games

Daylong PD Session, Using Games in the HS Classroom

On Wednesday, February 19, 2014 from 9 am - 3:30 pm, The Radix Team is hosting a one-day professional development session that will address many of your questions about using an online game for STEM learning within the classroom environment. This fun, hands-on workshop on the MIT campus will address:

  • How games can be used to set the context for or reinforce difficult concepts
  • The learning standards addressed in The Radix Endeavor
  • How scaffolding is addressed within specific quest lines
  • In-game assessments
  • Reports and built-in teacher monitoring tools
  • Options for enrolling in the Radix Pilot

REGISTER TODAY
 

Education Arcade Releases New Game for STEM Learning

MIT’s Education Arcade Releases Online Game for STEM Learning
Seeks High School Math and Biology Teachers to Participate in Research Pilot

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – MIT’s Education Arcade has spent two years collaborating with teachers and game developer, Filament Games, to develop an immersive virtual environment to support high school math and biology instruction. The result is The Radix Endeavor, an online multi-player game released today. The Education Arcade researchers will study implementation of the game in high school classrooms across the country through the end of the academic year.
The Radix Endeavor places students in an Earth-like world with a technical and social situation similar to our 1400s. Players are adventurers on an island at a crucial juncture. As political forces make arbitrary and greedy decisions that threaten the health of the island and its inhabitants, a group of dedicated and curious rebels are rising to oppose them. Players collaborate solve pressing social and environmental problems facing the island using fundamental concepts from math and biology aligned with the Common Core State Standards and the Next Generation Science Standards.
 
The game integrates a web-based design that allows teachers flexibility in how and when students play; in school or at home. The island incorporates five different biomes with a variety of unidentified plant and animal species. Students use the tools of math and science to investigate these habitats and solve a series of quests aimed at saving the island from its evil rulers. Twelve quest lines support a variety of high school concepts including Genetics, Ecosystems, Evolution, Human Body Systems, Algebra, Geometry, and Statistics.  A teacher dashboard allows teachers to track student progress and provides access to teacher resources including video supports, and classroom connections.   
 
The MIT Education Arcade is currently identifying a pool of schools and teachers to participate in a research study that will examine how and to what impact teachers use such a tool.  “The potential for video games to create effective learning environments has received much attention of late,” said Professor Eric Klopfer, director of the Education Arcade and The Scheller Teacher Education Program, the group that designed the game.  “It is our hope to contribute to the national dialogue on educational games with evidence of effectiveness and case studies of varied implementation models.”
 
Formal and informal educators at the middle and high school level from around the world are invited to participate in the pilot simply by enrolling their students in the game.  US-based high school math and biology teachers are also invited to participate in the pilot at deeper levels by using the game in conjunction with some assessments aligned with the learning standards in the game or by hosting MIT researchers to conduct classroom observations of students engaging with the game in the classroom setting. 
 
“This deep level of collaboration with teachers is critical to successful implementation of any school-based initiative,” remarked Susannah Gordon-Messer, Education Content Manager. “Only by studying how teachers use the game to support their own instructional objectives can we accurately document the potential contribution games like this can make in terms of engagement and growth in student performance.”
 
Teachers interested in enrolling in the research pilot, should complete the Radix Pilot Enrollment Form. 
 
MIT’s Education Arcade and Scheller Teacher Education Program  is a research and development lab based at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) that explores that which is authentically playful in learning. Focused on supporting teachers in their efforts to create playful, powerful learning opportunities for students drives our research and development of games, simulations, and tools that help transform kids into creators and explorers.

Filament Games  is a game production studio that develops engaging teaching and learning games. The company’s games combine best practices in commercial game development with key concepts from the learning sciences, sparking inspiration through exploration and discovery. Filament Games works with teachers, parents and students to engineer authentic gameplay mechanics that assist educators with meeting Common Core requirements and specific learning objectives.

Coming Soon… Educational Games Development MOOCs on edX

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. 

Lab Staff to Speak [and Play] at Playful Learning Boston

Media Literacy Conference 2013: Playful Learning Boston invites K-12 teachers, whether seasoned experts or new to using technology in the classroom to join their colleagues in exploring what is inherently playful about learning. Our own Daniel Wendel and Wendy Huang will be presenting about the use of 3D Games and Simulations.  In addition, the Radix team will be showing off our new multi-player online game for secondary STEM instruction.  The event will take place at the MIT Media Lab on Saturday, November 2, 2013 from 8 to 5.  Learn more and register today!

 

Radix Cited as Example in The Scientist's Games for Science

The Radix Endeavor was recently cited in a recent The Scientist article, Games for Science as an example of how scientists are using video games to tap the collective intelligence of people around the world, while doctors and educators are turning to games to treat and teach.  Examining games form three unique environments, the article explore how:

  • Games designed to tackle tough scientific problems are leading to breakthroughs.
  • Gameplay can engage unfocused students and teach complex scientific concepts.
  • Medical researchers are using games to help patients overcome physical challenges.

Games For Change

 Over the past few weeks, the STEP team has been all over, hitting the Games+Learning+Society conference and Games For Change. While at Games For Change, I was asked to write a guest blogpost, which never made it to their blog. Never one to waste a piece of writing, here is my reaction to their panel on Games in Cultural Spaces:
GAMES IN CULTURAL SPACES

Tracy Fullerton - USC EA Game Innovation Lab 

CSI: Community Science Investigators

CSI Teacher and Students

CSI is a technology-based and community-focused after-school program. To explore issues in their community, students design and play augmented reality games, and use geospatial technologies. They then use that knowledge along with data they've collected to choose and implement a service learning project that impacts their community. Teachers act as facilitators in this inquiry-based learning environment.

Carnegie Mellon Experimental Game "Fusion" Mixes Modalities

Today at Gamasutra, they're featuring an article about an experimental game from Carnegie Mellon called Fusion that blends the genres of Puzzle, First Person Shooter, and Racing into a single, team-based game. The article, while thorough, could go into even more detail about the trade-offs and decisions made for my taste. It's an exciting experiment that seems to have met with reasonable success though, and the creators should be lauded for the work!

It's particularly inspiring for learning games because a challenge that often goes unaddressed in the educational game space is addressing students interested in different modalities. Putting aside the problematic notion of learning styles, which has recently been questioned, this represents an excellent first step in being able to address students who might simply be interested in one playstyle over another. In some ways, it echoes our work in participatory simulations, but instead of changing the players' lens on content through collaborative roleplay, you could change their lens on content through collaborative genreplay instead.

Welcome to STEP

The Next STEP For more than 15 years the Scheller Teacher Education Program has been training MIT undergraduates to become secondary school science and math teachers. During that time there have been many changes, as the program has grown and expanded its reach. Nearly a dozen staff, plus undergraduates and masters students from computer science and Comparative Media Studies work on the many research and development projects going on in the lab. These research projects include design, development, implementation, and research around new ways of teaching math and science through games and simulations. The expansion of the STEP program has led us to new quarters in the Media Lab Complex (our building is known as E15, or the Weisner, building on campus), which we felt in turn deserved a new web site. This blog marks the launch of that site, with a new design and a pipeline for more frequent updates and information from and about the lab.

Weatherlings - A Ubiquitous Game

Weatherlings is a collectible card battle game in which players pit their decks of weather-dependent cards against other players’ decks. This game is the first created on the Ubiquitous Games platform under development at MIT’s Scheller Teacher Education Program (STEP) lab. Created in partnership with the National University of Singapore and the Nanyang Technological University, Weatherlings is an online card game aimed at middle-school aged students who are learning about weather and climate. Game play in Weatherlings consists of short battles set in real U.S. cities in the recent past, for which the game builders have collected a record of actual weather conditions. In each battle, a player plays his or her own cards and tries to defeat an opponent’s cards. The twist that differentiates Weatherlings from other card games is that cards’ attacks and defenses depend on weather conditions at the time and place where the battle is happening. In Weatherlings, these short battles are designed to be played “casually,” after school or between classes on portable devices. After logging in to the game, and before starting to battle, a player builds one or more decks of cards customized for particular weather conditions. Based on the strengths of the decks they have built, and their knowledge and interpretation of climate graphs for potential arenas, players choose the location of the battle from three possible sites. After the arena is chosen, students choose the best deck for the arena they have settled on and begin the battle. In that battle, students are prompted to predict the weather in a given climate for each battle round, like July in Miami, Florida, to gain in-game bonuses.