game design

The Learning Games Network (LGN) and FableVision have partnered to create the Game Design Tool Kit (GDTK), a free online resource designed to help teachers use game design more extensively in their curriculum. Offered as a series of resources, the GDTK is available for download by teachers at no cost as a comprehensive handbook.
Features of the Game Design Toolkit include:

• A lesson plan guide;
• Research and design prompts;
• Step-by-step instructions; and
• Discussion guides.
• Implementation of the GDTK can be condensed into as brief of a span of time as a few days or can be spread out over a quarter or a semester.

DOWNLOAD THE GDTK HANDBOOK
DOWNLOAD THE GDTK CARD DECK 

The Scheller Teacher Education Program and the Education Arcade at MIT will offer a series of online course modules (4-6-week mini-courses) for those interested in both digital games and educational technologies (and the intersection of the two).  In Fall 2014, we will launch the first of the four-course series, supported by the MIT Office of Digital Learning, in partnership with MITx. Designed to be take together or as a single module, the course modules include: Introduction to Game Design and Development; Theory and Design of Educational Technology; Design and Development of Educational Games for Formal Learning; and Educational Technology: Present and Future. Each module will incorporate mini-documentary style case studies and interviews highlighting real game developers at work and other experts on-location in the field and assignments that bridge theory and practice. The Intro to Game Design and the Design and Development of Educational Games for Formal Learning courses will also include a blocks-based programming tool to enable learners to build their own games online as part of the course. 

Education Arcade and Scheller Teacher Education Program staff, Susannah Gordon-Messer and Louisa Rosenheck, present The Radix Endeavor, a multi-player online game for STEM learning where students immerse themselves in MIT's game world and perform quests applying biology and math skills and teachers receive real-time teacher feedback about student learning. Marriott Riverwalk, Alamo Salon E.
 
Not scheduled to be at NSTA but interested in learning about the game and its pilot scheduled for AY 2013-2014, Subscribe to Radix Updates.
 

The Radix Team is busy at work developing the world and quests that will ultimately become the Massively Multi-Player Online (MMO) game and interactive learning environment supporting high school math and biology instruction.  As if that is not enough, the team has recently launched a Pinterest Board and design blog that will allow us to see the game come to life.  Visit the Pinterest Board to see the graphical concepts evolve. Subscribe to the team’s design blog to follow them as they grapple with critical design questions including which standards to address, how long to make each quest, and how to address the role of free play.