Gaming = (Contribute: who has a good quick description?)
Simulation = the ability to interpret and construct dynamic models of real world processes


NEW!

School that uses game-based learning opens in NYC -- Boing Boing Offworld

By Cory Doctorow on OFFWORLD Over on Boing Boing Offworld, our Brandon has an early look at Quest 2, a school in New York that's focused on game-based learning.

New York's Institute of Play has officially announced the foundation of Quest to Learn, a new school for "digital kids" that will be accepting its first 6th grade class this fall, which "uses the underlying design principles of games to create highly immersive, game-like learning experiences for students." ... It’s important to note that Quest is not a school whose curriculum is made up of the play of commercial videogames, but rather a school that uses the underlying design principles of games to create highly immersive, game-like learning experiences. Games and other forms of digital media serve another useful purpose at Quest: they serve to model the complexity and promise of “systems.” Understanding and accounting for this complexity is a fundamental literacy of the 21st century.

Man, that sounds good enough to move to NYC for. (from Boing Boing blog)


BEST PRACTICES FOR USING GAMES & SIMULATIONS IN THE CLASSROOM
Guidelines for K–12 Educators - JANUARY 2009

Serious Games Portal Giving and overview of what is going on with serious games

Report: Summit on Educational Games (Federation of American Scientists)

http://fas.org/gamesummit/Resources/Summit%20on%20Educational%20Games.pdf

Harnessing the Power of Video Games for Learning provides groundbreaking recommendations calling on government, educators, and business' to develop comprehensive strategies to use video games to strengthen U.S. education and workforce training.

Download the game Immune Attack, free to educators from the Federation of American Scientists.





What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy. Second Edition: Revised and Updated Edition
by James Paul Gee (Paperback - Dec 26, 2007)

2.

Good Video Games and Good Learning: Collected Essays on Video Games, Learning and Literacy (New Literacies and Digital Epistemologies) by James Paul Gee (Paperback - Mar 26, 2007) Buy new:$29.95 14 Used & new from $24.98 Get it by Tuesday, Jul 15 if you order in the next 44 hours and choose one-day shipping. (1)

Gaming in Libraries blog (w/streaming podcasts)

Summit on Educational Games in 2006. The Full Report is 53 pages long.
http://www.fas.org/gamesummit/

Games as Pedagogical Platforms
In the 21st Century, we need more ways to get children wanting to learn rather than forcing them to learn. If they are having fun learning, then they will have an easier time remembering the material. One form of these educational games that some teachers are using are MMEG's which are massively multi-player educational games.

http://www.digiplay.info/
The Digiplay games research bibliography is the largest database of academic and research articles on games freely available on the web. The Digiplay bibliography of computer games research has gone through several changes in its lifecycle. This version is the newest but still undergoing continual updating.

Fully integrated into this new Digiplay web site, the bibliography contains over 2500 references to papers, books, theses and conference papers on computer, video and digital games research. Multidisciplinary in nature, it includes references across the whole range of fields including sociology, psychology, computer science, education, literary studies, health sciences, economics, media studies, and law and so forth from 1949 to the present day. (submitted by Greg Relaford)

from Vicki Butler
Blog on Gaming, Warlick, Schools 2.0 http://www.utechtips.com/?p=371

taken from blog:
Interesting….I’m looking at these five skills that students get from video games…then I look at the conversation around School 2.0….hhhhmmm.
Responsive=We want students to respond to information, we want them to engage information and not passively sit back while the information passes them by. Conversable Rewards= We want them to have conversations, we want them to talk about information, to internalize it and hear other’s points of view on the subject. Personal Investment= We want students to be intrinsically motivated. We want student to be invested in their own learning, to ‘want to learn’.
Identity Building= We want students to become individuals, to create their won identity. More than that we want to help them build a positive digital identity. Dependability= We want students to be dependable to know that we can count on them when we need them, to be responsible and dependable for their own learning.

Gamers as Leaders http://living.the-environmentalist.org/2008/04/gamers-as-leaders.html

Capacity Development
http://21stcenturylearning.typepad.com/blog/ Posted: 29 Mar 2008 10:59 AM CDT One of the current trends or drivers in the shift we are experiencing in education is around the concept of the new economy shifting from products to people and what they know, more specifically human capital. (see: Ten Trends: Educating Children for Tomorrow's World- Trend 3)

2cents Worth – Warlick’s Blog Teaching & Learning in the new information landscape… http://davidwarlick.com/2cents/

Todd Bryant discusses using World of Warcraft and other online environments in language teaching.

Free Online Games

• Miniclip - http://www.miniclip.com
• Hybridarcade - http://www.hybridarcade.com/
• Free Games - http://www.freegamesforyourwebsite.com
• Free Games - http://onlinegames247.net
• FreeOnlineGames.com - http://www.freeonlinegames.com/

Games to Investigate
Stratagem
Ayiti, The Cost of LIfe
Darfur is Dying