In Search of Educational iPhone Games

Is there an app for that? How popular would overtly educational iPhone games be, in light of this competition: the top iPhone games downloaded the last week of November, 2009. Here they are, in order and price:

1. Call of Duty: World at War: Zombies, $9.99

2. Monopoly, $2.99

3. Tetris, $2.99

4. Bejeweled 2, $2.99

5. Scrabble, $2.99

6. The Sims 3, $4.99

7. Need for Speed Undercover, $2.99

8. Madden NFL 10, $6.99

9. Implode, $1.99

10. Brothers in Arms: Hour of Heroes, $4.99

via PC World.

Seven Questions to Ask Before Using a Video Game In the Classroom

Today is the first day of school for most public districts in Texas. With that in mind, I’d like to offer seven important questions teachers should ask before using any videogame in the classroom. This list is based in part on a paper I delivered to the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT), 2005 Convention.

1. Is the game’s cognitive load appropriate for your students? Many simple edutainment titles are aimed at younger audiences. Consequently, these titles are often inappropriate for older students, who will find them less of a challenge and potentially insulting to their intelligence. Conversely, modifications of such titles as those in the Neverwinter Nights series, or the Civilization series, might be beyond the abilities of younger audiences.
2. Is the game easily modifiable? Many educational games on the market offer no capabilities for modification, giving teachers a “what you see is what you get” approach. Some games might have a higher level of adaptability for classroom use. For instance, a foreign language teacher can run a copy of The Sims 2 on her classroom computer and simply change the operating language, offering an instant immersive language environment for her students. Ideally, however, a game can be easily modified by the teacher, so that he can insert whatever objectives are needed into the gaming environment. Such modifications are more difficult and time consuming but doable, as seen in several examples for the Neverwinter Nights engine and Second Life.
3. Does the game align with your standards (local, state, national)? Fortunately this question is increasingly being addressed by educational video game companies, as they realize that the purchasing of their titles in large quantities by schools largely hinges on this question. Look at the excellent job Tabula Digita is doing making sure their math games are aligned with state and national standards. Hopefully the company selling the product has already done the alignment for you, however your job as a teacher will be to make sure you know where the product lines up with the standards you are responsible for teaching. If nobody has done that previously, chance are good you will have to do it yourself if you need to justify using the game in your classroom to parents and administrators.
4. Can the game present useful outcomes within a short time period? Class periods are generally short. Time spent on any lesson is perforce brief. Many excellent video games with learning potential are hugely complex and take hours to complete. However, you have just minutes in your class to drive home a point or two. Therefore you will need to eschew games that take an inordinate amount of time to develop their pedagogical points. Also, setting up a game and getting students going takes additional time, whether in a lab, on laptops, or on classroom computers. Setup and shutdown times will decrease the available minutes students can spend on the game and its learning objectives.
5. Does the game train or teach? This is a critical difference classroom teachers need to fully understand. Most “serious games,” as they are commonly called, train players in something. This training may involve safety practices, industrial techniques, machinery operation, or a host of other skills. Academic games aligned to state standards will focus on testable outcomes and high stakes exams. Most teachers will not want to deviate from the standards they are required to teach, or at least have a ready explanation as to how the game is germane to their subject matter. For instance, a geometry teacher could certainly justify using a game that involves creating floor plans; a history teacher can find plenty of justification for the many Civilization mods out there; and a language arts teacher can justify the typing and reading involved in most any higher level game. Regardless, if a game actively seeks to teach academic content, its appropriateness for the classroom will naturally rise above a rival game designed more for work skill enhancement.
6. Does the game track player progress? Videogames that keep track of the progress your students make will lift that burden off your shoulders. Ideally the game will offer reporting functions on each student so you can easily track their progress, and perhaps suggest remedial actions or advanced activities if a student is behind or ahead of the norm.
7. Are the graphics and gaming quality on par with contemporary entertainment titles? It is certainly possible to buy educational games which fall far below the expectations of students used to higher quality offerings. Since studies show that nearly two-thirds of all households play videogames, it behooves us to use quality games in the classroom since our students will likely be used to high standards. It’s always good to pilot test any particular title with students you trust. If they like the game, it’s probably worth the investment to outfit a school computer lab or buy a site license. Dr. Brian Woodfield over at BYU noted how a teacher set up Virtual ChemLab on one machine in the back of her classroom, which eventually led to the school purchasing a site license. I do mini-studies with my own kids from time to time. Also, my paper on assessing higher order thinking in videogames might help pinpoint the pedagogical potential of games with which you are unfamiliar.

In conclusion, any classroom intervention is worth serious consideration beforehand. Hopefully, these seven questions will help steer you toward quality products. Educational videogames are strong tools for teaching in the classroom. Judicious selection of appropriate titles may result in many positive results.

References:
Rice, J. (2005). Evaluating the suitability of video games for k-12 instruction. Paper presented to the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT), 2005 International Convention, Orlando, FL.

CFP: Computer Games & Their Applications

The following call for papers was shared by Rosario De Chiara over at Universita’ degli Studi di Salerno, Italy.

Computer Games and their applications (CGa)The industry of computer games is a flourishing reality since several

decades. Several issues on their future are going to be presented and

discussed at the symposium since the availability of hardware and

software platforms is widening their use, breadth, capabilities and

(of course) impact on increasingly large audiences. Moreover, computer

games engines offer, nowadays, also a mature environment for non-ludic

applications that can leverage on their graphical capabilities to

offer interactive virtual environments for educational applications.

The advantage is that the overall result is available on standard PCs,

that make any result immediately available to a large audience.

The interest of the research in non-ludic applications is witnessed by

the rapidly growing industry that features the use of interactive

games technology within non-entertainment sectors; the trend is

showing an organized industry of developers using cutting-edge

entertainment technologies to solve problems in areas as diverse as

education, health-care, national defense, homeland security,

analytics, corporate management and more. Several commercial games are

used for purposes that are not entertainment related, such as SimCity

and Civilization, but many titles are built with an educational

purpose in mind, such as Virtual University, 3D Driving Academy etc.

We want to provide an opportunity to researchers in the field to

discuss and present their research. The objective of the symposium is

to cover state-of-the-art results, present and discuss key research

issues and outline future directions of computer games and their

applications in any field, not necessarily bound to entertainment. The

setting of the symposium would encourage and stimulate discussions

among the researchers and the audience.

Papers presenting original research within the theme of "Computer

Games and their applications" are being sought. Suggested topics

include (but are not limited to):

    * Exploring new game genres for future Games

    * Exploring new hardware (Multicore-CPU, GPU, Cell) for future Games

    * Development tools and techniques for games

    * Games and Accessibility

    * Educational games

    * Game-engine based reconstruction of cultural heritage

    * Game-based Policy/management environment

    * Authoring environment

    * Game-engine based cooperative multi-user environment

    * Game-based application for Public-health

    * Games in the mobile and ubiquitous setting

    * Location-based games

IMPORTANT DATES:

Submissions due:         March 15, 2007

Important Dates:         <http://www.graphicslink.co.uk/IV07/DATES.htm>

Camera-ready:            April 20, 2007 (accepted submissions)

BusinessWeek’s Top 50 Videogame Innovations

Ernest W. Adams from DesignersNotebook.com, writing over at BusinessWeek, has an article on the top 50 videogame innovations. He explores everything from the first known examples of exploring and storytelling in games, to first person perspectives, to multiplayer dungeons. The article serves as a nice resource for gaming researchers, and provides plenty of good reading as well.

In other BusinessWeek news, the newest version of SimCity will offer global warming as a management variable.

References:
Adams, E. (2007, November 5). 50 greatest game innovations. BusinessWeek. [Online]. Available: http://www.businessweek.com/print/innovate/
content/nov2007/id2007115_528484.htm

UTD Study Addresses Gaming Market for Girls & Mothers

I’m fascinated by the different approaches researchers take when studying videogames. Recently, The Dallas Morning News reported that Dr. Michael Savoie, director of the Center for Information Technology and Management at the University of Texas at Dallas School of Management, in partnership with Elizabeth Hubbard, CEO of Your Money Matters Institute, and game developers Dave and Emily Rushton with Sensory Sweep Studios, conducted a survey of 43 mothers and 57 daughters aged 8-18 in 7 states.

The need for the survey is twofold. From an academic perspective, universities remain concerned about interesting female students in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, & Math) studies. From a marketing perspective, the researchers indicated girls spend more than boys … except on videogames. Tapping into the 36 million strong market of females age 6-20 in the US represents a lucrative potential for gaming companies.

The researchers found moms and daughters held similar likes and dislikes of various aspects of videogames. Here are some highlights of the findings:

- Almost 1 in 5 (17%) of moms surveyed have never played a videogame

- All girls surveyed have played a videogame at some point. Two-thirds are currently playing.

- 60% of the daughters define videogames as fun. Only 37% of their mothers do, however.

- Nearly 1 in 3 (28%) mothers think videogames are a complete waste of time. Only about 1 in 10 (9%) girls feel the same way.

- Roughly the same (21% moms, 17% daughters) say that videogames are good for learning.

- Girls like virtual worlds (VWs), especially ones that let them get immersed in horses, weddings, fashion, etc.

- The researchers feel that combining the simulation of real life activities in VWs is a highly effective way of providing learning opportunities to girls through videogames.

- Non-violent interaction combined with role-playing and rewards are key to developing games girls like.

- The researchers suggest a market potential of $1 billion if game developers approach the girls/young women market correctly. Another $200 million might be realized in serious games sales if moms can be convinced to buy games that teach shopping or other important life skills.

Although the results of the study have not yet been published, Dr. Savoie has presented the findings at the international conference, “Learning with Games 2007” in Sophia Antipolis, France. His PowerPoint presentation, in Acrobat format, is available here.

References
Godinez, V. (2007, October 13). UTD study looks at girls and video games. Dallas Morning News. [Online]. Available: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/ent/stories/
DN-gamer_1013gl.ART.State.Edition1.4238b13.html

Survey finds girl gamers and mothers think alike. (2007, October 3). The University of Texas at Dallas Press Release. [Online]. Available: http://www.utdallas.edu/news/archive/2007/10-04-002.html

An Article in TechEdge

Kathy Sargent, editor over at TechEdge, the journal for the Texas Computer Education Association, has accepted an article from me based on educational programming languages aimed at students. In this blog previously I’ve covered GameMaker and Logo, Scratch, and Alice. This upcoming article brings together these discussions and promotes the use of freely available programming languages as learning tools in schools. Look for “Programmed to Learn” in the next issue of TechEdge.

Gaming Industry Looks for Positive Side

David Perry of GameConsultants.com has a nice article in the current issue of BusinessWeek focusing on beneficial aspects of commercial games. Rather than dwell on purely academic benefits, Perry delves into the topic of how popular video games positively impact the audience. The first example he uses to illustrate this point is what a six year old girl learned about trebuchets from playing a video game.

Perry brings up Gee’s first book on the subject, then spends more time discussing Rusel DeMaria’s new book Reset: Changing the Way We Look at Video Games. DeMaria’s much heralded five learning powers of games (motivation, immersion, identification, interactivity, and choice) comprise much of the remainder of the article. Joining in his conversation concerning these matters (via e-mail, apparently), were Chris Taylor, CEO of Gas Powered Games, and Bing Gordon, Chief Creative Office of Electronic Arts.

Perry concludes on a positive note, predicting a strong possibility of future efforts from the major gaming studios that will result in, “games that promote positive values, or that teach or inspire players.” Here’s hoping Perry’s prognostications come true.

References

Perry, D. (2007, August 13). Video games entertain and educate. BusinessWeek. [Online]. Available: http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/aug2007/
id20070813_874107.htm

Programming with Alice at Carnegie Mellon

In continuing our ongoing discussion of teaching kids programming skills by having them design their own computer games, Kathy Larason suggested I take a look at Alice over at Carnegie Mellon.

Alice is an introductory 3-D programming language that focuses on animation objects. The graphics are interactive, and could be constructed as games or animations. The main code and accompanying documentation are housed at alice.org.

Alice is a major endeavor. Four textbooks on programming with Alice were published in 2006; one in 2007; and at least one more is slated for 2008. Workshops are ongoing this summer, including sites at Carnegie Mellon, Roger Williams University, and Georgia Tech.

Alice has been widely adopted in schools and colleges. In a PowerPoint presentation led by Dennis Cosgrove, Caitlin Kelleher and others at ACM SIGCSE 2007 earlier this year, several statistics were given. The main site has had some 3.5 million page views, and almost half a million downloads of the program have occurred over the past year. About 250 colleges and universities are using Alice to teach programming.

Alice has a serious agenda. Computer Science majors continue to decline in numbers, and there are numerous ongoing efforts to interest girls and women in programming as well as math and the hard sciences. Researchers being as they are, several studies of Alice and its effect on this serious agenda are ongoing. One study of initial Computer Science class takers at Ithaca College and St. Joseph University showed a jump in grade averages (from C to B) and a large jump in willingness to take the second semester of Computer Science when participants were exposed to Alice prior to taking the class (see reference below).

Alice 3.0 is due out in 2008. Besides funding from the NSF, sponsors have included video game giant Electronic Arts, DARPA, Intel, Microsoft, the Office of Naval Research, and others. The Electronic Arts Foundation recently donated $300,000 to the effort, and EA has granted permission to use characters from The Sims 2 in Alice 3.0. The Sims line has long been the most popular computer video game series, and is appealing to both male and female players.

Alice is well worth watching as an introduction to computer programming. I’ll be interested in reading more about it as research studies continue to be published.

References

Moskal, M., Lurie, D., & Cooper, S. Evaluating the effectiveness of a new instructional approach. In Proceedings of 2004 SIGCSE Conference. Norfolk, VA.