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"content": "\u003cp>When educator Lynn Koresh hears from kids that they want a career doing something with computers, she asks, “To do \u003cem>what\u003c/em> with computers?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Adults often encourage kids to pursue science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) skills, and computing classes are usually a first stop. But Koresh knows it’s the real-world applications of computational thinking and coding language skills that bring such knowledge to life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She reasoned that most middle school students are already playing video games and might respond well to a unit on how to design, create, test and promote video games. Along the way, she's also teaching them about digital citizenship and entrepreneurship.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I wanted to give kids exposure to what it means to have a career using computers,” said Koresh, technology coordinator at Edgewood Campus School in Madison, Wisconsin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She gave students the task of designing a game using \u003ca href=\"https://gamestarmechanic.com/\">Gamestar Mechanic\u003c/a>. It’s a Web tool that helps kids create games. Before any programming begins, students talk about their games, set objectives and start storyboarding on paper. They think about the game’s avatars and how the game mechanics will work. Koresh shared her experience teaching this class at the \u003ca href=\"http://glsconference.org/\">Games Learning Society\u003c/a> conference in Madison.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=\"JV265pYjEj1rLGOQTUv9AyB68XMwB1kk\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As students develop their games, they test them on one another throughout the semester. Koresh has found kids often give short and positive feedback, making it challenging to learn enough to improve the game. She says the kids respond this way mostly because they’re concerned for their friends and worry that they’ll get a bad grade, even though that’s not the case.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"You have to get specific enough so they don't say, 'It's good, I liked it.' You have to force them to take a stand.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To help improve the process, she has reframed the questions around student game critiques in a consumer-oriented way, such as, “Would you pay 99 cents for this app? Would you give it three stars or four stars?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To help them become more critical thinkers, the students read product reviews on blogs and business sites to learn about features that might improve the user experience. In the process, Koresh hopes the kids learn to be selective digital consumers and do research before making purchases or trusting a source.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s also an opportunity to talk about a person’s digital footprint and the types of comments, images and videos that can come back to haunt someone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you put it online, it should be worthy of other students, grandma, everyone seeing it,” said Koresh.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Once the games are completed, the middle school students have three seconds to pitch their game to fourth-grade players in the form of a slide on a computer screen. Since time to persuade the audience is limited, much like in real life, game designers have to “sell” their game with one compelling slide. Students have to be selective about which elements of the game to highlight. Creating the slide is also an opportunity to talk about marketing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s great you’ve made something, but how do you get other people to use it?\" Koresh asks her students. They get a good idea about how well their ad has worked based on the number of plays their games receive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As for whether parents object to kids spending more time on video games, she says they have been supportive of STEM activities and pre-coding skills learned in game design. Koresh has found the time students spent on the games, both inside and outside class, has helped them think about coding as an extracurricular activity. Girls who have created games in her class have gone on to enter STEM design competitions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here are some of the ads Koresh's students created that link to their games:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dive, Dive, Dive\u003c/strong>\u003ca href=\"https://gamestarmechanic.com/game/shared/245461/10012f920834f982ef3768547cc47e8e\">\u003cimg class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-41524\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2015/08/Koresh-Coin-Collecting.png\" alt=\"Coin Collecting Game Dive Dive Dive\" width=\"1366\" height=\"768\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/08/Koresh-Coin-Collecting.png 1366w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/08/Koresh-Coin-Collecting-400x225.png 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/08/Koresh-Coin-Collecting-800x450.png 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/08/Koresh-Coin-Collecting-1180x663.png 1180w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/08/Koresh-Coin-Collecting-960x540.png 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1366px) 100vw, 1366px\">\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Those Mondays\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://gamestarmechanic.com/game/shared/248065/26abaa1d9745aeacd566ed9bf15667a0\">\u003cimg class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-41526\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2015/08/Koresh-Mondays-game.png\" alt=\"Those Mondays game\" width=\"1366\" height=\"768\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/08/Koresh-Mondays-game.png 1366w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/08/Koresh-Mondays-game-400x225.png 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/08/Koresh-Mondays-game-800x450.png 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/08/Koresh-Mondays-game-1180x663.png 1180w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/08/Koresh-Mondays-game-960x540.png 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1366px) 100vw, 1366px\">\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Plague Dusters\u003c/strong>\u003cimg class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-41529\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2015/08/Plaque-Dusters.png\" alt=\"Plague Dusters\" width=\"1366\" height=\"768\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/08/Plaque-Dusters.png 1366w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/08/Plaque-Dusters-400x225.png 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/08/Plaque-Dusters-800x450.png 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/08/Plaque-Dusters-1180x663.png 1180w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/08/Plaque-Dusters-960x540.png 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1366px) 100vw, 1366px\">\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>When educator Lynn Koresh hears from kids that they want a career doing something with computers, she asks, “To do \u003cem>what\u003c/em> with computers?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Adults often encourage kids to pursue science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) skills, and computing classes are usually a first stop. But Koresh knows it’s the real-world applications of computational thinking and coding language skills that bring such knowledge to life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She reasoned that most middle school students are already playing video games and might respond well to a unit on how to design, create, test and promote video games. Along the way, she's also teaching them about digital citizenship and entrepreneurship.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I wanted to give kids exposure to what it means to have a career using computers,” said Koresh, technology coordinator at Edgewood Campus School in Madison, Wisconsin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She gave students the task of designing a game using \u003ca href=\"https://gamestarmechanic.com/\">Gamestar Mechanic\u003c/a>. It’s a Web tool that helps kids create games. Before any programming begins, students talk about their games, set objectives and start storyboarding on paper. They think about the game’s avatars and how the game mechanics will work. Koresh shared her experience teaching this class at the \u003ca href=\"http://glsconference.org/\">Games Learning Society\u003c/a> conference in Madison.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As students develop their games, they test them on one another throughout the semester. Koresh has found kids often give short and positive feedback, making it challenging to learn enough to improve the game. She says the kids respond this way mostly because they’re concerned for their friends and worry that they’ll get a bad grade, even though that’s not the case.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"You have to get specific enough so they don't say, 'It's good, I liked it.' You have to force them to take a stand.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To help improve the process, she has reframed the questions around student game critiques in a consumer-oriented way, such as, “Would you pay 99 cents for this app? Would you give it three stars or four stars?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To help them become more critical thinkers, the students read product reviews on blogs and business sites to learn about features that might improve the user experience. In the process, Koresh hopes the kids learn to be selective digital consumers and do research before making purchases or trusting a source.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s also an opportunity to talk about a person’s digital footprint and the types of comments, images and videos that can come back to haunt someone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you put it online, it should be worthy of other students, grandma, everyone seeing it,” said Koresh.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Once the games are completed, the middle school students have three seconds to pitch their game to fourth-grade players in the form of a slide on a computer screen. Since time to persuade the audience is limited, much like in real life, game designers have to “sell” their game with one compelling slide. Students have to be selective about which elements of the game to highlight. Creating the slide is also an opportunity to talk about marketing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s great you’ve made something, but how do you get other people to use it?\" Koresh asks her students. They get a good idea about how well their ad has worked based on the number of plays their games receive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As for whether parents object to kids spending more time on video games, she says they have been supportive of STEM activities and pre-coding skills learned in game design. Koresh has found the time students spent on the games, both inside and outside class, has helped them think about coding as an extracurricular activity. Girls who have created games in her class have gone on to enter STEM design competitions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here are some of the ads Koresh's students created that link to their games:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Dive, Dive, Dive\u003c/strong>\u003ca href=\"https://gamestarmechanic.com/game/shared/245461/10012f920834f982ef3768547cc47e8e\">\u003cimg class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-41524\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2015/08/Koresh-Coin-Collecting.png\" alt=\"Coin Collecting Game Dive Dive Dive\" width=\"1366\" height=\"768\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/08/Koresh-Coin-Collecting.png 1366w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/08/Koresh-Coin-Collecting-400x225.png 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/08/Koresh-Coin-Collecting-800x450.png 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/08/Koresh-Coin-Collecting-1180x663.png 1180w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/08/Koresh-Coin-Collecting-960x540.png 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1366px) 100vw, 1366px\">\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Those Mondays\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://gamestarmechanic.com/game/shared/248065/26abaa1d9745aeacd566ed9bf15667a0\">\u003cimg class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-41526\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2015/08/Koresh-Mondays-game.png\" alt=\"Those Mondays game\" width=\"1366\" height=\"768\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/08/Koresh-Mondays-game.png 1366w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/08/Koresh-Mondays-game-400x225.png 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/08/Koresh-Mondays-game-800x450.png 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/08/Koresh-Mondays-game-1180x663.png 1180w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/08/Koresh-Mondays-game-960x540.png 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1366px) 100vw, 1366px\">\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Plague Dusters\u003c/strong>\u003cimg class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-41529\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2015/08/Plaque-Dusters.png\" alt=\"Plague Dusters\" width=\"1366\" height=\"768\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/08/Plaque-Dusters.png 1366w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/08/Plaque-Dusters-400x225.png 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/08/Plaque-Dusters-800x450.png 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/08/Plaque-Dusters-1180x663.png 1180w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/08/Plaque-Dusters-960x540.png 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1366px) 100vw, 1366px\">\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"disqusTitle": "Taking the First Steps Towards Teaching With Video Games",
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"content": "\u003cp>Educators at Nordahl Grieg Upper Secondary, a public high school in Norway, are taking a \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/07/21/literature-ethics-physics-its-all-in-video-games-at-this-norwegian-school/\" target=\"_blank\">unique approach to teaching\u003c/a> that treats video games as just another classroom tool.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If teachers use books, music, videos and websites as resources for teaching, video games should also be included on that list, according to Nordahl Grieg teacher Tobias Staaby. He and his colleagues, including Aleksander Husøy, have been demonstrating the uses of video games to educators by inviting them to a workshop at the school each semester.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Staaby says it helps to take a look at who plays games. According to the Entertainment Software Association, which represents the video game industry, the average age of a video game player in the U.S. is \u003ca href=\"http://www.theesa.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/ESA-Essential-Facts-2015.pdf\">35 years old\u003c/a>, which can be closer to the age of a teacher than a student.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Staaby and Husøy were at the Games Learning Society \u003ca href=\"http://www.glsconference.org/\">conference\u003c/a> in Wisconsin earlier this month to talk about how they use video games in the classroom. When they host their workshops for teachers, they start off with these steps:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Show That It Works\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nWhen educators observe classrooms that use video games for learning, they can see the discussions that unfold and the lessons learned through the platform. In digital games like \"\u003ca href=\"https://www.telltalegames.com/walkingdead/\">The Walking Dead\u003c/a>,\" players have to make choices, explain their decisions and experience the results of their selections. Controlling outcomes, such as a character's path and responses, makes a video game a different and more immersive experience than traditional books or movies in which the content is fixed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_41397\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003cimg class=\"wp-image-41397 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2015/07/Walking-Dead.jpg\" alt=\"A screengrab of The Walking Dead game by TellTale Games. The player has to decide how to respond to a group of strangers. \" width=\"1280\" height=\"720\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/07/Walking-Dead.jpg 1280w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/07/Walking-Dead-400x225.jpg 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/07/Walking-Dead-800x450.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/07/Walking-Dead-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/07/Walking-Dead-960x540.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A screengrab of 'The Walking Dead' game by TellTale Games. In this scene, the player has to decide how to respond to a group of strangers.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Attending a Nordahl Grieg workshop to learn about video games in the classroom is one option, but there may be a teacher nearby who is using games. For educators with specific content areas and needs, there are game reviews written by educators on \u003ca href=\"http://www.gamindex.org\">Gamindex\u003c/a> and Common Sense \u003ca href=\"https://www.graphite.org/\">Graphite\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Play!\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nIn the workshop, educators can start playing games to see how they work. Staaby and Husøy start them off with \"\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/01/16/gone-home-a-video-game-as-a-tool-for-teaching-critical-thinking/\">Gone Home\u003c/a>,\" \"\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/07/21/literature-ethics-physics-its-all-in-video-games-at-this-norwegian-school/\">The Walking Dead\u003c/a>\" and \"\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pH_tYB_Ntlg\">This War of Mine\u003c/a>.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Create\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nAfter trying out the games, educators look for ways to create lessons. Staaby, Husøy and their colleagues share and develop ideas during the workshop, but encourage anyone interested in using video games in the classroom to take ownership over how they will use them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s important to experience autonomy and be in control of whatever you’re doing,” said Staaby. “We say it’s important for students to be motivated and be in control of their learning situation, but that applies to teachers as well.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And while there are out-of-the-box lesson plans, Staaby encourages educators to adapt lessons to their own classrooms. He says to think of a lesson plan as a recipe that can be adjusted for the ingredients you have available and that will meet the dietary needs of your students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=\"tiJlDvUtqYfLOcWfvsbr6WaFcYMGWLjd\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rethink Learning Goals\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nIn some cases, the learning that takes place when using games isn’t immediately obvious. Many of the workshop video games at Nordahl Grieg were not designed to be educational and don’t come with specified learning goals, but creative educators identified benefits for students anyway.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Staaby likens this approach to what teachers already do with films, books or videos that weren’t created with students in mind but can spark lessons, even if those sources are not packaged as educational content. He refers to an observation Husøy made about the bias many educators feel against video games as a learning tool.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s weird the assumption that games have to have this stamp of approval,\" said Staaby. \"If it’s the EDU version, it’s OK. But we don’t have EDU versions of classical literature or music or movies.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Don’t Be Afraid to Fail\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nGames allow players multiple attempts at accomplishing any goal, a good model for educators to use in their own approach to teaching with video games. Often teachers feel they need to be technically savvy with the game before using it as a teaching tool, but games are the perfect opportunity for teachers to share responsibility for learning with students. Trusting students in this way gives them learning autonomy, builds relationships and lets them be the experts, a great way to learn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The teacher’s job is not to be a good game player. You are supposed to be an enabler and catalyst for learning,\" Staaby said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Check out what learning is like at Nordahl Grieg Upper Secondary:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0DjI4u8OEg\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Educators at Nordahl Grieg Upper Secondary, a public high school in Norway, are taking a \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/07/21/literature-ethics-physics-its-all-in-video-games-at-this-norwegian-school/\" target=\"_blank\">unique approach to teaching\u003c/a> that treats video games as just another classroom tool.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If teachers use books, music, videos and websites as resources for teaching, video games should also be included on that list, according to Nordahl Grieg teacher Tobias Staaby. He and his colleagues, including Aleksander Husøy, have been demonstrating the uses of video games to educators by inviting them to a workshop at the school each semester.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Staaby says it helps to take a look at who plays games. According to the Entertainment Software Association, which represents the video game industry, the average age of a video game player in the U.S. is \u003ca href=\"http://www.theesa.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/ESA-Essential-Facts-2015.pdf\">35 years old\u003c/a>, which can be closer to the age of a teacher than a student.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Staaby and Husøy were at the Games Learning Society \u003ca href=\"http://www.glsconference.org/\">conference\u003c/a> in Wisconsin earlier this month to talk about how they use video games in the classroom. When they host their workshops for teachers, they start off with these steps:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Show That It Works\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nWhen educators observe classrooms that use video games for learning, they can see the discussions that unfold and the lessons learned through the platform. In digital games like \"\u003ca href=\"https://www.telltalegames.com/walkingdead/\">The Walking Dead\u003c/a>,\" players have to make choices, explain their decisions and experience the results of their selections. Controlling outcomes, such as a character's path and responses, makes a video game a different and more immersive experience than traditional books or movies in which the content is fixed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_41397\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003cimg class=\"wp-image-41397 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2015/07/Walking-Dead.jpg\" alt=\"A screengrab of The Walking Dead game by TellTale Games. The player has to decide how to respond to a group of strangers. \" width=\"1280\" height=\"720\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/07/Walking-Dead.jpg 1280w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/07/Walking-Dead-400x225.jpg 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/07/Walking-Dead-800x450.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/07/Walking-Dead-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/07/Walking-Dead-960x540.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A screengrab of 'The Walking Dead' game by TellTale Games. In this scene, the player has to decide how to respond to a group of strangers.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Attending a Nordahl Grieg workshop to learn about video games in the classroom is one option, but there may be a teacher nearby who is using games. For educators with specific content areas and needs, there are game reviews written by educators on \u003ca href=\"http://www.gamindex.org\">Gamindex\u003c/a> and Common Sense \u003ca href=\"https://www.graphite.org/\">Graphite\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Play!\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nIn the workshop, educators can start playing games to see how they work. Staaby and Husøy start them off with \"\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/01/16/gone-home-a-video-game-as-a-tool-for-teaching-critical-thinking/\">Gone Home\u003c/a>,\" \"\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/07/21/literature-ethics-physics-its-all-in-video-games-at-this-norwegian-school/\">The Walking Dead\u003c/a>\" and \"\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pH_tYB_Ntlg\">This War of Mine\u003c/a>.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Create\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nAfter trying out the games, educators look for ways to create lessons. Staaby, Husøy and their colleagues share and develop ideas during the workshop, but encourage anyone interested in using video games in the classroom to take ownership over how they will use them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s important to experience autonomy and be in control of whatever you’re doing,” said Staaby. “We say it’s important for students to be motivated and be in control of their learning situation, but that applies to teachers as well.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And while there are out-of-the-box lesson plans, Staaby encourages educators to adapt lessons to their own classrooms. He says to think of a lesson plan as a recipe that can be adjusted for the ingredients you have available and that will meet the dietary needs of your students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Rethink Learning Goals\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nIn some cases, the learning that takes place when using games isn’t immediately obvious. Many of the workshop video games at Nordahl Grieg were not designed to be educational and don’t come with specified learning goals, but creative educators identified benefits for students anyway.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Staaby likens this approach to what teachers already do with films, books or videos that weren’t created with students in mind but can spark lessons, even if those sources are not packaged as educational content. He refers to an observation Husøy made about the bias many educators feel against video games as a learning tool.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s weird the assumption that games have to have this stamp of approval,\" said Staaby. \"If it’s the EDU version, it’s OK. But we don’t have EDU versions of classical literature or music or movies.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Don’t Be Afraid to Fail\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nGames allow players multiple attempts at accomplishing any goal, a good model for educators to use in their own approach to teaching with video games. Often teachers feel they need to be technically savvy with the game before using it as a teaching tool, but games are the perfect opportunity for teachers to share responsibility for learning with students. Trusting students in this way gives them learning autonomy, builds relationships and lets them be the experts, a great way to learn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The teacher’s job is not to be a good game player. You are supposed to be an enabler and catalyst for learning,\" Staaby said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Check out what learning is like at Nordahl Grieg Upper Secondary:\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/d0DjI4u8OEg'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/d0DjI4u8OEg'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>In order to take learning to the next level, there's an experiment in Pittsburgh that brings game designers closer to the educators who want games for learning. The hope is that by working together, within the school, game designers can create products that more directly meet teachers’ needs. For example, when English Language Arts teachers at \u003ca href=\"http://www.edlinesites.net/pages/EF_MiddleSchool\" target=\"_blank\">Elizabeth Forward Middle School\u003c/a> were asked to identify an area of the curriculum kids loathe, they named grammar. The teachers then worked with graduate students at the \u003ca href=\"http://www.etc.cmu.edu/\" target=\"_blank\">Entertainment Technology Center\u003c/a> at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) to develop learning games.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The graduate students designed games for a \u003ca href=\"http://centerforcreativity.net/2012/09/17/smalllab-elizabeth-forward-school-district/\" target=\"_blank\">Situated Media and Learning Lab\u003c/a> (SMALLab), which allows kids to have an embodied learning experience while interacting with different scenarios projected onto the floor. The sensors pick up on the movement of wands students carry, interacting with them as students manipulate pieces and scenes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To address the struggles around grammar, the team designed a space race game in which students choose pronouns from meteors at the bottom of the mat and put them into their own spaceship. Groups race against one another to launch a rocket into space first. Students are moving, discussing their answers and physically choosing words to add to their spaceships. “It almost feels like they’re inside the game,” said Rachael Egan, a sixth grade language arts teacher.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7SXuSqWtKA&w=640&h=360]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The game also facilitates collaborative learning. There are only three wands, so students often work in groups, discussing strategy, what answers are correct and how to win. “When you step into the SMALLab, it’s not a classroom, it’s a total shift,” Egan said. “They get to do more than sit at a desk and take notes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Egan says she’s seeing results in her students. “I’ve seen a big shift in ability level,” she said. “It doesn’t matter who you are in there with, they all step up to the challenge and take things on.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The CMU students have the complicated job of designing products that are both intrinsically fun for kids and that meet learning goals. “These are great creative challenges in and of themselves,” said Drew Davidson, director of CMU’s Entertainment Technology Center. These games are competing with what students do at home for fun, not with a lecture. “You want your educational game to be something they choose to do,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=\"OFNcYfopUKyFixb9dQK7XR1IzR6jOGqr\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Elizabeth Forward and CMU are two of the many schools, universities, museums and organizations that make up the \u003ca href=\"http://remakelearning.org/collection/kcn/\" target=\"_blank\">Kids and Creativity Network, now known as the Remake Learning Network\u003c/a>, which is focused on finding ways to bring hands-on learning to more Pittsburgh children. With the leadership of assistant superintendent Dr. Todd Keruskin, Elizabeth Forward has seized on an opportunity to expand the types of learning opportunities the school offers to its mostly low-income population.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Partnerships are becoming an increasingly important vehicle for innovation in the modern education landscape. Public-private partnerships like the ones behind \u003ca href=\"http://www.mc2stemhighschool.org/\" target=\"_blank\">MC2 STEM High School\u003c/a> in Cleveland and the many grants supporting innovative teaching practices are just some examples of how institutions with similar interests are working together to improve the kind of education offered to all kids.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>THE ENERGY LAB\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Learning in the SMALLab has become so popular that the room is almost always booked. With a grant from Chevron, a big employer in the Pittsburgh area, Elizabeth Forward is now trying a similar embodied learning approach around \u003ca href=\"http://www.edlinesites.net/pages/EF_MiddleSchool/Important_Links/Energy_Lab\" target=\"_blank\">science curriculum and energy issues\u003c/a> in particular. In the fall semester, CMU students designed and built a dome with interactive panels that students can manipulate as they learn about solar energy. An app serves up an imaginary world onto the walls and students have to move solar panels around to produce the most energy. As they experiment and get the hang of it, the game levels them up, giving them a new QR code that allows them to access harder problems.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_40440\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2015/05/kiosk.jpg\">\u003cimg class=\"size-medium wp-image-40440\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2015/05/kiosk-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"In this game about natural resources students are trying to find enough fuel to light up Pittsburgh's skyline.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/05/kiosk-800x450.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/05/kiosk-400x225.jpg 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/05/kiosk.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">In this game about natural resources students are trying to find enough fuel to light up Pittsburgh's skyline. \u003ccite>(\u003ca href=\"http://www.etc.cmu.edu/projects/vis-viva/?page_id=13\">Vis Viva\u003c/a>)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>CMU students included a discussion board in the app so students can reflect on their experiences in the dome and connect it back to other aspects of what they’re learning. “We all learn from experience and that’s the real crux to my classes,” said Paul Callaghan, a seventh grade science teacher at Elizabeth Forward. He often posts articles or videos to the discussion board, asking students to make connections between their physical experiences in the dome and the more complex reading assignments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another tool Callaghan uses is the augmented reality sandbox. The tool uses a Kinect and a PC to read the contours of the sand and render it as a three-dimensional image. Callaghan has used the sandbox to help his students understand how land divides create watersheds and tributaries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is the kind of technology that I think really helps us because it gives kids a quick look and they understand what’s going on,” Callaghan said. In one assignment, he asks his students to shape a mountain in the sand that could be considered a divide. They have to show the distinct watersheds and tributaries created by that land structure. He then switches on the projectors and the class can see if they’ve achieved the effect they desired. They can make corrections on the fly and discuss where and why they went wrong. He even uses it as an alternative assessment, asking students to create the concepts they’ve studied, explaining along the way using the scientific vocabulary when applicable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This semester the graduate students have taken on the challenge of making geology fun with a game meant to simulate resource discovery. Students send a seismic wave into the rock using their voices and calculate the kind of resources they might discover in different locations based on the density and permeability of the rock. They learn about the different geological properties of resources like coal, natural gas and oil. Based on the results they can discover from the seismic wave test, students simulate taking a core sample of the earth, comparing it to other rock formations, calculating depth and making a guess about the percentage-chance of hitting a resource there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24lLOf-K7fo&w=640&h=360]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the end, the energy students find is put into a battery and used to literally light up part of the Pittsburgh skyline that CMU students built into the game. This final part isn’t just for fun; it helps reinforce the idea that all this drilling simulation is connected to human energy use.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The energy resource game has been difficult to design, according to Lisa Elkin, a CMU graduate student working on the project. Her team came up with a list of concrete learning goals after listening to teachers' priorities. Those elements were non-negotiable, but other aspects could change. For example, a main goal of the resource game is for students to understand that the frequency* of the wave is what determines its depth. And, when students drill for core samples, the main point is to see the layers of earth and compare them to other kinds or rock. When designing with those learning goals top of mind, other details like the angle of the drill aren’t as important.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’ve worked very hard to make sure that education is central to the fun,” Elkin said. She says game designers never want to create “chocolate covered broccoli,” the worksheet in disguise that students sniff out and dismiss immediately. Instead, the games should be fun precisely because they are educational.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our success depends on us meeting their goals,” Elkin said. The resource game is an example of how crucial feedback from students and teachers is to getting it right. “We went out and we tested it and no one liked it,” Elkin said. Some of the game mechanics were confusing to students and CMU students had added elements meant to increase collaboration and communication that detracted from the central educational goals. After watching kids interact with the game they went back to the lab to make some major changes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They’re the best clients,” Elkin said. “They give lots of great feedback; they’re enthusiastic; they’re responsive, and they really believe what they’re doing and that’s so fun.” And there’s the added benefit of taking a difficult learning concept, turning it into a fun and engaging game and knowing students learned along the way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>A BENEFICIAL RELATIONSHIP\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The partnership between CMU’s Entertainment Technology Center and Elizabeth Forward has been fruitful for both parties. CMU students get the experience of working with real clients on real problems that will have an impact on education. They have to be creative to take the content knowledge of teachers and makes games students will choose over any other activity. “You either do the boring obvious thing or you do your job,” Elkin said of coming up with great games based on general teacher needs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Elizabeth Forward has gained several interesting embodied learning games and simulations to help them teach the most difficult parts of their curriculum. Middle school students get the experience of giving their feedback and advice as co-creators in the project. And, best of all the school benefits from an infusion of outside energy and expertise no teacher is expected to have. Teachers are content area experts, not game designers, but when the two team up really useful resources can be developed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>*This article has been changed to reflect the fact that frequency, not amplitude, determines the depth of the sound wave. We regret the error.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>In order to take learning to the next level, there's an experiment in Pittsburgh that brings game designers closer to the educators who want games for learning. The hope is that by working together, within the school, game designers can create products that more directly meet teachers’ needs. For example, when English Language Arts teachers at \u003ca href=\"http://www.edlinesites.net/pages/EF_MiddleSchool\" target=\"_blank\">Elizabeth Forward Middle School\u003c/a> were asked to identify an area of the curriculum kids loathe, they named grammar. The teachers then worked with graduate students at the \u003ca href=\"http://www.etc.cmu.edu/\" target=\"_blank\">Entertainment Technology Center\u003c/a> at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) to develop learning games.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The graduate students designed games for a \u003ca href=\"http://centerforcreativity.net/2012/09/17/smalllab-elizabeth-forward-school-district/\" target=\"_blank\">Situated Media and Learning Lab\u003c/a> (SMALLab), which allows kids to have an embodied learning experience while interacting with different scenarios projected onto the floor. The sensors pick up on the movement of wands students carry, interacting with them as students manipulate pieces and scenes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To address the struggles around grammar, the team designed a space race game in which students choose pronouns from meteors at the bottom of the mat and put them into their own spaceship. Groups race against one another to launch a rocket into space first. Students are moving, discussing their answers and physically choosing words to add to their spaceships. “It almost feels like they’re inside the game,” said Rachael Egan, a sixth grade language arts teacher.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/C7SXuSqWtKA'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/C7SXuSqWtKA'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The game also facilitates collaborative learning. There are only three wands, so students often work in groups, discussing strategy, what answers are correct and how to win. “When you step into the SMALLab, it’s not a classroom, it’s a total shift,” Egan said. “They get to do more than sit at a desk and take notes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Egan says she’s seeing results in her students. “I’ve seen a big shift in ability level,” she said. “It doesn’t matter who you are in there with, they all step up to the challenge and take things on.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The CMU students have the complicated job of designing products that are both intrinsically fun for kids and that meet learning goals. “These are great creative challenges in and of themselves,” said Drew Davidson, director of CMU’s Entertainment Technology Center. These games are competing with what students do at home for fun, not with a lecture. “You want your educational game to be something they choose to do,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Elizabeth Forward and CMU are two of the many schools, universities, museums and organizations that make up the \u003ca href=\"http://remakelearning.org/collection/kcn/\" target=\"_blank\">Kids and Creativity Network, now known as the Remake Learning Network\u003c/a>, which is focused on finding ways to bring hands-on learning to more Pittsburgh children. With the leadership of assistant superintendent Dr. Todd Keruskin, Elizabeth Forward has seized on an opportunity to expand the types of learning opportunities the school offers to its mostly low-income population.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Partnerships are becoming an increasingly important vehicle for innovation in the modern education landscape. Public-private partnerships like the ones behind \u003ca href=\"http://www.mc2stemhighschool.org/\" target=\"_blank\">MC2 STEM High School\u003c/a> in Cleveland and the many grants supporting innovative teaching practices are just some examples of how institutions with similar interests are working together to improve the kind of education offered to all kids.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>THE ENERGY LAB\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Learning in the SMALLab has become so popular that the room is almost always booked. With a grant from Chevron, a big employer in the Pittsburgh area, Elizabeth Forward is now trying a similar embodied learning approach around \u003ca href=\"http://www.edlinesites.net/pages/EF_MiddleSchool/Important_Links/Energy_Lab\" target=\"_blank\">science curriculum and energy issues\u003c/a> in particular. In the fall semester, CMU students designed and built a dome with interactive panels that students can manipulate as they learn about solar energy. An app serves up an imaginary world onto the walls and students have to move solar panels around to produce the most energy. As they experiment and get the hang of it, the game levels them up, giving them a new QR code that allows them to access harder problems.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_40440\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2015/05/kiosk.jpg\">\u003cimg class=\"size-medium wp-image-40440\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2015/05/kiosk-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"In this game about natural resources students are trying to find enough fuel to light up Pittsburgh's skyline.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/05/kiosk-800x450.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/05/kiosk-400x225.jpg 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/05/kiosk.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">In this game about natural resources students are trying to find enough fuel to light up Pittsburgh's skyline. \u003ccite>(\u003ca href=\"http://www.etc.cmu.edu/projects/vis-viva/?page_id=13\">Vis Viva\u003c/a>)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>CMU students included a discussion board in the app so students can reflect on their experiences in the dome and connect it back to other aspects of what they’re learning. “We all learn from experience and that’s the real crux to my classes,” said Paul Callaghan, a seventh grade science teacher at Elizabeth Forward. He often posts articles or videos to the discussion board, asking students to make connections between their physical experiences in the dome and the more complex reading assignments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another tool Callaghan uses is the augmented reality sandbox. The tool uses a Kinect and a PC to read the contours of the sand and render it as a three-dimensional image. Callaghan has used the sandbox to help his students understand how land divides create watersheds and tributaries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is the kind of technology that I think really helps us because it gives kids a quick look and they understand what’s going on,” Callaghan said. In one assignment, he asks his students to shape a mountain in the sand that could be considered a divide. They have to show the distinct watersheds and tributaries created by that land structure. He then switches on the projectors and the class can see if they’ve achieved the effect they desired. They can make corrections on the fly and discuss where and why they went wrong. He even uses it as an alternative assessment, asking students to create the concepts they’ve studied, explaining along the way using the scientific vocabulary when applicable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This semester the graduate students have taken on the challenge of making geology fun with a game meant to simulate resource discovery. Students send a seismic wave into the rock using their voices and calculate the kind of resources they might discover in different locations based on the density and permeability of the rock. They learn about the different geological properties of resources like coal, natural gas and oil. Based on the results they can discover from the seismic wave test, students simulate taking a core sample of the earth, comparing it to other rock formations, calculating depth and making a guess about the percentage-chance of hitting a resource there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/24lLOf-K7fo'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/24lLOf-K7fo'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the end, the energy students find is put into a battery and used to literally light up part of the Pittsburgh skyline that CMU students built into the game. This final part isn’t just for fun; it helps reinforce the idea that all this drilling simulation is connected to human energy use.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The energy resource game has been difficult to design, according to Lisa Elkin, a CMU graduate student working on the project. Her team came up with a list of concrete learning goals after listening to teachers' priorities. Those elements were non-negotiable, but other aspects could change. For example, a main goal of the resource game is for students to understand that the frequency* of the wave is what determines its depth. And, when students drill for core samples, the main point is to see the layers of earth and compare them to other kinds or rock. When designing with those learning goals top of mind, other details like the angle of the drill aren’t as important.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’ve worked very hard to make sure that education is central to the fun,” Elkin said. She says game designers never want to create “chocolate covered broccoli,” the worksheet in disguise that students sniff out and dismiss immediately. Instead, the games should be fun precisely because they are educational.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our success depends on us meeting their goals,” Elkin said. The resource game is an example of how crucial feedback from students and teachers is to getting it right. “We went out and we tested it and no one liked it,” Elkin said. Some of the game mechanics were confusing to students and CMU students had added elements meant to increase collaboration and communication that detracted from the central educational goals. After watching kids interact with the game they went back to the lab to make some major changes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They’re the best clients,” Elkin said. “They give lots of great feedback; they’re enthusiastic; they’re responsive, and they really believe what they’re doing and that’s so fun.” And there’s the added benefit of taking a difficult learning concept, turning it into a fun and engaging game and knowing students learned along the way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>A BENEFICIAL RELATIONSHIP\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The partnership between CMU’s Entertainment Technology Center and Elizabeth Forward has been fruitful for both parties. CMU students get the experience of working with real clients on real problems that will have an impact on education. They have to be creative to take the content knowledge of teachers and makes games students will choose over any other activity. “You either do the boring obvious thing or you do your job,” Elkin said of coming up with great games based on general teacher needs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Elizabeth Forward has gained several interesting embodied learning games and simulations to help them teach the most difficult parts of their curriculum. Middle school students get the experience of giving their feedback and advice as co-creators in the project. And, best of all the school benefits from an infusion of outside energy and expertise no teacher is expected to have. Teachers are content area experts, not game designers, but when the two team up really useful resources can be developed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"disqusTitle": "Teaching Geopolitics: Fantasy Football as a Learning Game",
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"content": "\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003cem>From \u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/The-Game-Believes-You-Digital/dp/1137279575\">The Game Believes in You\u003c/a> by Greg Toppo. Copyright (c) 2015 by the authors and reprinted by permission of Palgrave Macmillan, a division of St. Martin's Press, LLC.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">North Lakes Academy inhabits one of those big, brutalist, vertical concrete-block buildings that, from the outside, could be just about anything: an office building, a tire warehouse, a forlorn selfstorage facility. The tiny windows give away nothing. North Lakes sits on a lonely back road in Forest Lake, one of those far-flung Minneapolis suburbs that boasts plenty of retail—it’s sandwiched between a Target and a WalMart—but sits so impossibly far from the city, and so close to open wilderness, that calling it a suburb seems an overreach. It pulls students from nearly twenty-five surrounding towns. In the fall of 2008, Eric Nelson found himself teaching there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">He was miserable. A Minnesota native who grew up in a family of teachers—he jokes, “I couldn’t escape it”—Nelson majored in history at the University of Wisconsin and returned to Minnesota to earn his master’s degree in education. While he earned his degree, he was student-teaching, and like virtually every new teacher who ever lived, he’d begun his career with a hazy Sound of Music idea that everyone surely loved learning as much as he did, and that his students would hang on to his every word. “I was kind of shocked, when I started teaching, at how zombified ninth graders were,” he said. “They just sort of looked through me.” But he knew that among his students were several dedicated gamers, and they had learned how to work hard and overcome obstacles in the games they loved. Kids love video games, he said, “because they can just hit the reset button. That’s how a lot of life should work— you make new mistakes instead of repeating the same ones over and over again.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2015/04/game-believes-in-you.jpeg\">\u003cimg class=\"alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-40366\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2015/04/game-believes-in-you-400x608.jpeg\" alt=\"game believes in you\" width=\"400\" height=\"608\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/04/game-believes-in-you-400x608.jpeg 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/04/game-believes-in-you-800x1216.jpeg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/04/game-believes-in-you-1440x2189.jpeg 1440w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/04/game-believes-in-you-1180x1794.jpeg 1180w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/04/game-believes-in-you-960x1459.jpeg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\">\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">At the time, Nelson was trying to figure out how to engage his students in world affairs, foreign policy, and the role of the United States in the world. The students had come of age in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, which shocked most Americans’ geopolitical sensibilities awake. Yet to these heartland kids, the rest of the world still seemed remote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Late one night in 2009, in the throes of a self-described “existential crisis” as he struggled to prepare for a morning class, Nelson took a break from fretting long enough to check his fantasy football team. He had been playing since 2004—his teams were back-to-back Super Bowl champions in 2005 and 2006—so he knew the game intimately. Both years he’d picked up a running back who had started the season slowly but “got hot” by the end and lifted his team to the playoffs. In just a few years, Nelson had begun to understand the NFL from the inside out, how a team worked and how the pieces fit together. “I was watching games differently,” he said. As he researched whether to start Jay Cutler or Drew Brees at quarterback the following Sunday, Nelson’s mood improved and his mindset shifted. Simply by thinking like a gamer, he realized, he was making a dull task into something enjoyable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Digital technology made the task easy: rather than sifting through a week’s worth of newspaper clippings for the players’ standings and statistics, he could simply look online. At a glance, he saw where each player stood. Then it came to him: what if he wasn’t swapping Cutler and Brees, but China and Brazil? Just as fantasy football team owners draft, cut, and trade players based on their performance, his students could do the same with countries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">[contextly_sidebar id=\"cqLyfgXx0rjRLYEKeUpIAaSiMLVC8pDh\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">He’d replace passing yards and points per game with political crises and popular uprisings. Since he was struggling to get students interested in international developments, each country’s ability to fight its way into the news of the day would make it more valuable. Students could draft teams of countries—it didn’t matter if they were related—and compete for the newsiest cluster. Lackluster countries would quickly sink to the bottom and get traded, but if an earthquake or military coup struck, say, Indonesia, the student who was following the news most closely could snatch it up before anyone else found out. Nelson dubbed the game \u003ca href=\"http://www.fantasygeopolitics.com/\">Fantasy Geopolitics\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Forget for a moment that his game was an adaptation of an abstraction. He brought it to a ninth-grade civics class in September 2009, and students immediately clung to countries with funny-sounding names. Djibouti was in great demand, but as soon as kids found it didn’t make news, they traded it. On the other hand, Mali may have seemed like just another unremarkable West African country at first, but when revolution came, the student who was paying attention picked it up unnoticed and pulled ahead. Soon everyone was paying attention. In December 2010, students began to notice that the kids who held Tunisia, then Libya, Egypt, and Yemen all began scoring points. The Arab Spring had arrived, and suddenly it meant something.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“It’s kind of like a way to nerd out without having to do it outside of school,” said Alissa Gmyrek, a senior who first played the game as a freshman. “You definitely have to research a lot.” During the World Cup last year, she picked Brazil and Argentina. “Latin America was really booming at that time,” she said. She noticed that political protests were roiling Venezuela, so she picked it too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">As the game caught on, Nelson began automating it, moving from a simple Google spreadsheet to a full-blown news tracker keyed to mentions in the New York Times. He created a “hall of fame” for the highest-scoring players, and soon realized that it was populated almost entirely by girls. “They do quiet research, they pick up the countries quietly,” he said. “They just kind of quietly paid attention, made those changes and crushed their competition.” At the end of the semester, the winner got a T-shirt that read, “Kickin’ Djibouti,” and everyone got the joke, said Gmyrek. Ask most high school seniors to stick a pin in Djibouti on a map of the world and they’d be lost. Gmyrek not only knows where the tiny North African country is—in the Gulf of Aden, opposite Yemen— but that it is “kind of a strategic place for the U.S. to have a base in.” Still, she said, “it never scores a lot of points, I guess. It’s just a tiny, tiny country.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_40365\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 400px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2015/04/toppo-headshot.jpeg\">\u003cimg class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-40365\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2015/04/toppo-headshot-400x485.jpeg\" alt=\"Greg Toppo \" width=\"400\" height=\"485\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/04/toppo-headshot-400x485.jpeg 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/04/toppo-headshot-800x970.jpeg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/04/toppo-headshot-1440x1746.jpeg 1440w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/04/toppo-headshot-1180x1430.jpeg 1180w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/04/toppo-headshot-960x1164.jpeg 960w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/04/toppo-headshot.jpeg 1498w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Greg Toppo \u003ccite>(Jack Gruber, USA TODAY staff, courtesy of Palgrave Macmillan.)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">What happened outside of class was more surprising. Without Nelson’s urging or even his knowledge, students created a Facebook page that synthesized the international news they were following. They created a daily “White House brief,” a concise summary of what was happening worldwide. And they invited him to join a discussion group. “They were having these conversations on social media that I wanted to have in my classroom.” Even kids who lost interest after the game ended still benefited. As part of the game, Nelson encouraged students to add international newsfeeds to their personal Facebook pages. When the season ended, they went back to their old habits of reading about “Miley Cyrus and all the other crap,” Nelson said, but their pages were shot through with news from around the world. “This sort of made my students the teachers,” he said. “Once we kicked off the game and they got into it, they were sort of coming into my classroom saying, ‘Hey Nelson, have you heard about what’s happening in Syria?’ and telling their classmates about these things too. It became a different kind of experience, and I became a little obsolete by choice, which I loved.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003cem>Greg Toppo is USA Today's national education and demographics writer. He is the author of \u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/The-Game-Believes-You-Digital/dp/1137279575\">The Game Believes in You: How Digital Play Can Make Our Kids Smarter\u003c/a>. You can follow him at \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/gtoppo\">@gtoppo\u003c/a>. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003cem>From \u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/The-Game-Believes-You-Digital/dp/1137279575\">The Game Believes in You\u003c/a> by Greg Toppo. Copyright (c) 2015 by the authors and reprinted by permission of Palgrave Macmillan, a division of St. Martin's Press, LLC.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">North Lakes Academy inhabits one of those big, brutalist, vertical concrete-block buildings that, from the outside, could be just about anything: an office building, a tire warehouse, a forlorn selfstorage facility. The tiny windows give away nothing. North Lakes sits on a lonely back road in Forest Lake, one of those far-flung Minneapolis suburbs that boasts plenty of retail—it’s sandwiched between a Target and a WalMart—but sits so impossibly far from the city, and so close to open wilderness, that calling it a suburb seems an overreach. It pulls students from nearly twenty-five surrounding towns. In the fall of 2008, Eric Nelson found himself teaching there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">He was miserable. A Minnesota native who grew up in a family of teachers—he jokes, “I couldn’t escape it”—Nelson majored in history at the University of Wisconsin and returned to Minnesota to earn his master’s degree in education. While he earned his degree, he was student-teaching, and like virtually every new teacher who ever lived, he’d begun his career with a hazy Sound of Music idea that everyone surely loved learning as much as he did, and that his students would hang on to his every word. “I was kind of shocked, when I started teaching, at how zombified ninth graders were,” he said. “They just sort of looked through me.” But he knew that among his students were several dedicated gamers, and they had learned how to work hard and overcome obstacles in the games they loved. Kids love video games, he said, “because they can just hit the reset button. That’s how a lot of life should work— you make new mistakes instead of repeating the same ones over and over again.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2015/04/game-believes-in-you.jpeg\">\u003cimg class=\"alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-40366\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2015/04/game-believes-in-you-400x608.jpeg\" alt=\"game believes in you\" width=\"400\" height=\"608\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/04/game-believes-in-you-400x608.jpeg 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/04/game-believes-in-you-800x1216.jpeg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/04/game-believes-in-you-1440x2189.jpeg 1440w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/04/game-believes-in-you-1180x1794.jpeg 1180w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/04/game-believes-in-you-960x1459.jpeg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\">\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">At the time, Nelson was trying to figure out how to engage his students in world affairs, foreign policy, and the role of the United States in the world. The students had come of age in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, which shocked most Americans’ geopolitical sensibilities awake. Yet to these heartland kids, the rest of the world still seemed remote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Late one night in 2009, in the throes of a self-described “existential crisis” as he struggled to prepare for a morning class, Nelson took a break from fretting long enough to check his fantasy football team. He had been playing since 2004—his teams were back-to-back Super Bowl champions in 2005 and 2006—so he knew the game intimately. Both years he’d picked up a running back who had started the season slowly but “got hot” by the end and lifted his team to the playoffs. In just a few years, Nelson had begun to understand the NFL from the inside out, how a team worked and how the pieces fit together. “I was watching games differently,” he said. As he researched whether to start Jay Cutler or Drew Brees at quarterback the following Sunday, Nelson’s mood improved and his mindset shifted. Simply by thinking like a gamer, he realized, he was making a dull task into something enjoyable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Digital technology made the task easy: rather than sifting through a week’s worth of newspaper clippings for the players’ standings and statistics, he could simply look online. At a glance, he saw where each player stood. Then it came to him: what if he wasn’t swapping Cutler and Brees, but China and Brazil? Just as fantasy football team owners draft, cut, and trade players based on their performance, his students could do the same with countries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">He’d replace passing yards and points per game with political crises and popular uprisings. Since he was struggling to get students interested in international developments, each country’s ability to fight its way into the news of the day would make it more valuable. Students could draft teams of countries—it didn’t matter if they were related—and compete for the newsiest cluster. Lackluster countries would quickly sink to the bottom and get traded, but if an earthquake or military coup struck, say, Indonesia, the student who was following the news most closely could snatch it up before anyone else found out. Nelson dubbed the game \u003ca href=\"http://www.fantasygeopolitics.com/\">Fantasy Geopolitics\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">Forget for a moment that his game was an adaptation of an abstraction. He brought it to a ninth-grade civics class in September 2009, and students immediately clung to countries with funny-sounding names. Djibouti was in great demand, but as soon as kids found it didn’t make news, they traded it. On the other hand, Mali may have seemed like just another unremarkable West African country at first, but when revolution came, the student who was paying attention picked it up unnoticed and pulled ahead. Soon everyone was paying attention. In December 2010, students began to notice that the kids who held Tunisia, then Libya, Egypt, and Yemen all began scoring points. The Arab Spring had arrived, and suddenly it meant something.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">“It’s kind of like a way to nerd out without having to do it outside of school,” said Alissa Gmyrek, a senior who first played the game as a freshman. “You definitely have to research a lot.” During the World Cup last year, she picked Brazil and Argentina. “Latin America was really booming at that time,” she said. She noticed that political protests were roiling Venezuela, so she picked it too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">As the game caught on, Nelson began automating it, moving from a simple Google spreadsheet to a full-blown news tracker keyed to mentions in the New York Times. He created a “hall of fame” for the highest-scoring players, and soon realized that it was populated almost entirely by girls. “They do quiet research, they pick up the countries quietly,” he said. “They just kind of quietly paid attention, made those changes and crushed their competition.” At the end of the semester, the winner got a T-shirt that read, “Kickin’ Djibouti,” and everyone got the joke, said Gmyrek. Ask most high school seniors to stick a pin in Djibouti on a map of the world and they’d be lost. Gmyrek not only knows where the tiny North African country is—in the Gulf of Aden, opposite Yemen— but that it is “kind of a strategic place for the U.S. to have a base in.” Still, she said, “it never scores a lot of points, I guess. It’s just a tiny, tiny country.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_40365\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 400px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2015/04/toppo-headshot.jpeg\">\u003cimg class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-40365\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2015/04/toppo-headshot-400x485.jpeg\" alt=\"Greg Toppo \" width=\"400\" height=\"485\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/04/toppo-headshot-400x485.jpeg 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/04/toppo-headshot-800x970.jpeg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/04/toppo-headshot-1440x1746.jpeg 1440w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/04/toppo-headshot-1180x1430.jpeg 1180w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/04/toppo-headshot-960x1164.jpeg 960w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2015/04/toppo-headshot.jpeg 1498w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Greg Toppo \u003ccite>(Jack Gruber, USA TODAY staff, courtesy of Palgrave Macmillan.)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">What happened outside of class was more surprising. Without Nelson’s urging or even his knowledge, students created a Facebook page that synthesized the international news they were following. They created a daily “White House brief,” a concise summary of what was happening worldwide. And they invited him to join a discussion group. “They were having these conversations on social media that I wanted to have in my classroom.” Even kids who lost interest after the game ended still benefited. As part of the game, Nelson encouraged students to add international newsfeeds to their personal Facebook pages. When the season ended, they went back to their old habits of reading about “Miley Cyrus and all the other crap,” Nelson said, but their pages were shot through with news from around the world. “This sort of made my students the teachers,” he said. “Once we kicked off the game and they got into it, they were sort of coming into my classroom saying, ‘Hey Nelson, have you heard about what’s happening in Syria?’ and telling their classmates about these things too. It became a different kind of experience, and I became a little obsolete by choice, which I loved.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003cem>Greg Toppo is USA Today's national education and demographics writer. He is the author of \u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/The-Game-Believes-You-Digital/dp/1137279575\">The Game Believes in You: How Digital Play Can Make Our Kids Smarter\u003c/a>. You can follow him at \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/gtoppo\">@gtoppo\u003c/a>. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"disqusTitle": "Can Games and Badges Motivate College Students to Learn?",
"title": "Can Games and Badges Motivate College Students to Learn?",
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"content": "\u003cp>At what point does an educator turn to games? K-12 educators have a good track record of using games to engage children, but when it comes to higher education, students are largely on their own. As these digital natives make their way through college, professors are looking to use games and digital media to help students learn. The use of games by educators is often motivated by the desire to better engage students and align instructional practices. Some educators are turning to \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/series/guide-to-games-and-learning/\">game-based learning\u003c/a>, but gamification is also serving a purpose.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Engagement and games, however, is not without controversy. At the heart of the issue is \u003cem>gamification\u003c/em>, a term commonly defined as the addition of reward systems to non-game settings and contexts. This can take the form of airline loyalty points or gold stars. Many game designers and scholars believe that these extrinsic motivators are not games at all. Rather, they feel that good games should rely on stories, quests and intrinsic challenges. These are characteristics of gameful design or game-based learning, as opposed to the mere badging and points that characterize gamification.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If a class runs exactly as it always has, except that students receive badges and points in lieu of marks and grades, is it really a game? Does this question matter if student performance improves due to the draw of extrinsic lures? How does student behaviour change in a strictly gamified class?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=\"TEwRzCPI1hM7myhuskbH8AbuiMrLu5DB\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These are the questions professor \u003ca href=\"http://finearts.uvic.ca/writing/faculty/leach/\">David Leach\u003c/a> set out to answer with an experiment he conducted at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada. As a prize-winning magazine writer, editor and creative writing teacher, he understands the value of narrative, but he also has an interest in games. “Further reading led me into the discussion—and controversy— around gamification in education. I read a lot of pros versus cons but not a lot of real experimental evidence for the effectiveness of these tools. The Systems CIO at our university gave me research money to run an experiment on the effectiveness of gamification.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To test the advantages and disadvantages of gamification, Leach ran two parallel sections of his Human Uses of Technology course. One was taught as a regular class, while the other section used leaderboards, badges and points and, to a lesser degree, quests. “The stages of various assignments were also described as 'quests' but this was a very superficial narrative element. Mostly, the experiment’s focus was on the crudest use of popular gamification tools,” said Leach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the end, the gamification group visited the online course site twice as often and spent double the amount of time as the regular class. Their blog posts were submitted earlier and they were significantly more active on the online class forum. A post-game survey revealed that 82% of the students believed that gamification was an effective motivational tool. Surprisingly, despite their higher activity on the class site, the gamified group demonstrated no improved learning outcomes in their academic performance in the course.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Leach’s research paper on the experiment concludes that “gamification can offer incentives for online activity and socializing but, on its own, may have little impact on quantifiable learning outcomes.” These results might change with alterations to badge criteria and/or how points are awarded, which might impact how students distribute their efforts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fortunately, gamified and gameful designs are not mutually exclusive, and combining both may cast the widest motivational net, significantly improving chances to capture hearts and minds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>A Playbor of Love\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Recasting college level classes as games can be enormously rewarding and beneficial for students and instructors but, as all genuine innovation, hurdles must be cleared.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Story, I think, is the real power of game-based learning,” said Leach, but he underscores a structural challenge to implementation when he adds that “the modular set-up of most university programs — 1.5 hour classes twice per week, students taking four or five different courses at a time — undermine developing that sense of narrative engagement in a university setting.” Can multiple courses be integrated into a single game? Can schedules be abolished to make way for more sophisticated asynchronous gameplay? Time will tell.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Leach also believes that universities could \u003ca href=\"http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/02/how-professors-can-bolster-inquiry-in-college-using-k-12-tech-tricks/\">look to the K-12 system\u003c/a>, where the emphasis is on pedagogy rather than research. “Mostly, I think university instructors have a lot to learn from K-12 teachers, where there is far more innovation in the fields of game-based learning. The lack of communication between the K-12 and post-secondary realms is a huge barrier to innovation.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Implementing a game-based class also means an increased workload for already busy professors. \u003ca href=\"http://www.bobdeschutter.com/\">Bob De Schutter\u003c/a>, a game design professor at Miami University, writes that it can be a “long and laborious process to get it right.” However, tools like \u003ca href=\"http://3dgamelab.com/\">3D Gamelab\u003c/a>, and the benefit of tried and established models from pioneers like \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/04/07/how-games-can-be-used-to-teach-college-level-chinese/\">Lee Sheldon\u003c/a> and Chris Haskell, will all prove helpful to reduce the time commitment for educators who want to jump into the fray.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ultimately, it might be more accurate to frame the extra work as \u003cem>playbor\u003c/em> rather than labor. “Truth of the matter is that I love doing the gameful course,” said De Schutter. “It is fun to ambush students, to bring their heroes in the conversation and to basically game-master a class, and it is just as fun for students to battle each other or slay vampire kitties. That does not necessarily make an already engaging teaching style any more engaging, but it does make your class significantly more awesome.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>At what point does an educator turn to games? K-12 educators have a good track record of using games to engage children, but when it comes to higher education, students are largely on their own. As these digital natives make their way through college, professors are looking to use games and digital media to help students learn. The use of games by educators is often motivated by the desire to better engage students and align instructional practices. Some educators are turning to \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/series/guide-to-games-and-learning/\">game-based learning\u003c/a>, but gamification is also serving a purpose.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Engagement and games, however, is not without controversy. At the heart of the issue is \u003cem>gamification\u003c/em>, a term commonly defined as the addition of reward systems to non-game settings and contexts. This can take the form of airline loyalty points or gold stars. Many game designers and scholars believe that these extrinsic motivators are not games at all. Rather, they feel that good games should rely on stories, quests and intrinsic challenges. These are characteristics of gameful design or game-based learning, as opposed to the mere badging and points that characterize gamification.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If a class runs exactly as it always has, except that students receive badges and points in lieu of marks and grades, is it really a game? Does this question matter if student performance improves due to the draw of extrinsic lures? How does student behaviour change in a strictly gamified class?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These are the questions professor \u003ca href=\"http://finearts.uvic.ca/writing/faculty/leach/\">David Leach\u003c/a> set out to answer with an experiment he conducted at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada. As a prize-winning magazine writer, editor and creative writing teacher, he understands the value of narrative, but he also has an interest in games. “Further reading led me into the discussion—and controversy— around gamification in education. I read a lot of pros versus cons but not a lot of real experimental evidence for the effectiveness of these tools. The Systems CIO at our university gave me research money to run an experiment on the effectiveness of gamification.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To test the advantages and disadvantages of gamification, Leach ran two parallel sections of his Human Uses of Technology course. One was taught as a regular class, while the other section used leaderboards, badges and points and, to a lesser degree, quests. “The stages of various assignments were also described as 'quests' but this was a very superficial narrative element. Mostly, the experiment’s focus was on the crudest use of popular gamification tools,” said Leach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the end, the gamification group visited the online course site twice as often and spent double the amount of time as the regular class. Their blog posts were submitted earlier and they were significantly more active on the online class forum. A post-game survey revealed that 82% of the students believed that gamification was an effective motivational tool. Surprisingly, despite their higher activity on the class site, the gamified group demonstrated no improved learning outcomes in their academic performance in the course.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Leach’s research paper on the experiment concludes that “gamification can offer incentives for online activity and socializing but, on its own, may have little impact on quantifiable learning outcomes.” These results might change with alterations to badge criteria and/or how points are awarded, which might impact how students distribute their efforts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fortunately, gamified and gameful designs are not mutually exclusive, and combining both may cast the widest motivational net, significantly improving chances to capture hearts and minds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>A Playbor of Love\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Recasting college level classes as games can be enormously rewarding and beneficial for students and instructors but, as all genuine innovation, hurdles must be cleared.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Story, I think, is the real power of game-based learning,” said Leach, but he underscores a structural challenge to implementation when he adds that “the modular set-up of most university programs — 1.5 hour classes twice per week, students taking four or five different courses at a time — undermine developing that sense of narrative engagement in a university setting.” Can multiple courses be integrated into a single game? Can schedules be abolished to make way for more sophisticated asynchronous gameplay? Time will tell.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Leach also believes that universities could \u003ca href=\"http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/02/how-professors-can-bolster-inquiry-in-college-using-k-12-tech-tricks/\">look to the K-12 system\u003c/a>, where the emphasis is on pedagogy rather than research. “Mostly, I think university instructors have a lot to learn from K-12 teachers, where there is far more innovation in the fields of game-based learning. The lack of communication between the K-12 and post-secondary realms is a huge barrier to innovation.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Implementing a game-based class also means an increased workload for already busy professors. \u003ca href=\"http://www.bobdeschutter.com/\">Bob De Schutter\u003c/a>, a game design professor at Miami University, writes that it can be a “long and laborious process to get it right.” However, tools like \u003ca href=\"http://3dgamelab.com/\">3D Gamelab\u003c/a>, and the benefit of tried and established models from pioneers like \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/04/07/how-games-can-be-used-to-teach-college-level-chinese/\">Lee Sheldon\u003c/a> and Chris Haskell, will all prove helpful to reduce the time commitment for educators who want to jump into the fray.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ultimately, it might be more accurate to frame the extra work as \u003cem>playbor\u003c/em> rather than labor. “Truth of the matter is that I love doing the gameful course,” said De Schutter. “It is fun to ambush students, to bring their heroes in the conversation and to basically game-master a class, and it is just as fun for students to battle each other or slay vampire kitties. That does not necessarily make an already engaging teaching style any more engaging, but it does make your class significantly more awesome.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Tensions ran high as a stern detective interrogated a group of American students at a Beijing police station. The questions were fired in Mandarin, but the students stood their ground and responded in kind. This was not a scene from a blockbuster thriller or an episode of \u003cem>Locked Up Abroad\u003c/em>, but the final exam for the Mandarin and Chinese Culture class Lee Sheldon designed at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Using Mandarin-speaking actors and an elaborate backstory involving a stolen manuscript, Sheldon worked with the course’s instructor to deliver the class as a narrative-driven game that immersed students in Chinese culture without ever having to leave the Troy, New York campus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sheldon is no stranger to the art of crafting narratives, and his unique classes mark the convergence of his multifaceted career as a screenwriter, author, producer, game designer and academic. While working as a writer in Hollywood, he penned over 200 episodes for TV classics like \u003cem>Charlie’s Angels\u003c/em>, \u003cem>Cagney \u003c/em>and\u003cem> Lacey \u003c/em>and\u003cem> Star Trek: The Next Generation\u003c/em>. He transitioned into game design in the mid-1990s and then to academia when he accepted an offer to teach screenwriting and game design at Indiana University Bloomington.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“After a couple of years teaching and becoming increasingly bored—I feared my students were as well—I tried to think of a way to make the classes more interesting to all concerned,” said Sheldon. His “Aha” moment came when he thought to re-conceive his game design class as an \u003ca href=\"http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/10/how-students-can-channel-the-odyssey-into-an-alternate-reality-epic/\">Alternate Reality Game\u003c/a> (ARG), a complex live-action game format he had experimented with during his days as a game designer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A look at an \"interrogation\" and how students speak Chinese with actors in this alternate reality game:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5ShOX4enU8\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The university lecture format has remained virtually unchanged since the Middle Ages, but the demands of the modern world are causing institutes of higher learning to do some serious soul searching. Efforts to innovate new models for college education have led to \u003ca href=\"http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/02/how-professors-can-bolster-inquiry-in-college-using-k-12-tech-tricks/\">flipped classrooms\u003c/a>, in-class student respond systems, sophisticated online courses, massive open online courses (MOOCs) and multimedia lectures--and now games have joined the fray.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"http://redarchive.nmc.org/publications/2014-horizon-report-higher-ed\">2014 Horizon Report on Higher Education\u003c/a>, an annual NMC publication that identifies and predicts education trends, states that games are “gaining support among educators who recognize that effectively designed games can stimulate large gains in productivity and creativity among learners.” Professors are not only using \u003ca href=\"http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/120242-Study-Skyrim-at-Rice-University\">video games as course material\u003c/a>, but there has been an explosion of college-level game design courses. This speaks to the increasingly important role games play in modern society, or what professor Joost Raessens from Utrecht University terms the “\u003ca href=\"http://projects.digital-cultures.net/meson-press/files/2014/06/rethinking-gamification-raessens-the-ludification-of-culture.pdf\">ludification of culture\u003c/a>.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>“Good Morning. You all have an F.”\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sheldon would start his first game-based class by announcing “Good morning. You all have an F.” His student’s initial shock and dismay quickly gave way to enthusiasm upon further explanation. Unlike traditional grading systems that erode from a perfect score, the class would mirror the “level up” model of video game scoring. Students start at zero (the proverbial “F”) and work their way up by earning experience points for a variety of tasks and activities. The experience points system is much more forgiving of failure than traditional grading, and it encourages mastery. Students can keep working to build their score towards a respectable grade, rather than suffering permanent and potentially demoralizing setbacks from unalterable missteps.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The model’s success led Sheldon to write \u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/The-Multiplayer-Classroom-Designing-Coursework/dp/1435458443\">\u003cem>The Multiplayer Classroom: Designing Coursework as a Game\u003c/em>,\u003c/a> which has become required reading for educators and designers who seek to deliver classes as games. The freedom to fail, rapid feedback, progression and storytelling are the most consistently engaging game elements when applied to learning environments, according to a \u003ca href=\"http://clab.iat.sfu.ca/pubs/Stott-Gamification.pdf\">2013 analysis\u003c/a> by professors Andrew Stott and Carman Neustaedter from Simon Fraser University.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=\"9cK6EuPv3aiI0fifc7srL7piya9WILFo\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Transforming the grading system in Sheldon’s class was only the beginning. Students became players, the professor was the Game Master, group work was carried out in guilds and assignments were delivered as quests, all held together by an engaging storyline. Sheldon has since designed over a dozen different classes as games, with plot lines that involve alien abductions, traditional Kung Fu tea ceremonies, a future of genetically-enhanced humans, and even a saga about an Irish family immigrating to Mars to teach engineering.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The learning objectives exceeded my wildest imagination,” said Sheldon. “The average class grade went from a C to a B. The average grade for midterm exams has either been A or A-. Class attendance is almost perfect.” He noted that students were visibly more excited about their classes, carried out extra work on their own, and enthusiastically competed and collaborated. “It was so successful students not in the class were begging to be allowed to audit it,” added Sheldon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the virtual \u003ca href=\"http://thelostmanuscriptii.wp.rpi.edu/\">elements\u003c/a> of the Mandarin Chinese class:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://vimeo.com/83822569\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Tensions ran high as a stern detective interrogated a group of American students at a Beijing police station. The questions were fired in Mandarin, but the students stood their ground and responded in kind. This was not a scene from a blockbuster thriller or an episode of \u003cem>Locked Up Abroad\u003c/em>, but the final exam for the Mandarin and Chinese Culture class Lee Sheldon designed at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Using Mandarin-speaking actors and an elaborate backstory involving a stolen manuscript, Sheldon worked with the course’s instructor to deliver the class as a narrative-driven game that immersed students in Chinese culture without ever having to leave the Troy, New York campus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sheldon is no stranger to the art of crafting narratives, and his unique classes mark the convergence of his multifaceted career as a screenwriter, author, producer, game designer and academic. While working as a writer in Hollywood, he penned over 200 episodes for TV classics like \u003cem>Charlie’s Angels\u003c/em>, \u003cem>Cagney \u003c/em>and\u003cem> Lacey \u003c/em>and\u003cem> Star Trek: The Next Generation\u003c/em>. He transitioned into game design in the mid-1990s and then to academia when he accepted an offer to teach screenwriting and game design at Indiana University Bloomington.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“After a couple of years teaching and becoming increasingly bored—I feared my students were as well—I tried to think of a way to make the classes more interesting to all concerned,” said Sheldon. His “Aha” moment came when he thought to re-conceive his game design class as an \u003ca href=\"http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/10/how-students-can-channel-the-odyssey-into-an-alternate-reality-epic/\">Alternate Reality Game\u003c/a> (ARG), a complex live-action game format he had experimented with during his days as a game designer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A look at an \"interrogation\" and how students speak Chinese with actors in this alternate reality game:\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/_5ShOX4enU8'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/_5ShOX4enU8'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The university lecture format has remained virtually unchanged since the Middle Ages, but the demands of the modern world are causing institutes of higher learning to do some serious soul searching. Efforts to innovate new models for college education have led to \u003ca href=\"http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/02/how-professors-can-bolster-inquiry-in-college-using-k-12-tech-tricks/\">flipped classrooms\u003c/a>, in-class student respond systems, sophisticated online courses, massive open online courses (MOOCs) and multimedia lectures--and now games have joined the fray.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"http://redarchive.nmc.org/publications/2014-horizon-report-higher-ed\">2014 Horizon Report on Higher Education\u003c/a>, an annual NMC publication that identifies and predicts education trends, states that games are “gaining support among educators who recognize that effectively designed games can stimulate large gains in productivity and creativity among learners.” Professors are not only using \u003ca href=\"http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/120242-Study-Skyrim-at-Rice-University\">video games as course material\u003c/a>, but there has been an explosion of college-level game design courses. This speaks to the increasingly important role games play in modern society, or what professor Joost Raessens from Utrecht University terms the “\u003ca href=\"http://projects.digital-cultures.net/meson-press/files/2014/06/rethinking-gamification-raessens-the-ludification-of-culture.pdf\">ludification of culture\u003c/a>.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>“Good Morning. You all have an F.”\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sheldon would start his first game-based class by announcing “Good morning. You all have an F.” His student’s initial shock and dismay quickly gave way to enthusiasm upon further explanation. Unlike traditional grading systems that erode from a perfect score, the class would mirror the “level up” model of video game scoring. Students start at zero (the proverbial “F”) and work their way up by earning experience points for a variety of tasks and activities. The experience points system is much more forgiving of failure than traditional grading, and it encourages mastery. Students can keep working to build their score towards a respectable grade, rather than suffering permanent and potentially demoralizing setbacks from unalterable missteps.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The model’s success led Sheldon to write \u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/The-Multiplayer-Classroom-Designing-Coursework/dp/1435458443\">\u003cem>The Multiplayer Classroom: Designing Coursework as a Game\u003c/em>,\u003c/a> which has become required reading for educators and designers who seek to deliver classes as games. The freedom to fail, rapid feedback, progression and storytelling are the most consistently engaging game elements when applied to learning environments, according to a \u003ca href=\"http://clab.iat.sfu.ca/pubs/Stott-Gamification.pdf\">2013 analysis\u003c/a> by professors Andrew Stott and Carman Neustaedter from Simon Fraser University.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Transforming the grading system in Sheldon’s class was only the beginning. Students became players, the professor was the Game Master, group work was carried out in guilds and assignments were delivered as quests, all held together by an engaging storyline. Sheldon has since designed over a dozen different classes as games, with plot lines that involve alien abductions, traditional Kung Fu tea ceremonies, a future of genetically-enhanced humans, and even a saga about an Irish family immigrating to Mars to teach engineering.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The learning objectives exceeded my wildest imagination,” said Sheldon. “The average class grade went from a C to a B. The average grade for midterm exams has either been A or A-. Class attendance is almost perfect.” He noted that students were visibly more excited about their classes, carried out extra work on their own, and enthusiastically competed and collaborated. “It was so successful students not in the class were begging to be allowed to audit it,” added Sheldon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the virtual \u003ca href=\"http://thelostmanuscriptii.wp.rpi.edu/\">elements\u003c/a> of the Mandarin Chinese class:\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cstrong>By \u003ca href=\"http://www.matthewfarber.com/\">Matthew Farber\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"dropcap-serif\">Inside a classroom, opportunities to learn about common viruses arise when illnesses cycle through, like the cold, flu and some conjunctivitis. Those ailments often come and go with students spending a couple of days recovering at home. However, the types of communicable diseases that capture the nation’s attention tend to be more deadly, such as Ebola. While students can learn about how these diseases affect the human body and communities through news, books and movies, another platform has proven itself useful as an educational tool: games. By playing games about how relationships and outcomes are tested by more deadly viruses, players are pushed to work together to ensure survival.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>PANDEMIC\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/30549/pandemic\">Pandemic\u003c/a> is a tabletop game that can be used to teach themes of global interconnectedness. Players must work together to rid the board's cities of infection outbreaks. Either everyone wins together, or all is lost. Players choose role cards, each with specific abilities. For example, “Scientists” can eliminate diseases more quickly than other players and “Dispatchers” can move anyone from city to city, regardless of location on the map. In effect, each player has a “power-up” the other doesn’t. Because there is a player limit of four, it can work best when used in a learning station connected to other content strands. It takes around 30-45 minutes to play.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=\"MIdexOwf3pCjdF8iqbXVy79NAVYQa0aa\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Games tell stories with player actions (known as “core mechanics”). Matt Leacock, designer of the cooperative board game Pandemic, explained how. “I like to create emergent systems that create story hooks, different beats that you can associate meaning to,” he said. “My games try to get positive and negative beats going, one after another. Something good happens and then something bad happens. While that’s going on--the vacillation of hope and fear--I’m also trying to get that feeling of trying to get the next goal, the next rung has to be just within reach. That challenge has to be just enough to keep you in a state of flow. I think of them [games] as story engines and I try to make them hopeful.” In other words, the life-and-death scenarios in health-themed games keep players engaged in a “state of flow,” the psychological concept of being highly engaged in a task.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are several games in the Pandemic universe. The dice version, \u003ca href=\"http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/150658/pandemic-cure\">Pandemic: The Cure\u003c/a>, sets up in minutes, making it logistically easy to integrate into a class lesson. There is no board; rather, there are six tiles, each representing a major region of the world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>PLAGUE, INC.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Playing as a pathogen presents a different viewpoint for learning. \u003ca href=\"https://www.commonsensemedia.org/app-reviews/plague-inc\">Plague, Inc.\u003c/a> is an app game in which players get to take on that role, playing as bacteria, virus and other contagions. “The world is your Petri dish, and you are in there, tweaking the variables,” said creator, James Vaughan. “It makes people look at the whole issue of infectious disease in a way they wouldn’t ordinarily do.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Vaughan’s background as an economist has played a role in the game’s ultimate design. Plague, Inc. makes a game out of the world’s interconnected infrastructure systems, similar to other “fishbowl” games, like SimCity. “A lot of economics is about reducing the world down into certain models,” he said. “Then you make assumptions and adjust the models. You see the impact and then try to predict how things might work in the future.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Upon first playing Plague, Inc., it is tempting to “power-up” the genetic makeup of the pathogen to be as lethal as possible. Doing so, however, can result in failure because if all of the human hosts are killed, the disease dies out. “It brings people to well-known concepts about infectious disease, but in a very different route,” Vaughan said. To succeed, players must take into account global health care systems and interconnected travel networks (airlines, shipping lanes), as well as the economies of developing nations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rather than points and badges, player performance is tracked in real-time with graphs and charts. “I wanted to see how the data in the model was changing over time,” Vaughan explained. “The graphs were something helpful when I was initially creating and balancing the model. It turned out that it was also something that players found interesting. The concept of infectious diseases is that of exponential growth. You really have to look at the graph to grasp the consequences of that.” Here, students are presented with an opportunity to work with data in a way that is meaningful and embedded to an experience.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>POX\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The reward mechanisms and intrinsic engagement that games offer can, theoretically, be used to teach the public about health concerns, such as the benefits of getting vaccinated from communicable diseases (especially amidst the re-emergence of measles in the U.S.). One example is \u003ca href=\"https://www.graphite.org/app/pox-save-the-people\">Pox: Save the People\u003c/a>, from the Tiltfactor studio at Dartmouth University. It is a cooperative \u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Tiltfactor-POX-Save-the-People/dp/B008I6RT5M\">board game\u003c/a> (also playable for free on iPad) in which “vaccinated” blue chips must surround “infected” red poker chips. Its core mechanic delivers this message: vaccination circles protect society from cured diseases, like polio, measles and small pox.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong> ASSESSING LEARNING\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Authentic assessments, using open-ended questions and rubrics, can effectively gauge student learning with health-themed games. For example, players of \u003cem>Pox\u003c/em> can be asked how—and why—vaccination circles work. \u003cem>Pandemic \u003c/em>and \u003cem>Plague, Inc. \u003c/em>players can write diary and journal notes during play. What’s more, there are historic parallels to how the small pox affected Native Americans, as well as how the plague traveled along the Silk Road to medieval Europe. Connections can also be made to modern epidemics, too: from Ebola to the measles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Pandemic \u003c/em>has expansion packs with additional role cards and scenarios, including bioterrorist attacks. Because it is a paper-based, students can easily modify (“mod”) their learning by making different versions of roles and situations. For digital learners, \u003cem>Plague, Inc. Evolved \u003c/em>(the PC and Mac version) features the Contagious Content Creator, which turns players into designers, affording an opportunity to work within Vaughan’s model. So far, the community has recreated historic plagues, like small pox and Spanish influenza, as well as modeled how infectious ideas—like democracy—spread. In 2014, there was a Christmas-themed epidemic, in which happiness spread worldwide.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>REAL WORLD CONNECTIONS \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When fears of Ebola in the United States rose in the fall of 2014, so did downloads of \u003cem>Plague, Inc.\u003c/em> Vaughan harnessed his player community to raise $76,000. He said, “[People] don’t always realize how a community of gamers can come together as a force for good.” Similarly, in December 2014, “Pandemic Parties” raised money and awareness for Doctors Without Borders, the international organization working to treat Ebola in West African nations. As of February 2015, Pandemic Parties collectively raised over $50,000.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2013, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) invited Vaughan to speak about public health issues. (The CDC is headquartered in Atlanta, GA, where play begins on the \u003cem>Pandemic \u003c/em>game board.) While there, Vaughan had the opportunity to speak to experts about how to use games to increase public awareness of certain health issues. “\u003cem>Plague Inc.\u003c/em> isn’t going to teach someone everything they need to know about infectious diseases,” Vaughan explained. “However, it will get people thinking about disease. That’s something the CDC has tried with the public, like with its Zombie Preparedness Kit. It’s impactful because it turns people on their heads a bit.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cstrong>By \u003ca href=\"http://www.matthewfarber.com/\">Matthew Farber\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"dropcap-serif\">Inside a classroom, opportunities to learn about common viruses arise when illnesses cycle through, like the cold, flu and some conjunctivitis. Those ailments often come and go with students spending a couple of days recovering at home. However, the types of communicable diseases that capture the nation’s attention tend to be more deadly, such as Ebola. While students can learn about how these diseases affect the human body and communities through news, books and movies, another platform has proven itself useful as an educational tool: games. By playing games about how relationships and outcomes are tested by more deadly viruses, players are pushed to work together to ensure survival.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>PANDEMIC\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/30549/pandemic\">Pandemic\u003c/a> is a tabletop game that can be used to teach themes of global interconnectedness. Players must work together to rid the board's cities of infection outbreaks. Either everyone wins together, or all is lost. Players choose role cards, each with specific abilities. For example, “Scientists” can eliminate diseases more quickly than other players and “Dispatchers” can move anyone from city to city, regardless of location on the map. In effect, each player has a “power-up” the other doesn’t. Because there is a player limit of four, it can work best when used in a learning station connected to other content strands. It takes around 30-45 minutes to play.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Games tell stories with player actions (known as “core mechanics”). Matt Leacock, designer of the cooperative board game Pandemic, explained how. “I like to create emergent systems that create story hooks, different beats that you can associate meaning to,” he said. “My games try to get positive and negative beats going, one after another. Something good happens and then something bad happens. While that’s going on--the vacillation of hope and fear--I’m also trying to get that feeling of trying to get the next goal, the next rung has to be just within reach. That challenge has to be just enough to keep you in a state of flow. I think of them [games] as story engines and I try to make them hopeful.” In other words, the life-and-death scenarios in health-themed games keep players engaged in a “state of flow,” the psychological concept of being highly engaged in a task.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are several games in the Pandemic universe. The dice version, \u003ca href=\"http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/150658/pandemic-cure\">Pandemic: The Cure\u003c/a>, sets up in minutes, making it logistically easy to integrate into a class lesson. There is no board; rather, there are six tiles, each representing a major region of the world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>PLAGUE, INC.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Playing as a pathogen presents a different viewpoint for learning. \u003ca href=\"https://www.commonsensemedia.org/app-reviews/plague-inc\">Plague, Inc.\u003c/a> is an app game in which players get to take on that role, playing as bacteria, virus and other contagions. “The world is your Petri dish, and you are in there, tweaking the variables,” said creator, James Vaughan. “It makes people look at the whole issue of infectious disease in a way they wouldn’t ordinarily do.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Vaughan’s background as an economist has played a role in the game’s ultimate design. Plague, Inc. makes a game out of the world’s interconnected infrastructure systems, similar to other “fishbowl” games, like SimCity. “A lot of economics is about reducing the world down into certain models,” he said. “Then you make assumptions and adjust the models. You see the impact and then try to predict how things might work in the future.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Upon first playing Plague, Inc., it is tempting to “power-up” the genetic makeup of the pathogen to be as lethal as possible. Doing so, however, can result in failure because if all of the human hosts are killed, the disease dies out. “It brings people to well-known concepts about infectious disease, but in a very different route,” Vaughan said. To succeed, players must take into account global health care systems and interconnected travel networks (airlines, shipping lanes), as well as the economies of developing nations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rather than points and badges, player performance is tracked in real-time with graphs and charts. “I wanted to see how the data in the model was changing over time,” Vaughan explained. “The graphs were something helpful when I was initially creating and balancing the model. It turned out that it was also something that players found interesting. The concept of infectious diseases is that of exponential growth. You really have to look at the graph to grasp the consequences of that.” Here, students are presented with an opportunity to work with data in a way that is meaningful and embedded to an experience.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>POX\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The reward mechanisms and intrinsic engagement that games offer can, theoretically, be used to teach the public about health concerns, such as the benefits of getting vaccinated from communicable diseases (especially amidst the re-emergence of measles in the U.S.). One example is \u003ca href=\"https://www.graphite.org/app/pox-save-the-people\">Pox: Save the People\u003c/a>, from the Tiltfactor studio at Dartmouth University. It is a cooperative \u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Tiltfactor-POX-Save-the-People/dp/B008I6RT5M\">board game\u003c/a> (also playable for free on iPad) in which “vaccinated” blue chips must surround “infected” red poker chips. Its core mechanic delivers this message: vaccination circles protect society from cured diseases, like polio, measles and small pox.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong> ASSESSING LEARNING\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Authentic assessments, using open-ended questions and rubrics, can effectively gauge student learning with health-themed games. For example, players of \u003cem>Pox\u003c/em> can be asked how—and why—vaccination circles work. \u003cem>Pandemic \u003c/em>and \u003cem>Plague, Inc. \u003c/em>players can write diary and journal notes during play. What’s more, there are historic parallels to how the small pox affected Native Americans, as well as how the plague traveled along the Silk Road to medieval Europe. Connections can also be made to modern epidemics, too: from Ebola to the measles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Pandemic \u003c/em>has expansion packs with additional role cards and scenarios, including bioterrorist attacks. Because it is a paper-based, students can easily modify (“mod”) their learning by making different versions of roles and situations. For digital learners, \u003cem>Plague, Inc. Evolved \u003c/em>(the PC and Mac version) features the Contagious Content Creator, which turns players into designers, affording an opportunity to work within Vaughan’s model. So far, the community has recreated historic plagues, like small pox and Spanish influenza, as well as modeled how infectious ideas—like democracy—spread. In 2014, there was a Christmas-themed epidemic, in which happiness spread worldwide.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>REAL WORLD CONNECTIONS \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When fears of Ebola in the United States rose in the fall of 2014, so did downloads of \u003cem>Plague, Inc.\u003c/em> Vaughan harnessed his player community to raise $76,000. He said, “[People] don’t always realize how a community of gamers can come together as a force for good.” Similarly, in December 2014, “Pandemic Parties” raised money and awareness for Doctors Without Borders, the international organization working to treat Ebola in West African nations. As of February 2015, Pandemic Parties collectively raised over $50,000.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2013, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) invited Vaughan to speak about public health issues. (The CDC is headquartered in Atlanta, GA, where play begins on the \u003cem>Pandemic \u003c/em>game board.) While there, Vaughan had the opportunity to speak to experts about how to use games to increase public awareness of certain health issues. “\u003cem>Plague Inc.\u003c/em> isn’t going to teach someone everything they need to know about infectious diseases,” Vaughan explained. “However, it will get people thinking about disease. That’s something the CDC has tried with the public, like with its Zombie Preparedness Kit. It’s impactful because it turns people on their heads a bit.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cstrong>By Tanner Higgin, \u003ca href=\"https://www.commonsense.org/education/teaching-strategies/find-the-learning-in-any-game\">Common Sense Education\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When I was in school, game-based learning was a novelty. This was the era of Math Blaster!, Lemonade Stand and Oregon Trail, when \u003ca href=\"https://www.commonsense.org/education/teaching-strategies/find-the-learning-in-any-game\">game-based learning\u003c/a> meant digitized practice problems or clunky, paper-thin simulations. Still, my classmates and I liked these games. For many of us, this was the only exposure we got to video games outside of arcades. Even as consoles increasingly took up residence in living rooms, computer games still felt special--just a bit more advanced and interesting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But when my family got a computer, something changed. The edutainment we'd play in computer labs were still a nice spark in a typical school day, but the games felt different. What we were playing at school felt out of touch and out of step, not just in style and polish, but also in what they asked the player to do. While Oregon Trail might offer the appearance of a history lesson, it's hard to convince a kid of that when she's going home and designing a metropolis in SimCity, or adding another page to her notebook full of hand-drawn Metroid maps.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Game-based learning, and the developers who identify with it today, have come a long way since then and gotten much closer to closing the gap. And there's still a need to communicate core content through games, a need that the consumer market just doesn't have incentive to fill. Yet at \u003cspan class=\"s1\">Common Sense Education\u003c/span>, when we evaluate games for learning, what we find is that many of the highest scoring 'learning' games aren't aimed at the educational market. They're more at-home, consumer-oriented games. Because these games are free from the constraints of school standards and traditional curriculum, they flourish, featuring rich cross-disciplinary and truly 21st century learning experiences.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here are just a few favorites that reviewed well on \u003cspan class=\"s1\">Common Sense Education\u003c/span> this year:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfps2HKE4B4\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Elegy for a Dead World\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Writing can feel like a chore in school when it's only ever going to be read by a teacher and maybe a classmate. \u003ca href=\"https://www.graphite.org/game/elegy-for-a-dead-world\">Elegy for a Dead World \u003c/a>gives kids an audience and an absorbing premise: the player visits alien planets (\u003ca href=\"http://www.wired.com/2015/01/elegy-dead-world/\">each inspired by a Romantic poet\u003c/a>) with long lost civilizations and must act as the storyteller of that world, drafting poetry and prose that brings to light possible pasts. This writing can then be shared with others. As a former slacker student who would sleep in English class but then go home and write pages and pages of fan faction, this is an experience that speaks to me and I know I would've loved.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lM_80zVzwpI\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Never Alone\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There's little debate that games have not represented indigenous cultures well. As a result, it's been best for students to learn about topics like Native America via traditional means. \u003ca href=\"https://www.graphite.org/game/never-alone-kisima-innitchuna\">Never Alone\u003c/a>, however, sets a precedent for \u003ca href=\"http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/never-alone-video-game-help-preserve-inuit-culture\">respectful representation of indigenous people\u003c/a>. It was co-developed with native Alaskans, and it illuminates Inupiat stories, themes and values, weaving into play important concepts like interconnectedness and valuable skills like cooperation. Best of all, it features documentary-style videos of the Inupiat people who provide first person context for the conceptual and cultural learning embedded in the game.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MP8q5F6dFqQ\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Valiant Hearts\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Look no further than the aforementioned Oregon Trail for an example of how tough it's been to teach history well through games. That's because it's next to impossible to beat a good book or primary source material when digging into the details of the past. \u003ca href=\"https://www.graphite.org/game/valiant-hearts-the-great-war\">Valiant Hearts\u003c/a> doesn't try to simulate World War I or overwhelm the player with facts; instead, it tells a deeply affecting story that builds empathy, contextualizes the war, and, most importantly, offers a thought-provoking critique of war itself. And when it does offer facts and primary materials, they're extensions--collectibles, really--that end up being far more palatable to players given the story-first approach that invests players in finding out more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>My intention here isn't to argue that games have learning value. Educators don't need convincing of this. Rather, what these three ostensibly 'non-educational' games show us is that there are many more options out there than we realize; we just need to shift our perspectives on what learning looks like. Our students already have, we just need to catch up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Tanner Higgin is director, education editorial strategy at \u003ca href=\"https://tely2.kqed.org/owa/redir.aspx?C=frtTj172IE2WOhWN95x36BykyXYVkFUKNVMzLQYOAaiOC8vN6NnUCA..&URL=http%3a%2f%2fwww.commonsense.org%2feducation\">Common Sense Education\u003c/a>, which helps educators find the best edtech tools, learn best practices for teaching with tech, and equip students with the skills they need to use technology thoughtfully, critically, and creatively. Go to \u003ca href=\"https://tely2.kqed.org/owa/redir.aspx?C=frtTj172IE2WOhWN95x36BykyXYVkFUKNVMzLQYOAaiOC8vN6NnUCA..&URL=http%3a%2f%2fwww.commonsense.org%2feducation\">Common Sense Education\u003c/a> for free resources, including full reviews of digital tools.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cstrong>By Tanner Higgin, \u003ca href=\"https://www.commonsense.org/education/teaching-strategies/find-the-learning-in-any-game\">Common Sense Education\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When I was in school, game-based learning was a novelty. This was the era of Math Blaster!, Lemonade Stand and Oregon Trail, when \u003ca href=\"https://www.commonsense.org/education/teaching-strategies/find-the-learning-in-any-game\">game-based learning\u003c/a> meant digitized practice problems or clunky, paper-thin simulations. Still, my classmates and I liked these games. For many of us, this was the only exposure we got to video games outside of arcades. Even as consoles increasingly took up residence in living rooms, computer games still felt special--just a bit more advanced and interesting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But when my family got a computer, something changed. The edutainment we'd play in computer labs were still a nice spark in a typical school day, but the games felt different. What we were playing at school felt out of touch and out of step, not just in style and polish, but also in what they asked the player to do. While Oregon Trail might offer the appearance of a history lesson, it's hard to convince a kid of that when she's going home and designing a metropolis in SimCity, or adding another page to her notebook full of hand-drawn Metroid maps.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Game-based learning, and the developers who identify with it today, have come a long way since then and gotten much closer to closing the gap. And there's still a need to communicate core content through games, a need that the consumer market just doesn't have incentive to fill. Yet at \u003cspan class=\"s1\">Common Sense Education\u003c/span>, when we evaluate games for learning, what we find is that many of the highest scoring 'learning' games aren't aimed at the educational market. They're more at-home, consumer-oriented games. Because these games are free from the constraints of school standards and traditional curriculum, they flourish, featuring rich cross-disciplinary and truly 21st century learning experiences.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here are just a few favorites that reviewed well on \u003cspan class=\"s1\">Common Sense Education\u003c/span> this year:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/bfps2HKE4B4'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/bfps2HKE4B4'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Elegy for a Dead World\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Writing can feel like a chore in school when it's only ever going to be read by a teacher and maybe a classmate. \u003ca href=\"https://www.graphite.org/game/elegy-for-a-dead-world\">Elegy for a Dead World \u003c/a>gives kids an audience and an absorbing premise: the player visits alien planets (\u003ca href=\"http://www.wired.com/2015/01/elegy-dead-world/\">each inspired by a Romantic poet\u003c/a>) with long lost civilizations and must act as the storyteller of that world, drafting poetry and prose that brings to light possible pasts. This writing can then be shared with others. As a former slacker student who would sleep in English class but then go home and write pages and pages of fan faction, this is an experience that speaks to me and I know I would've loved.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/lM_80zVzwpI'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/lM_80zVzwpI'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Never Alone\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There's little debate that games have not represented indigenous cultures well. As a result, it's been best for students to learn about topics like Native America via traditional means. \u003ca href=\"https://www.graphite.org/game/never-alone-kisima-innitchuna\">Never Alone\u003c/a>, however, sets a precedent for \u003ca href=\"http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/never-alone-video-game-help-preserve-inuit-culture\">respectful representation of indigenous people\u003c/a>. It was co-developed with native Alaskans, and it illuminates Inupiat stories, themes and values, weaving into play important concepts like interconnectedness and valuable skills like cooperation. Best of all, it features documentary-style videos of the Inupiat people who provide first person context for the conceptual and cultural learning embedded in the game.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/MP8q5F6dFqQ'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/MP8q5F6dFqQ'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Valiant Hearts\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Look no further than the aforementioned Oregon Trail for an example of how tough it's been to teach history well through games. That's because it's next to impossible to beat a good book or primary source material when digging into the details of the past. \u003ca href=\"https://www.graphite.org/game/valiant-hearts-the-great-war\">Valiant Hearts\u003c/a> doesn't try to simulate World War I or overwhelm the player with facts; instead, it tells a deeply affecting story that builds empathy, contextualizes the war, and, most importantly, offers a thought-provoking critique of war itself. And when it does offer facts and primary materials, they're extensions--collectibles, really--that end up being far more palatable to players given the story-first approach that invests players in finding out more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>My intention here isn't to argue that games have learning value. Educators don't need convincing of this. Rather, what these three ostensibly 'non-educational' games show us is that there are many more options out there than we realize; we just need to shift our perspectives on what learning looks like. Our students already have, we just need to catch up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Tanner Higgin is director, education editorial strategy at \u003ca href=\"https://tely2.kqed.org/owa/redir.aspx?C=frtTj172IE2WOhWN95x36BykyXYVkFUKNVMzLQYOAaiOC8vN6NnUCA..&URL=http%3a%2f%2fwww.commonsense.org%2feducation\">Common Sense Education\u003c/a>, which helps educators find the best edtech tools, learn best practices for teaching with tech, and equip students with the skills they need to use technology thoughtfully, critically, and creatively. Go to \u003ca href=\"https://tely2.kqed.org/owa/redir.aspx?C=frtTj172IE2WOhWN95x36BykyXYVkFUKNVMzLQYOAaiOC8vN6NnUCA..&URL=http%3a%2f%2fwww.commonsense.org%2feducation\">Common Sense Education\u003c/a> for free resources, including full reviews of digital tools.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_39292\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/02/the-benefits-of-paper-prototypes-in-games-and-learning/christopher-rodriguez-3/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-39292\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2015/02/Christopher-Rodriguez2.gif\" alt=\"Flickr/Christopher Rodriguez\" width=\"640\" height=\"960\" class=\"size-full wp-image-39292\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.flickr.com/photos/32607104@N08/6591972143\">Flickr/Christopher Rodriguez\u003c/a>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The excerpt below is from the book “\u003ca href=\"http://peterlang.com/index.cfm?event=cmp.ccc.seitenstruktur.detailseiten&seitentyp=produkt&pk=80594&cid=5&concordeid=312670\">Gamify Your Classroom: A Field Guide to Game-Based Learning\u003c/a>,” by Matthew Farber. This excerpt is from the chapter entitled “Iterative Design.”\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Paper Prototyping\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tracy Fullerton, director of the University of Southern California’s Game Innovation Lab, wrote the textbook Game Design Workshop, now in its 3rd edition. Paper prototyping and iterative design is something that The Game Innovation Lab has done for over a decade. Many academic institutions use the methodology to create innovative games. In March 2014 I asked Fullerton how teachers could apply techniques such as paper prototyping and iterative design in the classroom. She pointed out how similar the process was to constructivism, or learning from doing. She said, “It’s a version of constructivist education, more focused on systems thinking than just making.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Digital games are sometimes paper prototyped as collectible trading card games. Pokémon, Magic: The Gathering, and Yu-Gi-Oh! are examples of this. In 2013 Barry Joseph, at the Museum of Natural History in New York City, co-designed dinosaur trading cards with Nick Fortugno. The deck is called Pterosaurs: The Card Game. There is also a category of trading card game apps on iTunes. One example of a digital card game is Calculords, which features several decks to collect. The strategy game depends on the player’s arithmetic skills.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>GlassLab’s Erin Hoffman explained the design process in creating its first tablet game, Mars Generation One: Argubot Academy (2014). We initially spoke about the app in January 2014. It went from trading cards to interactive fiction (covered later in this chapter) to digital. The mechanics of play were worked out first using paper before any money was spent on graphical renderings. The mechanic of argumentation was modeled on Pokémon card duels. “For the argument game [Mars Generation One], we did a paper prototype,” she explained. “We got cards, played Pokémon to get the feel for what would work, the phases of battle. We paper prototyped the map exploration.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=\"9texwCxnBNhQROBW6atg5hSD66H3KT8W\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Because paper-based games seem readily easy to make and modify, I wanted to learn more about the process. In August 2013 I had the opportunity to playtest a nondigital game called Socratic Smackdown. It is an “energetic discussion-based humanities game” called Socratic Smackdown (Institute of Play, 2014). Teams of four or six students engage in a gamified Socratic discussion. Textual evidence must be made to support claims. The game builds argumentative thinking skills—a Common Core State Standard for English language arts. Mission Lab at the Quest to Learn school designed the game in collaboration with teacher Rebecca Grodner. She even used it for her school’s “boss level” (end of trimester challenge) as a method for discussing dystopian novels in small reading groups. The rules were changed, with limits restricting what students could do or say. The remix was dubbed Socratic Crackdown, and hosted by Grodner dressed as the Hunger Games’s Effie Trinket. I was curious about how Mission Lab designed game-like learning experiences. Katie Salen, founder of the Institute of Play and Quest to Learn, explained the process to me. She said:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>It starts with the learning outcomes, the kinds of actions of “doing.” If you see a kid doing something, you say, “Ah! They get this. They understand this concept.” Start there. Ask what are the types of situations or actions I could get a kid to do that? Ask what would provide a practice space for ways of doing, ways of thinking. Socratic Smackdown came out of that early vision. When we see kids making arguments and debating, we ask what situations can they be put in to arrive at that? That’s how you make games and map out the experiences.\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>I spoke at length with Mission Lab’s Shula Ehrlich, co-designer of Socratic Smackdown. We spoke in January 2014. Ehrlich first heard about Quest to Learn and Institute of Play while taking classes at Parsons the New School for Design in New York City (Katie Salen taught at Parsons prior to her current position at DePaul University in Chicago). She saw the power of games in engaging students and she wanted to be part of that initiative. After 4 years at the Institute, she became a lead designer. A lot of what she designs is close to project-based learning; some of the designs are more game-like than others.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/02/the-benefits-of-paper-prototypes-in-games-and-learning/gamify-your-classroom/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-39287\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2015/02/Gamify-Your-Classroom-300x461.png\" alt=\"Gamify Your Classroom\" width=\"300\" height=\"461\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-39287\">\u003c/a>Quest to Learn uses about 95% paper-based games, although they are moving more towards digital. They do have a MinecraftEdu server, and teach digital game design and systems thinking with Gamestar Mechanic. Mission Lab is the Institute of Play’s design studio situated within its Quest to Learn school. The team is comprised of game and learning designers. They give full- time support to the game-like curriculum. Mission Lab works collaboratively with teachers; each teacher is paired with one learning designer and one game designer. They meet once or twice a week to develop a curriculum and to develop games to be used in the classroom. Most of the original games are nondigital, and often involve cards, dice and/or game boards. Ehrlich told me that they “really like paper-based because teachers and students can modify the games; digital is a black box to most people.” Teachers with little to no background knowledge of game design can modify or adapt a nondigital game more easily than a video game. Paper-based games have a low barrier to use, allowing for iteration from year to year. Mission Lab games offer students different possible scenarios. Ehrlich described the process:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>We call it exploding the game. Stretching out the capacity of the game as a teaching tool. I think it’s more powerful than playing a game once. The important thing is what surrounds a game. It’s not one discrete thing you play and that’s it. A game is situated in a larger learning trajectory. There are lessons before, related activities, and a period of rolling out pieces of the game.\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>Ehrlich gave me an example of “exploding a game.” She described the 7th-grade math game Absolute Blast. It is a card game about rockets that teaches the concept of absolute value. In the game, every player has three rockets and needs the highest absolute value to shoot into space. It teaches adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing integers, as well as negative and positive numbers. Ehrlich explained:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>To explode it, the teacher rolls out a simplified version: just one rocket instead of three. You only play the cards on your own board, not others. This gets students acclimated to the rules, the basic structure of the gameplay, and math concepts. Then there is more teaching and related activities, and then back to the game, which becomes more complicated. After that the kids reflect until, finally, the full version.\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>Once a game is exploded, Quest teachers—like other educators—assess student learning. The teacher gives the class a piece of paper with a picture of a frozen game state and asks, “What would you do in this scenario? What would each player do in this scenario? Explain your reasoning.” Here the teacher is asking the student to reflect on game strategy as well as underlying skills. Both are higher-order challenges; the game-related question puts the learning in an authentic context. Ehrlich summed it up concisely: “We think of exploding the game as before gameplay, during gameplay, and after gameplay.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After researching paper prototyping, I was inspired to create a student center. After all, student-created games meet many Common Core State Standards—plus, it is a fun activity! I purchased inexpensive plastic drawers and filled them with different game artifacts. The station currently contains several inexpensive items:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>• Dry erase spinners \u003cbr>\n• Dry erase whiteboards\u003cbr>\n• Plastic poker chips (for game tokens—not gambling)\u003cbr>\n• Novelty eraser caps (useful as game pieces)\u003cbr>\n• Different sizes of blank index cards\u003cbr>\n• Color folders, to be used as game boards\u003cbr>\n• Hourglasses\u003cbr>\n• Toy money\u003cbr>\n• Rulers\u003cbr>\n• Several sets of dice—and not just 6-sided\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"http://matthewfarber.com/\">Matthew Farber\u003c/a> teaches social studies at Valleyview Middle School, in Denville, New Jersey, and is currently a Doctoral Candidate in Educational Technology Leadership at New Jersey City University. His book, \u003ca href=\"http://peterlang.com/index.cfm?event=cmp.ccc.seitenstruktur.detailseiten&seitentyp=produkt&pk=80594&cid=5&concordeid=312670\">Gamify Your Classroom: A Field Guide to Game-Based Learning\u003c/a>, is available from Peter Lang Publishing. You can follow him on Twitter \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/matthewfarber\">@MatthewFarber\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_39292\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/02/the-benefits-of-paper-prototypes-in-games-and-learning/christopher-rodriguez-3/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-39292\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2015/02/Christopher-Rodriguez2.gif\" alt=\"Flickr/Christopher Rodriguez\" width=\"640\" height=\"960\" class=\"size-full wp-image-39292\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.flickr.com/photos/32607104@N08/6591972143\">Flickr/Christopher Rodriguez\u003c/a>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The excerpt below is from the book “\u003ca href=\"http://peterlang.com/index.cfm?event=cmp.ccc.seitenstruktur.detailseiten&seitentyp=produkt&pk=80594&cid=5&concordeid=312670\">Gamify Your Classroom: A Field Guide to Game-Based Learning\u003c/a>,” by Matthew Farber. This excerpt is from the chapter entitled “Iterative Design.”\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Paper Prototyping\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tracy Fullerton, director of the University of Southern California’s Game Innovation Lab, wrote the textbook Game Design Workshop, now in its 3rd edition. Paper prototyping and iterative design is something that The Game Innovation Lab has done for over a decade. Many academic institutions use the methodology to create innovative games. In March 2014 I asked Fullerton how teachers could apply techniques such as paper prototyping and iterative design in the classroom. She pointed out how similar the process was to constructivism, or learning from doing. She said, “It’s a version of constructivist education, more focused on systems thinking than just making.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Digital games are sometimes paper prototyped as collectible trading card games. Pokémon, Magic: The Gathering, and Yu-Gi-Oh! are examples of this. In 2013 Barry Joseph, at the Museum of Natural History in New York City, co-designed dinosaur trading cards with Nick Fortugno. The deck is called Pterosaurs: The Card Game. There is also a category of trading card game apps on iTunes. One example of a digital card game is Calculords, which features several decks to collect. The strategy game depends on the player’s arithmetic skills.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>GlassLab’s Erin Hoffman explained the design process in creating its first tablet game, Mars Generation One: Argubot Academy (2014). We initially spoke about the app in January 2014. It went from trading cards to interactive fiction (covered later in this chapter) to digital. The mechanics of play were worked out first using paper before any money was spent on graphical renderings. The mechanic of argumentation was modeled on Pokémon card duels. “For the argument game [Mars Generation One], we did a paper prototype,” she explained. “We got cards, played Pokémon to get the feel for what would work, the phases of battle. We paper prototyped the map exploration.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Because paper-based games seem readily easy to make and modify, I wanted to learn more about the process. In August 2013 I had the opportunity to playtest a nondigital game called Socratic Smackdown. It is an “energetic discussion-based humanities game” called Socratic Smackdown (Institute of Play, 2014). Teams of four or six students engage in a gamified Socratic discussion. Textual evidence must be made to support claims. The game builds argumentative thinking skills—a Common Core State Standard for English language arts. Mission Lab at the Quest to Learn school designed the game in collaboration with teacher Rebecca Grodner. She even used it for her school’s “boss level” (end of trimester challenge) as a method for discussing dystopian novels in small reading groups. The rules were changed, with limits restricting what students could do or say. The remix was dubbed Socratic Crackdown, and hosted by Grodner dressed as the Hunger Games’s Effie Trinket. I was curious about how Mission Lab designed game-like learning experiences. Katie Salen, founder of the Institute of Play and Quest to Learn, explained the process to me. She said:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>It starts with the learning outcomes, the kinds of actions of “doing.” If you see a kid doing something, you say, “Ah! They get this. They understand this concept.” Start there. Ask what are the types of situations or actions I could get a kid to do that? Ask what would provide a practice space for ways of doing, ways of thinking. Socratic Smackdown came out of that early vision. When we see kids making arguments and debating, we ask what situations can they be put in to arrive at that? That’s how you make games and map out the experiences.\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>I spoke at length with Mission Lab’s Shula Ehrlich, co-designer of Socratic Smackdown. We spoke in January 2014. Ehrlich first heard about Quest to Learn and Institute of Play while taking classes at Parsons the New School for Design in New York City (Katie Salen taught at Parsons prior to her current position at DePaul University in Chicago). She saw the power of games in engaging students and she wanted to be part of that initiative. After 4 years at the Institute, she became a lead designer. A lot of what she designs is close to project-based learning; some of the designs are more game-like than others.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/02/the-benefits-of-paper-prototypes-in-games-and-learning/gamify-your-classroom/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-39287\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2015/02/Gamify-Your-Classroom-300x461.png\" alt=\"Gamify Your Classroom\" width=\"300\" height=\"461\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-39287\">\u003c/a>Quest to Learn uses about 95% paper-based games, although they are moving more towards digital. They do have a MinecraftEdu server, and teach digital game design and systems thinking with Gamestar Mechanic. Mission Lab is the Institute of Play’s design studio situated within its Quest to Learn school. The team is comprised of game and learning designers. They give full- time support to the game-like curriculum. Mission Lab works collaboratively with teachers; each teacher is paired with one learning designer and one game designer. They meet once or twice a week to develop a curriculum and to develop games to be used in the classroom. Most of the original games are nondigital, and often involve cards, dice and/or game boards. Ehrlich told me that they “really like paper-based because teachers and students can modify the games; digital is a black box to most people.” Teachers with little to no background knowledge of game design can modify or adapt a nondigital game more easily than a video game. Paper-based games have a low barrier to use, allowing for iteration from year to year. Mission Lab games offer students different possible scenarios. Ehrlich described the process:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>We call it exploding the game. Stretching out the capacity of the game as a teaching tool. I think it’s more powerful than playing a game once. The important thing is what surrounds a game. It’s not one discrete thing you play and that’s it. A game is situated in a larger learning trajectory. There are lessons before, related activities, and a period of rolling out pieces of the game.\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>Ehrlich gave me an example of “exploding a game.” She described the 7th-grade math game Absolute Blast. It is a card game about rockets that teaches the concept of absolute value. In the game, every player has three rockets and needs the highest absolute value to shoot into space. It teaches adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing integers, as well as negative and positive numbers. Ehrlich explained:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>To explode it, the teacher rolls out a simplified version: just one rocket instead of three. You only play the cards on your own board, not others. This gets students acclimated to the rules, the basic structure of the gameplay, and math concepts. Then there is more teaching and related activities, and then back to the game, which becomes more complicated. After that the kids reflect until, finally, the full version.\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>Once a game is exploded, Quest teachers—like other educators—assess student learning. The teacher gives the class a piece of paper with a picture of a frozen game state and asks, “What would you do in this scenario? What would each player do in this scenario? Explain your reasoning.” Here the teacher is asking the student to reflect on game strategy as well as underlying skills. Both are higher-order challenges; the game-related question puts the learning in an authentic context. Ehrlich summed it up concisely: “We think of exploding the game as before gameplay, during gameplay, and after gameplay.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After researching paper prototyping, I was inspired to create a student center. After all, student-created games meet many Common Core State Standards—plus, it is a fun activity! I purchased inexpensive plastic drawers and filled them with different game artifacts. The station currently contains several inexpensive items:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>• Dry erase spinners \u003cbr>\n• Dry erase whiteboards\u003cbr>\n• Plastic poker chips (for game tokens—not gambling)\u003cbr>\n• Novelty eraser caps (useful as game pieces)\u003cbr>\n• Different sizes of blank index cards\u003cbr>\n• Color folders, to be used as game boards\u003cbr>\n• Hourglasses\u003cbr>\n• Toy money\u003cbr>\n• Rulers\u003cbr>\n• Several sets of dice—and not just 6-sided\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"http://matthewfarber.com/\">Matthew Farber\u003c/a> teaches social studies at Valleyview Middle School, in Denville, New Jersey, and is currently a Doctoral Candidate in Educational Technology Leadership at New Jersey City University. His book, \u003ca href=\"http://peterlang.com/index.cfm?event=cmp.ccc.seitenstruktur.detailseiten&seitentyp=produkt&pk=80594&cid=5&concordeid=312670\">Gamify Your Classroom: A Field Guide to Game-Based Learning\u003c/a>, is available from Peter Lang Publishing. You can follow him on Twitter \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/matthewfarber\">@MatthewFarber\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"disqusTitle": "No-Tech Board Games That Teach Coding Skills to Young Children",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_39102\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/01/no-tech-board-games-that-teach-coding-skills-to-young-children/robot-turtles-2/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-39102\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-39102\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2015/01/Robot-Turtles-2.gif\" alt='Cards program \"Robot Turtles\" to blast, turn or proceed to their destination. (Courtesy of Matthew Farber) ' width=\"640\" height=\"960\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Cards program \"Robot Turtles\" to blast, turn or proceed to their destination. (Courtesy of Matthew Farber)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>By \u003ca href=\"http://www.matthewfarber.com/\">Matthew Farber\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thanks in part to STEM education initiatives and the tech boom, coding in the classroom has become more ubiquitous. Computer programming tasks students to persistently work to solve problems by thinking logically. What’s more, learning how to code is a desired 21st century career skill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are several \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/11/the-mindshift-guide-to-digital-games-and-learning/\">digital games\u003c/a> designed for kids as young as 5 that turn coding into a fun activity, such as \u003ca href=\"https://www.kodable.com\">Kodable\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"http://www.scratchjr.org\">Scratch Jr.\u003c/a> But some game designers are going further back to programming’s fundamentals by creating physical games that can’t be found in any app store.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=\"FbVeUCt3wzV8WsFvxkZZUuA2daIcpenx\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One tabletop game is \u003ca href=\"http://codemonkeyplanet.com\">Code Monkey Island\u003c/a>. It features sequencing and looping statements printed on playable cards. In effect, the cards are the language; choosing correct conditional statements correctly can leads to victory.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another board game that captured imaginations, and major crowdfunding on \u003ca href=\"https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/danshapiro/robot-turtles-the-board-game-for-little-programmer\">Kickstarter\u003c/a>, is \u003ca href=\"http://www.thinkfun.com/robotturtles/\">\u003cem>Robot Turtles\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, which teaches basic coding concepts to preschoolers. Unlike other children’s games (think: \u003cem>Candyland, Chutes and Ladders\u003c/em>), the mechanic of play does not rely on luck. All cards are face up and the players work together cooperatively to win.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A child can build cognitive skills by playing \u003cem>Robot Turtles\u003c/em> because when a child plays, or “programs,” a card, he or she is applying logic, according to Bill Ritchie, CEO of ThinkFun, which published the game. “\u003cem>Robot Turtles\u003c/em> is a great example of what coding means for a preschooler,” Ritchie explained. “It is about sequencing instruction by instruction, and then being able to recognize the consequences. It’s a mental framework that is appropriate for a preschooler.” In other words, \u003cem>Robot Turtles \u003c/em>helps growing minds think about thinking.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Why Teach Coding?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Teaching children how to code is not new; it dates back to the 1970s and 1980s. Most notable, perhaps, are the initiatives from MIT professor Seymour Papert. His MIT lab helped bring the \u003ca href=\"http://www.logofoundation.org\">Logo language\u003c/a> into schools. In Logo, users programmed a graphical turtle on a computer’s screen. This exemplified Papert’s notion of \u003cem>constructionism\u003c/em>, the learning theory that can be summed up as “learn by making.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although the Logo language may seem crude by today’s standards, its powerful ideas still resonate. Programming a computer meant that the learner created his or her own working system. Students were learning how to think. In fact, the Logo initiative lives on — it evolved to the visual, interlocking brick language today called \u003ca href=\"http://scratch.mit.edu\">Scratch\u003c/a>, which was followed up with Scratch Jr.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Setting up the Game\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_39129\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.flickr.com/photos/erikbenson/16369643425\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2015/01/Robot-Turtles-Board-300x300.gif\" alt=\"Flickr/Buster Benson\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-39129\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Flickr/Buster Benson\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>To start the game, the adult (parent or teacher) — known as the “Turtle Mover” -- places the Robot Turtle Card at the start square and then places the Jewel Card (the goal of the turtle’s quest) elsewhere on the board. The Turtle Mover is the only one allowed to move the turtle. He or she also provides feedback by making beeping sounds. The child — or “Turtle Master” — then selects forward, left or right directional playing cards, which serve as commands to advance the turtle to the jewel.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When a child wins — or “levels up” — in \u003cem>Robot Turtles\u003c/em>, additional challenges “unlock.” Obstacles include stone and ice walls, as well as wooden crates. More complex game cards include Function Frogs, which can be “coded” to repeat a series of programmed instructions. In essence, the adult is the computer to the child programmer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Solving Problems Together\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Entrepreneur \u003ca href=\"http://www.danshapiro.com/blog/\">Dan Shapiro\u003c/a> invented\u003cem> Robot Turtles\u003c/em> because he grew frustrated whenever he played board games, along with his two young children. “One of the things that led to \u003cem>Robot Turtles \u003c/em>was because [children’s] games give parents an unfair advantage,” Shapiro said. “Either the parent wins over and over again or they end up throwing the match. Part of the inspiration for \u003cem>Robot Turtles \u003c/em>was to create a game where parents and kids could come to it at their own level; the parents do one thing and the kids do a different thing.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meaningful social cooperation between parent and child superseded Shapiro’s desire to teach coding skills. “The interaction would be something really magical,” he continued. “It [\u003cem>Robot Turtles’ \u003c/em>creation] didn’t come about because I wanted to teach kids to program; it came about because I wanted a fun way for kids and parents to interact.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Any programmer will tell you that coding a computer is more than entering lines of instructions. When a programmer clicks “run,” the results may fail. The next step is “debugging” — the often painstaking process of error-checking code. Debugging until a solution is found is similar to the 21st century competency of design thinking: trial and error based on a challenge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In \u003cem>Robot Turtles, \u003c/em>when the child gives an adult a “wrong” card — for example, a move that takes the turtle off of the game’s board — an opportunity to learn emerges. Ritchie explained, “If a child puts down a bad set of cards, then the parent has an obligation to allow the child to own the responsibility. The child then has to make the decision to debug and to change.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rather than correcting a child’s mistake, the adult is instructed to simply make a beeping sound. The child Turtle Master can then tap on the “Bug Card,” a round card adorned with a ladybug. After announcing “Debug,” the child can adjust his or her set of commands. Here, failure becomes iteration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you ask me the one thing I want my kids to feel about learning, it is that you cannot be afraid to try things and see what happens,” Shapiro said. “It was crucial for me to build that [debugging] into the game — more than the skill of learning about computers. The ability to undo the last move — with no penalty or loss of points — where you just try something and then try again, really gets into the heart of the educational mission of the game. It’s not about learning how to program. It’s about learning how to learn.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHjB9XQodzE&w=560&h=315]\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Programming for young children gets pared down to its analog basics in several board games that teach sequences of commands. ",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_39102\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/01/no-tech-board-games-that-teach-coding-skills-to-young-children/robot-turtles-2/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-39102\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-39102\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2015/01/Robot-Turtles-2.gif\" alt='Cards program \"Robot Turtles\" to blast, turn or proceed to their destination. (Courtesy of Matthew Farber) ' width=\"640\" height=\"960\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Cards program \"Robot Turtles\" to blast, turn or proceed to their destination. (Courtesy of Matthew Farber)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>By \u003ca href=\"http://www.matthewfarber.com/\">Matthew Farber\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thanks in part to STEM education initiatives and the tech boom, coding in the classroom has become more ubiquitous. Computer programming tasks students to persistently work to solve problems by thinking logically. What’s more, learning how to code is a desired 21st century career skill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are several \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/11/the-mindshift-guide-to-digital-games-and-learning/\">digital games\u003c/a> designed for kids as young as 5 that turn coding into a fun activity, such as \u003ca href=\"https://www.kodable.com\">Kodable\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"http://www.scratchjr.org\">Scratch Jr.\u003c/a> But some game designers are going further back to programming’s fundamentals by creating physical games that can’t be found in any app store.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One tabletop game is \u003ca href=\"http://codemonkeyplanet.com\">Code Monkey Island\u003c/a>. It features sequencing and looping statements printed on playable cards. In effect, the cards are the language; choosing correct conditional statements correctly can leads to victory.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another board game that captured imaginations, and major crowdfunding on \u003ca href=\"https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/danshapiro/robot-turtles-the-board-game-for-little-programmer\">Kickstarter\u003c/a>, is \u003ca href=\"http://www.thinkfun.com/robotturtles/\">\u003cem>Robot Turtles\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, which teaches basic coding concepts to preschoolers. Unlike other children’s games (think: \u003cem>Candyland, Chutes and Ladders\u003c/em>), the mechanic of play does not rely on luck. All cards are face up and the players work together cooperatively to win.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A child can build cognitive skills by playing \u003cem>Robot Turtles\u003c/em> because when a child plays, or “programs,” a card, he or she is applying logic, according to Bill Ritchie, CEO of ThinkFun, which published the game. “\u003cem>Robot Turtles\u003c/em> is a great example of what coding means for a preschooler,” Ritchie explained. “It is about sequencing instruction by instruction, and then being able to recognize the consequences. It’s a mental framework that is appropriate for a preschooler.” In other words, \u003cem>Robot Turtles \u003c/em>helps growing minds think about thinking.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Why Teach Coding?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Teaching children how to code is not new; it dates back to the 1970s and 1980s. Most notable, perhaps, are the initiatives from MIT professor Seymour Papert. His MIT lab helped bring the \u003ca href=\"http://www.logofoundation.org\">Logo language\u003c/a> into schools. In Logo, users programmed a graphical turtle on a computer’s screen. This exemplified Papert’s notion of \u003cem>constructionism\u003c/em>, the learning theory that can be summed up as “learn by making.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although the Logo language may seem crude by today’s standards, its powerful ideas still resonate. Programming a computer meant that the learner created his or her own working system. Students were learning how to think. In fact, the Logo initiative lives on — it evolved to the visual, interlocking brick language today called \u003ca href=\"http://scratch.mit.edu\">Scratch\u003c/a>, which was followed up with Scratch Jr.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Setting up the Game\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_39129\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.flickr.com/photos/erikbenson/16369643425\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2015/01/Robot-Turtles-Board-300x300.gif\" alt=\"Flickr/Buster Benson\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-39129\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Flickr/Buster Benson\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>To start the game, the adult (parent or teacher) — known as the “Turtle Mover” -- places the Robot Turtle Card at the start square and then places the Jewel Card (the goal of the turtle’s quest) elsewhere on the board. The Turtle Mover is the only one allowed to move the turtle. He or she also provides feedback by making beeping sounds. The child — or “Turtle Master” — then selects forward, left or right directional playing cards, which serve as commands to advance the turtle to the jewel.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When a child wins — or “levels up” — in \u003cem>Robot Turtles\u003c/em>, additional challenges “unlock.” Obstacles include stone and ice walls, as well as wooden crates. More complex game cards include Function Frogs, which can be “coded” to repeat a series of programmed instructions. In essence, the adult is the computer to the child programmer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Solving Problems Together\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Entrepreneur \u003ca href=\"http://www.danshapiro.com/blog/\">Dan Shapiro\u003c/a> invented\u003cem> Robot Turtles\u003c/em> because he grew frustrated whenever he played board games, along with his two young children. “One of the things that led to \u003cem>Robot Turtles \u003c/em>was because [children’s] games give parents an unfair advantage,” Shapiro said. “Either the parent wins over and over again or they end up throwing the match. Part of the inspiration for \u003cem>Robot Turtles \u003c/em>was to create a game where parents and kids could come to it at their own level; the parents do one thing and the kids do a different thing.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meaningful social cooperation between parent and child superseded Shapiro’s desire to teach coding skills. “The interaction would be something really magical,” he continued. “It [\u003cem>Robot Turtles’ \u003c/em>creation] didn’t come about because I wanted to teach kids to program; it came about because I wanted a fun way for kids and parents to interact.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Any programmer will tell you that coding a computer is more than entering lines of instructions. When a programmer clicks “run,” the results may fail. The next step is “debugging” — the often painstaking process of error-checking code. Debugging until a solution is found is similar to the 21st century competency of design thinking: trial and error based on a challenge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In \u003cem>Robot Turtles, \u003c/em>when the child gives an adult a “wrong” card — for example, a move that takes the turtle off of the game’s board — an opportunity to learn emerges. Ritchie explained, “If a child puts down a bad set of cards, then the parent has an obligation to allow the child to own the responsibility. The child then has to make the decision to debug and to change.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rather than correcting a child’s mistake, the adult is instructed to simply make a beeping sound. The child Turtle Master can then tap on the “Bug Card,” a round card adorned with a ladybug. After announcing “Debug,” the child can adjust his or her set of commands. Here, failure becomes iteration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you ask me the one thing I want my kids to feel about learning, it is that you cannot be afraid to try things and see what happens,” Shapiro said. “It was crucial for me to build that [debugging] into the game — more than the skill of learning about computers. The ability to undo the last move — with no penalty or loss of points — where you just try something and then try again, really gets into the heart of the educational mission of the game. It’s not about learning how to program. It’s about learning how to learn.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"disqusTitle": "Beyond Standardized Tests: Existing Tools For Measuring Student Progress",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_38896\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2015/01/npred-testingcrying2_custom-0ce22ba65f0416297bc17d8282bff89bbf195f19-e1420551862201.jpg\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-38896\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2015/01/npred-testingcrying2_custom-0ce22ba65f0416297bc17d8282bff89bbf195f19-e1420551862201.jpg\" alt=\"NPR/LA Johnson\" width=\"640\" height=\"725\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">NPR/LA Johnson\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Close your eyes for a minute and daydream about a world without bubble tests.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k-12/2014/12/gop_senate_aides_working_on_dr.html\">Education Week\u003c/a>\u003c/em> recently reported that some Republican Senate aides are doing more than dreaming — they're drafting a bill that would eliminate the federal mandate on standardized testing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Annual tests for every child in reading and math in grades 3 through 8, plus one in high school, have been a centerpiece of federal education law since 2002. No Child Left Behind, the current incarnation of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, requires them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But this law has been overdue for reauthorization since before President Obama took office. The Senate plans to take the matter up early this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=\"e9O6kg88xj96i2yXYOvLG5TOONxMrAjG\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Discussions about cutting back on these requirements comes at a time of \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/ed/2014/11/17/362339421/testing-how-much-is-too-much\">growing concern\u003c/a> about the number of tests kids take and the time they spend taking them. Parents in some communities have formed \"opt-out\" groups and removed their children not only from federally mandated tests, but also the legions of state and district-required tests that have followed in their wake.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/ed/2014/11/17/362339421/testing-how-much-is-too-much\">The Council of Chief State School Officers \u003c/a>and the country's largest school districts have spoken out in favor of reducing the number of standardized tests students take. The national teachers' unions and other traditionally Democratic groups are on board with the idea too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Education Secretary \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/ed/2014/11/17/362339421/testing-how-much-is-too-much\">Arne Duncan \u003c/a>says he's concerned about testing too, but he's written he \u003ca href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/arne-duncan-standardized-tests-must-measure-up/2014/10/17/e0e699c4-54a4-11e4-892e-602188e70e9c_story.html\">\"strongly believes\" \u003c/a>in annual tests as an educational tool.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Missing from this debate, however, is a sense of what could replace annual tests. What would the nation \u003cem>do \u003c/em>to monitor learning and ensure equity and accountability if states didn't have to test every child every year?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here are four possible answers. They're not necessarily exclusive of each other. In fact, they could all happen at the same time, as different states and districts make different decisions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>1) Sampling. \u003c/strong>A simple approach. The same tests, just fewer of 'em. Accountability could be achieved at the district level by administering traditional standardized tests to a statistically representative sampling of students, rather than to every student every year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That's how the \"Nation's Report Card\" works. Formally known as the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, it's one of the longest-running and most-trusted tests in the U.S. education arsenal, even though it's not attached to high stakes. It's given to a different sample of students each year, in \u003ca href=\"http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/about/natimportant.aspx\">grades 4, 8, and 12.\u003c/a> The widely respected international test, \u003ca href=\"http://www.oecd.org/pisa/test/\">PISA\u003c/a>, is given to a sample of students too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>2) Stealth assessment.\u003c/strong> Similar math and reading data, but collected differently.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The major textbook publishers, plus companies like Dreambox, Scholastic and the nonprofit Khan Academy, all sell software for students to practice math and English. These programs register every single answer a student gives.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The companies that develop this software argue that it presents the opportunity to eliminate the time, cost and anxiety of \"stop and test\" in favor of passively collecting data on student's knowledge over a semester, year or an entire school career. Valerie Shute, a professor at Florida State University and former principal research scientist at ETS, coined the term \"stealth assessment\" to describe this approach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stealth assessment doesn't just show what skills a student has mastered at a given moment. The pattern of answers potentially offers insights into how quickly students learn, how diligent they are and other big-picture factors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Invisible, integrated assessment, to me, is the future,\" Kimberly O'Malley, the senior vice president of school research at Pearson Education, told me. \"We can monitor students' learning day-to-day in a digital scenario. Ultimately, if we're successful, the need for, and the activity of, stopping and testing will go away in many cases.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Applying this approach on a national scale using scientific methods has never been done, in part because the products are still new. It would probably require a large outlay in terms of software, professional training and computer equipment — and would result in a corresponding windfall for companies like Pearson.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>3) Multiple measures. \u003c/strong>Incorporate more, and different, kinds of data on student progress and school performance into accountability measures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2014/04/28/305715935/what-parents-need-to-know-about-big-data-and-student-privacy\">Statewide longitudinal data systems \u003c/a>now track students in most states from Pre-K all the way through high school (and in some states, college). That means accountability measures and interventions don't have to depend on the outcome of just one test. They could take a big-data approach, combining information from a number of different sources — graduation rates, discipline outcomes, demographic information, teacher-created assessments and, eventually, workforce outcomes. This information, in turn, could be used to gauge the performance of students, schools and teachers over time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As part of a multiple-measures approach, some districts are also collecting different kinds of information about students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong> 3a)\u003c/strong> \u003cstrong>Social and emotional skills surveys\u003c/strong>. Research shows that at least half of long-term chances of success are determined by non-academic qualities like grit, perseverance and curiosity. As states expand access to pre-K, they are \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/ed/2014/11/25/366561443/what-every-school-can-learn-from-preschools\">including social and emotional measures\u003c/a> in their definitions of \"high quality\" preschool. As one component of a multiple-measures system, all schools could be held accountable for cultivating this half of the picture.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland survey both students and teachers on social and emotional factors and use the results to guide internal decisionmaking. The district uses the \u003ca href=\"http://www.gallupstudentpoll.com/home.aspx\">Gallup student poll,\u003c/a> a 20-question survey that seeks to measure levels of hope, engagement and well-being.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Engagement\" is basically a measure of how excited students are to be in the building. Last year, 875,000 students took the Gallup poll nationwide, in grades 5-12. According to one study, student\u003ca href=\"http://www.americaspromise.org/sites/default/files/legacy/bodyfiles/GSP%20National%20Report.pdf\"> hope scores \u003c/a> on this poll do a better job of predicting college persistence and GPA than high school GPA, SATs or ACT scores.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong> 3b) Game-based assessments.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Video-game-like assessments, such as those created by GlassLab and \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/ed/2014/08/07/337129961/tests-that-look-like-video-games\">the AAA lab at Stanford\u003c/a>, are designed to get at higher-order thinking skills. These games are designed to test things like systems thinking or the ability to take feedback — measures that traditional tests don't get at. Of course, they are still in their infancy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong> 3c) Performance or portfolio-based assessments\u003c/strong>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Schools around the country are incorporating direct demonstrations of student learning into their assessment programs. These include projects, individual and group presentations, reports and papers and portfolios of work collected over time. The New York \u003ca href=\"http://performanceassessment.org/\">Performance Standards Consortium \u003c/a>consists of 28 schools, grades 6-12, throughout New York State that rely on these teacher-created assessments to the exclusion of standardized tests. These public schools tend to show higher graduation rates and better college-retention rates, while serving a similar population to other urban schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>4)\u003c/strong> \u003cstrong>Inspections.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scotland is a place where you can see many of the approaches above in action. Unlike the rest of the UK, it has no specifically government-mandated school tests. They do administer a sampling survey of math and literacy, and there is a series of high-school-exit/college-entrance exams that are high stakes for students. But national education policy emphasizes \u003ca href=\"http://www.educationscotland.gov.uk/learningteachingandassessment/assessment/supportmaterials/nar/assessmentmaterials/index.asp\">a wide range of approaches to assessment\u003c/a>, including presentations, performances and reports. These are designed to measure higher-order skills like creativity, students' well-being and technological literacy as well as traditional academics. Schools and teachers have a lot of control over the methods of evaluation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the school level, Scotland maintains accountability through a system of \u003ca href=\"http://www.educationscotland.gov.uk/inspectionandreview/about/index.asp\">government inspections \u003c/a>that has been in place in the UK since 1833. Inspectors observe lessons, look at student work, and interview both students and staff members.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This piece is adapted in part from\u003c/em> The Test: Why Our Schools Are Obsessed With Standardized Testing, But You Don't Have To Be\u003cem> \u003ca href=\"http://www.publicaffairsbooks.com/book?isbn=9781610394420\">(PublicAffairs, 2015)\u003c/a>. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2015 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=What+Schools+Could+Use+Instead+Of+Standardized+Tests&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\" alt=\"\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_38896\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2015/01/npred-testingcrying2_custom-0ce22ba65f0416297bc17d8282bff89bbf195f19-e1420551862201.jpg\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-38896\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2015/01/npred-testingcrying2_custom-0ce22ba65f0416297bc17d8282bff89bbf195f19-e1420551862201.jpg\" alt=\"NPR/LA Johnson\" width=\"640\" height=\"725\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">NPR/LA Johnson\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Close your eyes for a minute and daydream about a world without bubble tests.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k-12/2014/12/gop_senate_aides_working_on_dr.html\">Education Week\u003c/a>\u003c/em> recently reported that some Republican Senate aides are doing more than dreaming — they're drafting a bill that would eliminate the federal mandate on standardized testing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Annual tests for every child in reading and math in grades 3 through 8, plus one in high school, have been a centerpiece of federal education law since 2002. No Child Left Behind, the current incarnation of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, requires them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But this law has been overdue for reauthorization since before President Obama took office. The Senate plans to take the matter up early this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Discussions about cutting back on these requirements comes at a time of \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/ed/2014/11/17/362339421/testing-how-much-is-too-much\">growing concern\u003c/a> about the number of tests kids take and the time they spend taking them. Parents in some communities have formed \"opt-out\" groups and removed their children not only from federally mandated tests, but also the legions of state and district-required tests that have followed in their wake.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/ed/2014/11/17/362339421/testing-how-much-is-too-much\">The Council of Chief State School Officers \u003c/a>and the country's largest school districts have spoken out in favor of reducing the number of standardized tests students take. The national teachers' unions and other traditionally Democratic groups are on board with the idea too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Education Secretary \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/ed/2014/11/17/362339421/testing-how-much-is-too-much\">Arne Duncan \u003c/a>says he's concerned about testing too, but he's written he \u003ca href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/arne-duncan-standardized-tests-must-measure-up/2014/10/17/e0e699c4-54a4-11e4-892e-602188e70e9c_story.html\">\"strongly believes\" \u003c/a>in annual tests as an educational tool.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Missing from this debate, however, is a sense of what could replace annual tests. What would the nation \u003cem>do \u003c/em>to monitor learning and ensure equity and accountability if states didn't have to test every child every year?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here are four possible answers. They're not necessarily exclusive of each other. In fact, they could all happen at the same time, as different states and districts make different decisions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>1) Sampling. \u003c/strong>A simple approach. The same tests, just fewer of 'em. Accountability could be achieved at the district level by administering traditional standardized tests to a statistically representative sampling of students, rather than to every student every year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That's how the \"Nation's Report Card\" works. Formally known as the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, it's one of the longest-running and most-trusted tests in the U.S. education arsenal, even though it's not attached to high stakes. It's given to a different sample of students each year, in \u003ca href=\"http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/about/natimportant.aspx\">grades 4, 8, and 12.\u003c/a> The widely respected international test, \u003ca href=\"http://www.oecd.org/pisa/test/\">PISA\u003c/a>, is given to a sample of students too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>2) Stealth assessment.\u003c/strong> Similar math and reading data, but collected differently.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The major textbook publishers, plus companies like Dreambox, Scholastic and the nonprofit Khan Academy, all sell software for students to practice math and English. These programs register every single answer a student gives.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The companies that develop this software argue that it presents the opportunity to eliminate the time, cost and anxiety of \"stop and test\" in favor of passively collecting data on student's knowledge over a semester, year or an entire school career. Valerie Shute, a professor at Florida State University and former principal research scientist at ETS, coined the term \"stealth assessment\" to describe this approach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stealth assessment doesn't just show what skills a student has mastered at a given moment. The pattern of answers potentially offers insights into how quickly students learn, how diligent they are and other big-picture factors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Invisible, integrated assessment, to me, is the future,\" Kimberly O'Malley, the senior vice president of school research at Pearson Education, told me. \"We can monitor students' learning day-to-day in a digital scenario. Ultimately, if we're successful, the need for, and the activity of, stopping and testing will go away in many cases.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Applying this approach on a national scale using scientific methods has never been done, in part because the products are still new. It would probably require a large outlay in terms of software, professional training and computer equipment — and would result in a corresponding windfall for companies like Pearson.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>3) Multiple measures. \u003c/strong>Incorporate more, and different, kinds of data on student progress and school performance into accountability measures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2014/04/28/305715935/what-parents-need-to-know-about-big-data-and-student-privacy\">Statewide longitudinal data systems \u003c/a>now track students in most states from Pre-K all the way through high school (and in some states, college). That means accountability measures and interventions don't have to depend on the outcome of just one test. They could take a big-data approach, combining information from a number of different sources — graduation rates, discipline outcomes, demographic information, teacher-created assessments and, eventually, workforce outcomes. This information, in turn, could be used to gauge the performance of students, schools and teachers over time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As part of a multiple-measures approach, some districts are also collecting different kinds of information about students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong> 3a)\u003c/strong> \u003cstrong>Social and emotional skills surveys\u003c/strong>. Research shows that at least half of long-term chances of success are determined by non-academic qualities like grit, perseverance and curiosity. As states expand access to pre-K, they are \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/ed/2014/11/25/366561443/what-every-school-can-learn-from-preschools\">including social and emotional measures\u003c/a> in their definitions of \"high quality\" preschool. As one component of a multiple-measures system, all schools could be held accountable for cultivating this half of the picture.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland survey both students and teachers on social and emotional factors and use the results to guide internal decisionmaking. The district uses the \u003ca href=\"http://www.gallupstudentpoll.com/home.aspx\">Gallup student poll,\u003c/a> a 20-question survey that seeks to measure levels of hope, engagement and well-being.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Engagement\" is basically a measure of how excited students are to be in the building. Last year, 875,000 students took the Gallup poll nationwide, in grades 5-12. According to one study, student\u003ca href=\"http://www.americaspromise.org/sites/default/files/legacy/bodyfiles/GSP%20National%20Report.pdf\"> hope scores \u003c/a> on this poll do a better job of predicting college persistence and GPA than high school GPA, SATs or ACT scores.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong> 3b) Game-based assessments.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Video-game-like assessments, such as those created by GlassLab and \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/ed/2014/08/07/337129961/tests-that-look-like-video-games\">the AAA lab at Stanford\u003c/a>, are designed to get at higher-order thinking skills. These games are designed to test things like systems thinking or the ability to take feedback — measures that traditional tests don't get at. Of course, they are still in their infancy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong> 3c) Performance or portfolio-based assessments\u003c/strong>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Schools around the country are incorporating direct demonstrations of student learning into their assessment programs. These include projects, individual and group presentations, reports and papers and portfolios of work collected over time. The New York \u003ca href=\"http://performanceassessment.org/\">Performance Standards Consortium \u003c/a>consists of 28 schools, grades 6-12, throughout New York State that rely on these teacher-created assessments to the exclusion of standardized tests. These public schools tend to show higher graduation rates and better college-retention rates, while serving a similar population to other urban schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>4)\u003c/strong> \u003cstrong>Inspections.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scotland is a place where you can see many of the approaches above in action. Unlike the rest of the UK, it has no specifically government-mandated school tests. They do administer a sampling survey of math and literacy, and there is a series of high-school-exit/college-entrance exams that are high stakes for students. But national education policy emphasizes \u003ca href=\"http://www.educationscotland.gov.uk/learningteachingandassessment/assessment/supportmaterials/nar/assessmentmaterials/index.asp\">a wide range of approaches to assessment\u003c/a>, including presentations, performances and reports. These are designed to measure higher-order skills like creativity, students' well-being and technological literacy as well as traditional academics. Schools and teachers have a lot of control over the methods of evaluation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the school level, Scotland maintains accountability through a system of \u003ca href=\"http://www.educationscotland.gov.uk/inspectionandreview/about/index.asp\">government inspections \u003c/a>that has been in place in the UK since 1833. Inspectors observe lessons, look at student work, and interview both students and staff members.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This piece is adapted in part from\u003c/em> The Test: Why Our Schools Are Obsessed With Standardized Testing, But You Don't Have To Be\u003cem> \u003ca href=\"http://www.publicaffairsbooks.com/book?isbn=9781610394420\">(PublicAffairs, 2015)\u003c/a>. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2015 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=What+Schools+Could+Use+Instead+Of+Standardized+Tests&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\" alt=\"\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_38728\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/12/PhysicsPlayground.jpg\">\u003cimg class=\"size-large wp-image-38728\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/12/PhysicsPlayground-640x360.jpg\" alt=\"Screenshot from Physics Playground, a game where middle school students draw agents of motion that will cause the green ball to hit the red balloon. (Physics Playground)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Screenshot from Physics Playground, a game where middle school students draw agents of motion that will cause the green ball to hit the red balloon. (Physics Playground)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp class=\"dropcap-serif\">Educators have long known academic standards are only one part of nurturing a well-rounded and successful student. There are a host of other skills like creativity, persistence, critical thinking, collaboration and empathy that help make a student successful in school and in life, but are less quantifiable. Current assessment systems aren't set up to measure these very important but less measurable skills, so policymakers have focused on standardized tests that try to capture what a student knows, not how he or she can apply that information. Game-based learning has entered the assessment field with hopes of measuring both content-specific knowledge and softer skills at the same time, through the mechanics of the game.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I believe that assessment should be open and transparent and flexible and gently surround and support student learning or groups of students learning together,” said \u003ca href=\"http://myweb.fsu.edu/vshute/\" target=\"_blank\">Valerie Shute\u003c/a>, a professor of Educational Psychology and Learning Systems at Florida State University in an \u003ca href=\"http://home.edweb.net/\" target=\"_blank\">edWeb webinar\u003c/a>. She’s been experimenting with digital games as a way to more firmly link learning and assessment, hoping to show the two can happen inseparably. She’s particularly interested in how to measure improvement in the less tangible areas that are hard to measure, like creativity and persistence.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">'Games require a player to apply all sorts of competencies in the process of playing in order to succeed.'\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>\"One of the big challenges standing in the way of schools embracing some of these new skills is there is a shortage of valid ways of testing them,\" Shute said. To rethink assessment, Shute, among others, is trying to meld elements of good game design with specific tasks that require students to demonstrate competency to see whether games can be a valid way of formatively assessing students, especially on the hard-to-measure skills.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Games require a player to apply all sorts of competencies in the process of playing in order to succeed,” Shute said. The best ones work as a system, requiring interactive problem-solving between the player and the game. Good games also have specific goals and rules to keep a student focused and have adaptable challenges to keep the player at a difficulty level tailored to the individual’s outer edge of “do-ability.” \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/04/tapping-into-the-potential-of-video-games-and-uninhibited-play-for-learning-education/\" target=\"_blank\">Kids enjoy challenging games, as long as they aren’t too frustrated\u003c/a>. Games also offer students some control over gameplay, ongoing feedback and sensory stimuli in the form of graphics, sounds or narrative.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those qualities mirror good learning experiences in any form. The key is to create a game that teaches the concepts students need to learn without messing up the unique engagement that good games provide. That’s where what Shute calls “stealth assessment” comes in -- it’s seamless and ubiquitous, providing important feedback to the student and creating a model of the learner that can help teachers tap the individual needs of each student.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>DESIGNING A LEARNING GAME\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It starts by articulating a competency model,” Shute said. “This is what you want to say about the student at the end of the day in terms of knowledge and skills and dispositions.” Shute and her team designed a game to teach physics, creativity and conscientousness using a method called Evidence Based Design. They figured out what evidence would prove kids were learning in those three areas, designed tasks to evoke that evidence and compared the results to other evaluation methods that have already been validated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=\"TOxuj22MY0nL3lKNqhqrr5etX0NpVVzA\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For example, the team broke creativity down into a cognitive category and a dispositional one. In the cognitive category there were elements like divergent thinking, flexibility and originality. “Each one of those facets had a number of different indicators which were what a person did in the game that would provide evidence towards those particular facets,” Shute said. One way the game examines creativity is with a challenge for students to design a solvable level on their own for a friend.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For conscientiousness, researchers were looking for evidence of persistence, perfectionism, organization and carefulness. Persistence was measured by the time a student spent on a difficult problem and how many times she restarted the problem to try it again. Shute contends the game provides more accurate information about qualities like creativity and persistence than the common self-reported survey method, where it’s easy for students to say they persist through challenges, but there’s no proof that they actually do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>PHYSICS PLAYGROUND\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Shute and her colleagues designed\u003ca href=\"http://empiricalgames.org/ppunity5/demo.html\" target=\"_blank\"> Physics Playground \u003c/a>to teach and assess two-dimensional physics simulations dealing Newton’s Laws of Motion, things like gravity, mass, momentum and energy. Embedded in the game are assessments for creativity, conscientousness and physics understanding. Shute has conducted five studies on how well the game works and has gotten positive results each time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The game has very simple objective: get the green ball to hit the red balloon. The ball and balloon are placed in various locations on the screen, sometimes with obstacles in-between, and students have to draw “agents of motion” like levers, springboards, pendulums or ramps to get the ball to hit the red balloon. To make it more difficult and to receive more points, students can solve the problems using fewer agents to accomplish a task. Other time difficulty is added if a level looks completely different than ones that came before.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When you start the game the computer doesn’t know whether you are at a high, medium or low level, but once you start accumulating evidence your level starts shifting around,” Shute said. If a student solves a problem with the pendulum and then with a lever, the computer keeps track and builds a model of the learner. It’s tracking how long it takes the student to complete the problem, how many times they attempted it, what physics concept they used and whether they were able to complete it well enough to get a gold or silver trophy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s no one right answer to these problems,” Shute said, “you can solve it with a number of different agents and do well or poorly and do it in a long time or short time, but all of that is evidence that’s being accumulated.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3X3V83s2xL0&w=640&h=480]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>DO STEALTH ASSESSMENTS WORK?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To measure the effectiveness of Physics Playground, Shute's team compared student metrics on creativity, conscientousness and physics concepts against traditionally accepted and validated measures of those same qualities. For creativity they used self-reported surveys and \u003ca href=\"http://www.creativelearning.com/free-resources/assessing-creativity-index?id=213\" target=\"_blank\">Wallach and Kogan’s alternate use test\u003c/a> (how many ways can you use a shoe, for example) to measure both fluency and originality. For conscientousness, they again used self-reporting, but also looked at the \u003ca href=\"http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/1422233?uid=3739776&uid=2&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21105461241003\" target=\"_blank\">Eisenberger’s anagram task\u003c/a> to see how long students would stay on a tough problem. For physics, they used multiple choice tests.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Shute found the correlations between the stealth assessment and the externally validated tests were all significant, consistent and valid. “If we are making a judgment about how well or poorly a person is doing it actually has some basis in reality,” Shute said. Perhaps more significantly, students participating in a test of 166 7th and 8th graders markedly improved between a pre-test and a post-test after only four hours of play and no direct instruction. And, both girls and boys found the game engaging, which is not the case for every video game.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Shute's \u003ca href=\"http://myweb.fsu.edu/vshute/publications.html\" target=\"_blank\">research \u003c/a>has her convinced that there are strong reasons to believe games can make great formative assessment tools in the classroom. She’s hoping to add features to Physics Playground like explicit learning supports connected to certain topics. Kids would still formulate hypotheses, test them out and learn through the trial-and-error process, but afterwards a pop-up would make an explicit connection to the Newtonian law they intuitively grasped already.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Shute and colleagues are also running a study on the affective state of game-players as captured on a webcam while playing. They’d like to see how various facial expressions like frustration, delight and boredom correlate to what’s going on in game play.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_38728\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/12/PhysicsPlayground.jpg\">\u003cimg class=\"size-large wp-image-38728\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/12/PhysicsPlayground-640x360.jpg\" alt=\"Screenshot from Physics Playground, a game where middle school students draw agents of motion that will cause the green ball to hit the red balloon. (Physics Playground)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Screenshot from Physics Playground, a game where middle school students draw agents of motion that will cause the green ball to hit the red balloon. (Physics Playground)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp class=\"dropcap-serif\">Educators have long known academic standards are only one part of nurturing a well-rounded and successful student. There are a host of other skills like creativity, persistence, critical thinking, collaboration and empathy that help make a student successful in school and in life, but are less quantifiable. Current assessment systems aren't set up to measure these very important but less measurable skills, so policymakers have focused on standardized tests that try to capture what a student knows, not how he or she can apply that information. Game-based learning has entered the assessment field with hopes of measuring both content-specific knowledge and softer skills at the same time, through the mechanics of the game.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I believe that assessment should be open and transparent and flexible and gently surround and support student learning or groups of students learning together,” said \u003ca href=\"http://myweb.fsu.edu/vshute/\" target=\"_blank\">Valerie Shute\u003c/a>, a professor of Educational Psychology and Learning Systems at Florida State University in an \u003ca href=\"http://home.edweb.net/\" target=\"_blank\">edWeb webinar\u003c/a>. She’s been experimenting with digital games as a way to more firmly link learning and assessment, hoping to show the two can happen inseparably. She’s particularly interested in how to measure improvement in the less tangible areas that are hard to measure, like creativity and persistence.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">'Games require a player to apply all sorts of competencies in the process of playing in order to succeed.'\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>\"One of the big challenges standing in the way of schools embracing some of these new skills is there is a shortage of valid ways of testing them,\" Shute said. To rethink assessment, Shute, among others, is trying to meld elements of good game design with specific tasks that require students to demonstrate competency to see whether games can be a valid way of formatively assessing students, especially on the hard-to-measure skills.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Games require a player to apply all sorts of competencies in the process of playing in order to succeed,” Shute said. The best ones work as a system, requiring interactive problem-solving between the player and the game. Good games also have specific goals and rules to keep a student focused and have adaptable challenges to keep the player at a difficulty level tailored to the individual’s outer edge of “do-ability.” \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/04/tapping-into-the-potential-of-video-games-and-uninhibited-play-for-learning-education/\" target=\"_blank\">Kids enjoy challenging games, as long as they aren’t too frustrated\u003c/a>. Games also offer students some control over gameplay, ongoing feedback and sensory stimuli in the form of graphics, sounds or narrative.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those qualities mirror good learning experiences in any form. The key is to create a game that teaches the concepts students need to learn without messing up the unique engagement that good games provide. That’s where what Shute calls “stealth assessment” comes in -- it’s seamless and ubiquitous, providing important feedback to the student and creating a model of the learner that can help teachers tap the individual needs of each student.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>DESIGNING A LEARNING GAME\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It starts by articulating a competency model,” Shute said. “This is what you want to say about the student at the end of the day in terms of knowledge and skills and dispositions.” Shute and her team designed a game to teach physics, creativity and conscientousness using a method called Evidence Based Design. They figured out what evidence would prove kids were learning in those three areas, designed tasks to evoke that evidence and compared the results to other evaluation methods that have already been validated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For example, the team broke creativity down into a cognitive category and a dispositional one. In the cognitive category there were elements like divergent thinking, flexibility and originality. “Each one of those facets had a number of different indicators which were what a person did in the game that would provide evidence towards those particular facets,” Shute said. One way the game examines creativity is with a challenge for students to design a solvable level on their own for a friend.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For conscientiousness, researchers were looking for evidence of persistence, perfectionism, organization and carefulness. Persistence was measured by the time a student spent on a difficult problem and how many times she restarted the problem to try it again. Shute contends the game provides more accurate information about qualities like creativity and persistence than the common self-reported survey method, where it’s easy for students to say they persist through challenges, but there’s no proof that they actually do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>PHYSICS PLAYGROUND\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Shute and her colleagues designed\u003ca href=\"http://empiricalgames.org/ppunity5/demo.html\" target=\"_blank\"> Physics Playground \u003c/a>to teach and assess two-dimensional physics simulations dealing Newton’s Laws of Motion, things like gravity, mass, momentum and energy. Embedded in the game are assessments for creativity, conscientousness and physics understanding. Shute has conducted five studies on how well the game works and has gotten positive results each time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The game has very simple objective: get the green ball to hit the red balloon. The ball and balloon are placed in various locations on the screen, sometimes with obstacles in-between, and students have to draw “agents of motion” like levers, springboards, pendulums or ramps to get the ball to hit the red balloon. To make it more difficult and to receive more points, students can solve the problems using fewer agents to accomplish a task. Other time difficulty is added if a level looks completely different than ones that came before.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When you start the game the computer doesn’t know whether you are at a high, medium or low level, but once you start accumulating evidence your level starts shifting around,” Shute said. If a student solves a problem with the pendulum and then with a lever, the computer keeps track and builds a model of the learner. It’s tracking how long it takes the student to complete the problem, how many times they attempted it, what physics concept they used and whether they were able to complete it well enough to get a gold or silver trophy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s no one right answer to these problems,” Shute said, “you can solve it with a number of different agents and do well or poorly and do it in a long time or short time, but all of that is evidence that’s being accumulated.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/3X3V83s2xL0'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/3X3V83s2xL0'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>DO STEALTH ASSESSMENTS WORK?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To measure the effectiveness of Physics Playground, Shute's team compared student metrics on creativity, conscientousness and physics concepts against traditionally accepted and validated measures of those same qualities. For creativity they used self-reported surveys and \u003ca href=\"http://www.creativelearning.com/free-resources/assessing-creativity-index?id=213\" target=\"_blank\">Wallach and Kogan’s alternate use test\u003c/a> (how many ways can you use a shoe, for example) to measure both fluency and originality. For conscientousness, they again used self-reporting, but also looked at the \u003ca href=\"http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/1422233?uid=3739776&uid=2&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21105461241003\" target=\"_blank\">Eisenberger’s anagram task\u003c/a> to see how long students would stay on a tough problem. For physics, they used multiple choice tests.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Shute found the correlations between the stealth assessment and the externally validated tests were all significant, consistent and valid. “If we are making a judgment about how well or poorly a person is doing it actually has some basis in reality,” Shute said. Perhaps more significantly, students participating in a test of 166 7th and 8th graders markedly improved between a pre-test and a post-test after only four hours of play and no direct instruction. And, both girls and boys found the game engaging, which is not the case for every video game.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Shute's \u003ca href=\"http://myweb.fsu.edu/vshute/publications.html\" target=\"_blank\">research \u003c/a>has her convinced that there are strong reasons to believe games can make great formative assessment tools in the classroom. She’s hoping to add features to Physics Playground like explicit learning supports connected to certain topics. Kids would still formulate hypotheses, test them out and learn through the trial-and-error process, but afterwards a pop-up would make an explicit connection to the Newtonian law they intuitively grasped already.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
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"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
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"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
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"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
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"tagline": "Politics from a personal perspective",
"info": "Political Breakdown is a new series that explores the political intersection of California and the nation. Each week hosts Scott Shafer and Marisa Lagos are joined with a new special guest to unpack politics -- with personality — and offer an insider’s glimpse at how politics happens.",
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"possible": {
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"title": "Possible",
"info": "Possible is hosted by entrepreneur Reid Hoffman and writer Aria Finger. Together in Possible, Hoffman and Finger lead enlightening discussions about building a brighter collective future. The show features interviews with visionary guests like Trevor Noah, Sam Altman and Janette Sadik-Khan. Possible paints an optimistic portrait of the world we can create through science, policy, business, art and our shared humanity. It asks: What if everything goes right for once? How can we get there? Each episode also includes a short fiction story generated by advanced AI GPT-4, serving as a thought-provoking springboard to speculate how humanity could leverage technology for good.",
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"pri-the-world": {
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"radiolab": {
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"reveal": {
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},
"rightnowish": {
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"title": "Rightnowish",
"tagline": "Art is where you find it",
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"info": "The Snap Judgment radio show and podcast mixes real stories with killer beats to produce cinematic, dramatic radio. Snap's musical brand of storytelling dares listeners to see the world through the eyes of another. This is storytelling... with a BEAT!! Snap first aired on public radio stations nationwide in July 2010. Today, Snap Judgment airs on over 450 public radio stations and is brought to the airwaves by KQED & PRX.",
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"soldout": {
"id": "soldout",
"title": "SOLD OUT: Rethinking Housing in America",
"tagline": "A new future for housing",
"info": "Sold Out: Rethinking Housing in America",
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