Games, simulations, and virtual worlds provide educators with an opportunity to engage learners in an immersive and interactive environment that requires knowledge, decision making, and information management skills. However, the use of immersive learning environments can be controversial; their association with play and fun is often considered noneducational. Even so, games, simulations, and virtual worlds are gaining increased cultural acceptance. Research suggests that these environments can play a significant role in facilitating learning through engagement, group participation, immediate feedback, and providing real-world contexts.
Questions the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) explores include:
What are student expectations for interaction with course content, and how can games and simulations play a role in fulfilling those expectations?
What types of learning outcomes can be achieved through game play?
Are there particular academic disciplines where games and simulations can be most effective? What about particular learning styles?
What game and simulation technologies are best for education?
What support is needed by faculty to integrate games and simulations in their courses?
River City, Harvard University Funded by the National Science Foundation, River City is an “interactive computer simulation for middle gradess science students to learn scientific inquiry and 21st century skills.” The project places students in a virtual environment that looks and feels like a videogame but challenges them to work collaboratively to solve a health mystery.
AET Zone, Instructional Technology Program, Appalachian State University "The AET Zone (AETZ) is a multi-user virtual environment created by the faculty in the Instructional Technology program at Appalachian State University. AET Zone is our 'campus' for online learning, constructed to support the social constructivist learning experiences we provide our students in our courses and our program."
Envision Center for Data Perceptualization, Purdue University The Envision Center supports multiple modes of data visualization for research and teaching. Undergraduate and graduate students gain knowledge of advanced data visualization technologies and applications through courses and research projects utilizing the facility. For faculty, the center provides the opportunity to "...display and visually interact with scientific data in innovative ways."
National Institute for Technology and Liberal Education (NITLE) Research: Casual Games NITLE's Casual Games site identifies an array of computer games that are playable through Web browsers. Their content can be action, puzzle, simulation, storytelling, point-and-click exploration, or any other genre, and their tone can be comic, tragic, neutral, playful, political, or other.
Physics Education Technology, University of Colorado-Boulder The Physics Education Technology project offers "fun, interactive [digital] simulations of physical phenomena" to support teaching and learning about physics.
PublicHealthGames.com, University of Illinois-Chicago The Center for the Advancement of Distance Education in the School of Public Health at the University of Illinois-Chicago develops and maintains the PublicHealthGames.com site. It provides state-of-the-art games and simulations for public health workers and emergency responders to help them train for a multitude of catastrophic scenarios.
The ChemCollective, Carnegie-Mellon University A collection of virtual labs, scenario-based learning activities, and concepts tests that can be incorporated into a variety of teaching approaches as prelabs, alternatives to textbook homework, and in-class activities for individuals or teams. It is organized by a group of faculty and staff at Carnegie Mellon University for college and high school teachers who are interested in using, assessing, and/or creating engaging online activities for chemistry education.
Interactive Nano-Visualization in Science and Engineering Education (INVSEE) Visualization Gallery IN-VSEE is a consortium of university and industry scientists and engineers, community college and high school science faculty, and museum educators with a common vision of creating an interactive Web site to develop a new educational thrust based on remote operation of advanced microscopes and nanofabrication tools coupled to powerful surface characterization methods.
State of Play Academy This site provides tools for law courses currently being taught in virtual worlds.
Video in Education Created by Drexel University student Dylan Steinberg, this is a quick video journey into the minds of six college students from across the nation. They discuss their views and dive into the future of videos in education.
Othello performed in World of Warcraft "A World at His Fingertips" blog posting May 30, 2006, on Bud the Teacher by teacher Bud Hunt showcases the video produced by one of his students.
USC Center on Public Diplomacy and Virtual Worlds The USC Center on Public Diplomacy hosted a contest for people to showcase their talent with a bit of world-class game making. The challenge posed to the game mod community, and current and aspiring game designers, was to design a prototype or modify a game incorporating the fundamental characteristics of public diplomacy.
The Exorarium Combining state-of-the-art simulation and visualization systems, plus the very best ideas from astronomy, physics, chemistry, and ecology, the Exorarium will empower users to create vividly plausible extraterrestrials and then test them in realistic first-contact scenarios.
WoW Moviewatch: "Level Up" This site offers a nine-minute minidocumentary on massively multiplayer online role playing games (MMORPGs) in general, with a focus on World of Warcraft.
Relevant Web Sites
The Education Arcade The Education Arcade is "an MIT–University of Wisconsin partnership putting research into practice," creating the next generation of educational games.
Federation of American Scientists (FAS) The Federation of American Scientists Information Technologies Project focuses "on strategies to intensify and focus research and development to harness the potential of emerging information technologies to improve how we teach and learn." The Information Technologies Project area of the FAS Web site contains the Learning Federation section with resources on "Games for Health Resources" and "Games for Learning Resources."
Games and Culture Games and Culture is "a new, quarterly international journal that publishes innovative theoretical and empirical research about games and culture within interactive media. The journal serves as a premiere outlet for ground-breaking work in the field of game studies."
Marc Prensky Marc Prensky is a leading thinker on the potential applications of gaming to learning. He has developed more than 50 computer-based learning games. His site provides links to the various materials and resources he has developed on gaming and learning, including his writings and blog.
Metaverse Roadmap The Metaverse Roadmap (MVR) is a ten-year forecast and visioning survey of 3D Web technologies, applications, markets, and potential social impacts. Areas it explores include the convergence of Web applications with networked computer games and virtual worlds, the use of 3D creation and animation tools in virtual environments, and the underlying trends in technologies and practices that will transform the Web in the coming decade.
The NanoTechnology Group The NanoTechnology Group provides virtual classroom development tools, virtual simulations, and educational games and animations to support teaching and learning in nano-scale science.
PlayOn The PlayOn project at the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) investigates the social dimensions of massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) and virtual worlds. It has explored several virtual worlds including Star Wars Galaxies, EverQuest Online Adventures, Second Life, World of Warcraft, and EverQuest II. Project leaders consider these to be "...the most successful virtual worlds to date..." and view them as "...laying the foundations for future environments which may be used for more than entertainment and sociability."
Serious Games Initiative "The Serious Games Initiative is focused on uses for games in exploring management and leadership challenges facing the public sector. Part of its overall charter is to help forge productive links between the electronic game industry and projects involving the use of games in education, training, health, and public policy." This site has two discussion lists of note, Games for Health and Games for Change.
Serious Games Source The CMP Game Group developed the Serious Games Source Web site as a resource for the use of games in "training, health, government, military, educational and other uses." The Web site is editorially driven, with the "Features" tab offering a number of articles related to the educational use of games.
Virtual Worlds Review Virtual Worlds Review is a basic guide to persistent online 2D and 3D virtual worlds that emphasize social interaction (MMOSGs).
David Williamson Shaffer, Kurt R. Squire, Richard Halverson, and James P. Gee, "Videogames and the Future of Learning," October 2005, Phi Delta Kappan.
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