Futurelab article on Child Education PLUS

There’s a new article by Futurelab on the Child Education PLUS website, discussing the use of computer games in the classroom. (This is unashamed self-promotion, as I’ve just started my new role at Scholastic as editor of Child Education PLUS.)

Futurelab podcast – technology in primary education

I’m a little late with this one, but the current Futurelab podcast is really worth a listen. Sue Cranmer speaks to John Potter of the London Knowledge Lab, University of London, about technology in primary classrooms. John speaks compellingly about the need to recognise learning needs and then to produce appropriate technology, rather than simply [...]

Audio-only action game simulates blindness

Over at Eurogamer there’s a report on Danish developer PortaPlay’s action-adventure that simulates blindness using audio and no graphics. It’s set in a semi-factual WWII era where the player is an allied spy dropped behind enemy lines to gather intelligence on a secret German doomsday weapon. The player is blinded during the intro and the [...]

Gamers to race against sporting pros

The BBC reports that Real Time Race is developing a system allowing television viewers to race against real F1 drivers. Racetracks would be mapped before the race using 360 degree cameras similar to those used by the Google Street View team, although this system would allow users to view the race from areas not actually [...]

Will Wright and E O Wilson on educational games

Take a look over at NPR for a summary of an open mic session between game designer Will Wright (with credits including SimCity, The Sims and Spore) and biologist E. O. Wilson. Wright asked Wilson if he saw a role for games in education: “I’ll go to an even more radical position,” Wilson said. “I [...]

Quest to Learn: NYC’s game-based school

New York City’s Quest to Learn, created in collaboration with New Visions for Public Schools, is a proposed 6-12th grade school based on game-inspired teaching. Mission critical at Quest to Learn is a translation of the underlying form of games into a powerful pedagogical model for its 6-12th graders. Games work as rule-based learning systems, [...]

Nintendo DS Classroom unveiled for Japan

Today Nintendo and Sharp System Products unveiled DS Classroom, allowing DS consoles to be linked to a central computer and used with specialised educational software. Known as “Nintendo DS Kyoushitsu” in its native Japanese, the new system pairs up the DS with a PC. Teachers make use of software on the PC to interact via [...]

US Army uses videogames to recruit

Reuters gives a detailed report on the US Army Experience Center, a recruitment center in a Philadephia shopping mall featuring 60 PCs and 19 Xbox 360 consoles that allows potential recruits to simulate battle conditions: The Philadelphia center lures recruits with a separate room for prospective soldiers to “fire” from a real Humvee on enemy [...]

One Laptop Per Child – India places order for 250,000 units

While India’s education minister previously dismissed the One Laptop Per Child scheme as ‘pedagogically suspect’, it appears that India’s government has placed an order for 250,000 units. The Guardian reports that 1500 schools should begin receiving computers in June, but remains sceptical about OLPC’s ability to fulfil such a large order.

IBM computer challenges human to game of Jeopardy

IBM follows up Deep Blue’s 1997 chess triumph against Garry Kasparov with a computer programmed to play US trivia gameshow, Jeopardy. IBM hopes that multiple Jeopardy winner Ken Jennings will challenge the computer, which will draw upon its indexed trivia information – although the computer will not be connected to the internet during the competition. [...]