Educational Games Research Joins the CASTLE Family

We’re up and running on our new site. All posts and comments from the last couple of years have been ported over, and already a steady stream of visitors is exploring the new URL.

Along with the changes in our location on the web, I’m happy to announce that Educational Games Research Blog is now affiliated with the University Council for Educational Administration’s Center for the Advanced Study of Technology Leadership in Education at Iowa State University. CASTLE is led by Dr. Scott McLeod, and the organization is dedicated to preparing school administrators for the unique technology challenges in K-12 environments.

Several blogs are affiliated with CASTLE, including Dr. McLeod’s Dangerously Irrelevant, Leader Talk over at EducationWeek, and The Edjurist, led by professors from U. Kentucky focusing on education law.

It’s an exciting time to be blogging, with so many conversations on technology in education. Now more than ever, educational gaming is a key issue. I hope you’ll find this blog useful throughout 2010 and beyond.

Where the MacArthur Foundation Grant Money has Gone, So Far

Education Week has a nice article (registration required) on the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation’s $50 million initiative funding digital media and learning (including educational gaming research). A little less than half, about $23 million, has been funded so far to 36 grantees. Article author Andrew Trotter breaks down the expenditures:

• Examining how young people are changing as a result of digital media AMOUNTS AWARDED TO DATE: $6.2 million

• Exploring the development of new learning environments AMOUNTS AWARDED TO DATE: $8 million

• Studying how social and civic institutions could change in the future AMOUNTS AWARDED TO DATE: $4.8 million

• Helping build the field of research and development in youth and digital media AMOUNTS AWARDED TO DATE: $4 million

Constance Yowell, director of education for the MacArthur Foundation, is quoted extensively. Other prominent mentions include Sasha Barab over at Indiana (Quest Atlantis); Nichole Pinkard, director of technology, Center for Urban School Improvement, University of Chicago (Chicago charter schools and Remix World); Barry Joseph, director of the non-profit after school organization Global Kids (efforts in Teen Second Life); Katie Salen, director of the Institute of Play (New York City Game School); and Mizuko “Mimi” Ito, over at USC (ethnographic studies of digital media consumers).

Trotter mentions another project Salen is involved in:

Katie A. Salen, the director of the Institute of Play, in New York City, is a partner in two projects supported by MacArthur grants. One, led by game researcher Jim Ghee and involving a commercial game company, is creating an online, narrative game in which teenagers are game mechanics who learn to fix and modify broken games in a game-driven world.

I’m wondering if “Jim Ghee” is a reference to James Paul Gee?

Regardless, it’s a good article and well worth the read. The $50 million in grant funding from the MacArthur Foundation will no doubt continue to yield important findings on educational videogames and other components of digital media for years to come.

References:
Trotter, A. (2007, December 5). Projects probe new media’s role in changing the face of learning. Education Week, (27)14. 10.