Monday 11 February 2013

Research: Part 3

As part of my research on gaming in education i read a variety of articles, blogs and other online media on the topic. 

One of the most interesting of these is a blog by Joel Levin a computer teacher in New York. His blog is called "The Minecraft Teacher" and can be found here: http://minecraftteacher.tumblr.com/. The blog goes through his techniques and is a great example of how games can enable learning. 




Levin's work mostly focuses on teaching teamwork and resource management in for environmental issues and earth sciences. 



I found many other examples or other games that weren't initially intended to be "traditional educational games" being used in school environments. i think these are good examples of how platform can be played with to achieve end results based on the requirement of the user. Minecraft came up many times, interestingly being used for many different applications  i think this is defiantly a testament to how robust it is as a tool of play and a tool to enable learning.


In Sweden Minecraft is also taught at an older level for to teach teens about the problems faced in civil egeneering now and in the future. 


This set of students held their classes in a virtual vearsion of their campus when it was flooded by hurricane Oswald.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/121802-Australian-University-Holds-Class-in-Minecraft


I have also found TED talks a valuable source of information on the benefits of gaming to the education system. 

http://www.ted.com/talks/daphne_bavelier_your_brain_on_video_games.html




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