GameAccessibility site launches

The AbleGamers Foundation, a West Virginia charity dedicated to information and lobbying related to disabled gamers, has launched a new site called GameAccessibility. It’s a portal for developers and researchers to share thoughts about making all games more accessible, with news updates, and is well worth a look or even signing up to get involved.

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 [...]

Digital residents and digital visitors

Over at TALL blog (part of the University of Oxford’s Department of Continuing Education) there’s a great article discussing different categorisations of online users. In recent years, online users have been typified as Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants, to distinguish those who grew up using online systems and latecomers more used to traditional systems. The [...]

Dress code for online avatars

Company policy on social networking sites such as Facebook is one thing, but now consultancy firm Gartner predicts that by 2013, 70% of companies will have introduced codes of conduct policies for online avatars. Gartner suggests that this will extend to dress code policies for avatars representing businesses. Via Virtual Worlds News. Add to: Facebook [...]

Online list of theses related to serious games

Serious Games Pathfinder features a growing list of Master’s and Doctoral theses related to serious games. Currently, most of the theses are Canadian but the site welcomes submissions from other countries to add to the list. While not all of the theses are available online, it’s worth browsing the list to see the changing interests [...]

Videogames improve working memory

Following on from last week’s claim that Tetris increases brain efficiency, BBC News reports that war-simulation videogames can improve players’ ‘working memory’ – i.e. the ability to remember information and to use it. Dr Tracy Alloway, from the University of Stirling, suggests that studies have shown that videogames such as the Total War series enhance [...]

Tetris increases brain efficiency

More fuel for the games-are-good-for-you argument: Albuquerque, N.M.-based Mind Research Network said over the course of three months, it tracked adolescent girls who practiced playing Tetris. Compared to control subjects, these girls exhibited greater brain efficiency and a thicker cortex, as evidenced by brain scans. Areas of the brain that showed thicker cortex were sections [...]

Driving and texting – a game to gauge distraction

The New York Times, with help from psychology professors David Strayer and David E. Meyer, has created a game to simulate the effects of texting whilst driving a car. The interface works because it’s so awkward – you’re expected to steer the car into traffic lanes using number keys whilst simultaneously typing text message responses [...]

Serious Games Jam

The Serious Games Jam beta website forums are now live. The Serious Games Online Jam will provide an online collaborative space for those interested in Serious Games to discuss, debate and vote on different topics of Serious Games. Participants will have the opportunity to post discussions, contribute to discussions, learn about the current movements and [...]

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. [...]

Transforming Schools for the Future

Transforming Schools for the Future is a collection of papers published by Futurelab, forming a commentary of the UK government’s Building Schools for the Future and Primary Capital Programme (investment programmes in secondary and primary school buildings). In his foreword, Lord David Puttnam argues for a forward-thinking approach to designing not just school buildings but [...]

e-adventure

The e-UCM research group at the Complutense University of Madrid have done some detailed work on using point-and-click adventure games to teach specific learning outcomes. Click here to read the paper supporting reasons for choosing the point-and-click genre, and here for tech demos of some sample games, such as this cookery adventure game: This adventure [...]