Entries tagged with learning - Channel 10

Using Games To Teach: G4LI Unveiled

sarahintampa — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 15:59:00 GMT

Microsoft is teaming up with a handful of universities to study if and how computer games can be useful in education for teaching students math, science, and technology. The research project has Microsoft working with NYU as well as City University of New York, Columbia University, Dartmouth College, Parsons the New School for Design, and the Rochester Institute of Technology. Columbia’s Teachers College and NYU’s Polytechnic Institute. The test subjects in this study will be middle school students.

Why middle school? According to Ken Perlin, an NYU professor of computer science, in middle school many students “become discouraged or uninterested and pour their time at home into gaming. We think gaming is our starting point to draw them into math, science, and technology-based programs.”

The research study will be called the “Games for Learning Institute.” The budget is $3 million. Microsoft will be paying half with the universities chipping in for the other portion. The study hopes to discover what makes games compelling and playable and what elements make them effective for learning…that is, even they are effective for learning. The games used in testing will be deployed along with curricula to 19 NYC area schools where results in the classroom will be tracked. (via Wired Campus)

Geography Tetris

sarahintampa — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 13:22:00 GMT

Here's a much more fun way to learn geography than just staring at a map - a game called Statetris lets you learn geography by playing an online game, similar to Tetris, where states or countries are the blocks which you must move or rotate to fit them into the correct locations. The Tetris board will be a shape of a map and the "pieces" drop down from the top. Using the arrow keys, you move the pieces to where they belong on the map. There are three levels to play - easy, medium, and hard. There are games for USA, UK, Europe, Africa, and more. (via Digital Inspiration)

Silverlight 2 June Webcast Series

sarahintampa — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 08:36:00 GMT

Lindsay Rutter is going to be doing a series of webcasts on Silverlight 2 in June, starting on June 16th. The topics will include learning about deep zoom, learning the WPF UI framework, learning about adaptive streaming, and more. In total, there will be 6 webcasts in all. To register for any of these free webcasts, just click on its title in the list below below:

Look What You Can Do with Silverlight 2 (Part 1 of 6): Overview of Silverlight 2 and the WPF UI Framework
June 16th, 2008 1pm EST
Look What You Can Do with Silverlight 2 (Part 2 of 6): WPF UI Framework Continued
June 18th, 2008 2pm EST
Look What You Can Do with Silverlight 2 (Part 3 of 6): Introducing Deep Zoom
June 20th, 2008 1pm EST
Look What You Can Do with Silverlight 2 (Part 4 of 6): Web Services Support
June 23rd, 2008 1pm EST
Look What You Can Do with Silverlight 2 (Part 5 of 6): Testing Framework
June 25th, 2008 1pm EST
Look What You Can Do with Silverlight 2 (Part 6 of 6): Adaptive Streaming
June 27th, 2008 1pm EST

(via BufferOverrun)