowchart-based authoring tool still (but not for much longer) available from Adobe.  These days, in addition to writing, consulting and speaking on e-learning, Dr. Allen runs [...]

As a teenager, I’ve played his games countless times without knowing who created the games.  Compared to most game designers, Richard Garriott is old.  He’s 46 and created Akalabeth, the Ultima series,  Pacman, Space Invaders, and Donkey Kong.  But in all of these games, only one player could play at a time.  He envisioned something [...]

Long ago, I remember a world in which green computer screens had a blinking cursor. Online RGPs did not exist. (How could it? Al Gore had not yet invented the Internet.) My father had given me a book (I think it was “Basic Computer Games”) with hundreds, if not thousands, of lines of code that [...]

There are several public interest groups and non-profits in the United States who have worked and lobbied to add rating systems on movies, music and yes, Games. These ratings are an effort by these groups to provide parents with information about the content so they may choose if they will allow their children to access [...]

“Gaming is actually a very important part of my life. I think the reason for that is that I was very severe  dyslexic. I couldn’t read, really.” – Jordan Weisman, Game Designer, Entrepreneur. While looking for information on famous game designers, I came across an article on famous people with dyslexia.  One of the featured [...]

I recently ran across an article about a researcher from the University of Wisconsin named James Paul Gee, who also teaches Curriculum and Instruction in the College of Education at UW-Madison. He was interviewed by an organization entitled the “Wisconsin Technology Network (see logo below)” about how key principles of games can be used in [...]

The fact that I work at UCSD is not meant in any way to bias  this post – or maybe it is because I realized [after reading all of the blogs] that no one seems to know that we have a goldmine of resources here in San Diego at the California Institute of Telecommunications and [...]

For the past few years I have become more and more aware of the contributions of Carnegie Mellon University and people associated with CMU to a things I am teaching or studying. An abbreviated list, includes: Alice – software for teaching CS Randy Pausch – involved in the creation of Alice though perhaps more widely [...]

Article examining the use of video games in education.

http://www.gameeducationsummit.com/ges_speaker_bio_2009.php?ind=13 Who knew about the Game Education Summit? Probably Bernie and Karl, but not I … here are some fascinating webcasts of lectures addressing the direction of the industry … I guess I can no longer justify challenging my daughter’s ambition to be a game designer …

Okay so if had to describe what I thought would be the coolest job, game designer would definately be top on the list. Figures the coolest job would come with…..yup, you guessed it!!! The coolest convention. Can you imagine the level of geek at this thing. Throw in San Francisco and Im sold. Apparently 400 [...]

With the creation of the latest console system some years ago ie Playstation3, Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii, game developers were given a new canvas to create the future of gaming. The Sony and Microsoft systems focused on arming themselves with the latest processor and video card technology to run the smoothest and most beautiful [...]

I found an interesting blog on google titled the Journal of Board Game Design. “ Seems to revolve around many of the ideas we’ve discussed in 670, e.g. whether a game is fun and exciting. These reviewers dissected a game titled “Silk Road” If you read the interview with the designer he explains the purpose [...]

We’re going to court. My husband is an artist. A graphic artist to be exact. This summer he had the unfortunate pleasure of dealing with a client who thought he could trademark a piece of commissioned character art without having to pay for it. Now that the client has breached our signed contract, and put [...]

So for this assignment I searched Google for Educational Gaming.  I didn’t have to search through too many links and posts until I stumbled across this fascinating, and it appears fairly new, organization focussed on educational gaming at Penn State University called Educational Gaming Commons.  The main site is located at http://gaming.psu.edu. Penn State’s Educational [...]

High profile and high energy – David Perry is probably best known in the gaming business as the master mind behind famed video games such as Earthworm Jim (a bionic suit-clad worm saves the galaxy), Messiah (a rogue cherub taked over creatures’ bodies to defeat sin), and also best-selling game adaptations of movies like Disney’s [...]

Born and raised just outside of London, England, Neil Young has made a habit of breaking the mold when it comes to game design and development. He owes his career to what he calls a moment at the ripe old age of fourteen. While playing his Atari video game system one day, he literally fell [...]

Recently, I read an article entitled, “Computer Science Courses on the Decline”, in The Journal: Technologic Horizons in Education that I found very eyeopening.  This article discusses some alarming statistics that point to the decline of Computer Science courses in high schools.  The article points out that a large number of school districts are seeing [...]

The Art Institute is an example of an institution where you can receive up to date instruction on game design.

In his book What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy (Revised and updated edition, Palgrave Macmillan, 2007). James Gee, a well-known educator and linguist, discusses how video games can offer models for improved instructional design in the classroom.  Gee began playing video games with his son, where he discovered that the [...]

Random web browsing netted a couple interesting ideas: Wired.com article talks about the appeal of Dragon Quest IX in Japan. The concept of “passerby communication” is new and interesting: a Nintendo DS shares information with another unit. Unique Japanese cultural idea of “meeting new people”? Not directly related to gaming, but a Netflix contest has [...]

I stumbled across GameDesk when I searched for a math focused game developer.  GameDesk was developed at the Integrated Media Systems Center (IMSC) of USC’s Viterbi School of Engineering.  It is a platform aimed at actively engaging 15 to 17 year old high school students in learning math and physics concepts. A pilot program is [...]

During the ISPI Performance Improvement Conference earlier this year, I had the pleasure to meet and listen to a brilliantly engaging speaker named Dr. Sivasailam Thiagarajan; thankfully, he goes by the name of “Thiagi,” dramatically reducing the chances of others slaughtering his name.  Maybe his name is familiar to you – his name was in [...]

Put a gun to my head right now and ask me to name a (relatively) well known game designer, and it’d be bye bye Nate. I didn’t have any idea where to start for this assignment, so of course I went to google tried a couple of searches. I read some articles on companies, specific [...]