This page was created by Brenton Reese.  It is about Educational Gaming.

The modern computer age in which we live has ushered in a new tide of instruction in the classroom. Educational gaming is now the order of the day. Educational gaming has been in the past, and will be in the future, met with resistance from the educational system. The reasons vary and will be discussed shortly. But, first of all, I must emphasize how important it is that teachers recognize the importance of integrating some form of educational gaming into their lesson planning. It is common knowledge that learning does not result strictly from teaching, but rather from the environment that creates a path to learning. Furthermore, the teacher of today is no longer the sole source of information in the classroom. The internet has come of age. As a result, teachers ought to strive to effectively engage their students in the material. If they ignore the writing on the wall, teachers may, at least theoretically, find themselves out of a job!

Throughout recorded history, any learning associated with the imagination was viewed with a degree of suspicion. After all, the scientific method seemingly offers direct, punctual results. Imaginative learning and thinking, on the other hand, can take literally centuries for hypotheses to turn into realities. Additionally, when using imaginative learning methods of instruction, there is a sense of the unpredictable. These methods may even appear counterintuitive to the desired learning goals!

Yet, imaginative learning is very much a part of every child's education. Erik Erikson said that through imagining different possibilities, children constructively learn how to effectively problem solve. This brings me to my final point in this exploration of why to implement educational gaming into the learning activities of today's youth. It is this: there is speculation today that students are only engaged in rote memorization, and that they no longer know how to problem solve.

Educational gaming gets the students engaged in the material by getting them to do things they never would do in the real world, all the while disguising the act of learning with a mask of fun. Educational gaming should, by no means, replace normal instruction. Instead, from time to time, it should be used to supplement normal instruction. Students today, almost by second nature, are able to interact with technology and specifically, games. Educational gaming is an attempt to seize hold of students' natural tendencies in order to promote constructivist learning. Through this approach, there is no right or wrong answer. So, more students are apt to participate. Marketing of these educational games is following proportionally along with non-educational kid-oriented media. And for good reason. These marketers know who their audience is! But, there is an attempt being made to get the teachers to be the actual designers of games. More will be said about this in the examples to follow. In time, the students themselves will, no doubt, become the designers. This follows the mentality that you learn best by teaching. Through creating games, students' goals would be to educate others. All design attempts should remember this correlation rule, though: a good learning game is one in which joy comes from the learning activity. Otherwise, you would have a situation like that of the infamous Oregon Trail. In this game, students spent most of their time hunting! The learning activity was trumped by the fun, subordinate activity.

As an interesting footnote to this exploration into why to implement educational gaming, I must mention the fact that imagination is now seen to be vital to all domains and fields of learning. At one time, it was believed to be of use only in the arts. Nowadays, though, even science uses imagination. The most ironic example of this is how computer science has given rise to educational gaming which penetrates all disciplines and offers the aid of imagination in helping to problem solve!

Educational gaming is divided into two main categories:
Virtual Worlds a.k.a MUVE's (multi user virtual environments)

Drill-and-Practice

One example of a digital world educational game, could be Google Earth. The viewer of this virtual world is able to see the planet in a way they likely never will in real life! The link is below:
http://earth.google.com/

There are many examples of virtual worlds currently being used in educational settings.

One is Teen Second Life. Students are able to explore technical issues such as carbon footprints of houses, etc.
To view a video of what this looks like in action, go to the following link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRkcT3PjYyM&eurl=http://www.holymeatballs.org/2008/03/

The students take their Teen Second Life experiences and blog about them! To see some such blogging visit the following link:
http://www.holymeatballs.org/teen_posts.htm

Another virtual world is Whyville. To see the site, visit the following link: http://www.whyville.net/smmk/nice

Texas especially got attached to Whyville. Apparently, the state believed Whyville could teach its youth about biotech and drug design, so they handed over $440,000 and the result was Why-Texas. To see the website for this, visit the following link: http://www.why-texas.com/

Students in Why-Texas compete for clams against other classes throughout the state.

Another virtual world offers a trip back in time to the 19th century. This one is known as River City. The link to view this one is:
http://128.103.176.29/rivercityproject/

River City operates on the Active Worlds platform. The website for this can be viewed at the following link:
http://www.activeworlds.com/

Yet another virtual world is Quest Atlantis. Quest Atlantis offers many different quests for students to learn from.
To view the website for Quest Atlantis, visit the following link:
http://atlantis.crlt.indiana.edu/

To see some of the different Quests, visit the following link:
http://inkido.indiana.edu/workedexamples/imagemenu/imagemenu/

Yet another Virtual World is called McLarin Adventures. To see this Virtual World, visit:
http://stardev.k20center.org/

In McLarin Adventures, the students must negotiate many different disciplines (math, geography, bioscience, geology) in order to be able to explore other planets.

• The above Virtual Worlds were implemented in the classroom using portable handheld computers termed Ultra-Mobile Personal Computers. To see what these look like, visit the following link:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/umpc/default.mspxp

• To view a forum for educators using Virtual Worlds, visit the following link:

As far as drill-and-practice games go, there are a dime a dozen!

One that I found is called Rand McNally Classroom. It costs 99 cents per student, per campus.
Through digital images and interactive maps, students have an opportunity to become immersed into geography. This is the opposite of what often happens in today's budget-crunched education systems: students learn geography wrapped up in other subjects. The result is that they never develop a distinct love of the subject matter. To see the game and teaching tools, visit the following link. There is even a 14 day free trial!
http://www.randmcnally.com/rmc/EdPub/action/startApp.do

To see a whole lot of FREE drill-and-practice educational games divided by subject, visit the following link:
http://eduscapes.com/tap/topic86.htm#1

Another site to check out is:
http://funschool.kaboose.com/index.html

Yet another one is:
http://www.iknowthat.com/com/L3?Area=L2_SocialStudies

This could go on forever.....But, I will call it a day!

Sources of information:

Pivec, M.(2007). Editorial: Play and learn: Potentials of game based learning. British Journal of Educational Technology. 38(3), 387-393. Retrieved November 27, 2008, from Wilson Omnifile Mega Full Text Database.

Esbin, H. (2007/2008). Imagination goes to school. Education Canada 48(1), 24-28. Retrieved November 27, 2008, from Wilson Omnifile Mega Full Text Database.

Annetta, L. (2007). Virtually a new way of learning: Video games and simulations as teaching tools. Multimedia & Internet @ Schools 14(6), 9-13. Retrieved November 27, 2008, from Wilson Omnifile Mega Full Text Database.

Czarnecki, K. (2008). Virtual environments and k-12 education: A tour of the possibilities--part 1. Multimedia & Internet @ Schools 15(4), 14-17. Retrieved November 27, 2008, from Wilson Omnifile Mega Full Text Database.

Czarnecki, K. (2008). Virtual environments and k-12 education: A tour of the possibilities--part 2. Multimedia & Internet @ Schools 15(5), 12-16. Retrieved November 27, 2008, from Wilson Omnifile Mega Full Text Database.