There has been increasing attention on the educational power of video games in recent years (Gee, 2003, 2005; Prensky 2001, 2006; Thorne, 2008; Purushotma, 2005). This study aims to investigate World of Warcraft as a venue for second language socialization, specifically in the area of pragmatics. In order to explore the potential for second…

The Tactical Language and Culture Training System (TLCTS) helps learners acquire basic communicative skills in foreign languages and cultures. Learners acquire communication skills through a combination of interactive lessons and serious games. Artificial intelligence plays multiple roles in this learning environment: to process the learner's…

Power is an influential component of social interaction and there are reasons for thinking that it may have important effects both on decision-making and psychological and interpersonal processes. The aim of this paper was to study the relations between the feeling of power, decision-making and flow experience in a collaborative business…

The need to play is primeval in human beings, at least as strong as the urge to fight. While the larger gaming community has traditionally focused on the fairly lucrative potential of exploiting the urge to fight in the form of violent and destructive war games, the "Serious Games" segment has become aware of the power of applying this…

Embedding support devices in educational computer games has been asserted to positively affect learning outcomes. However, there is only limited direct empirical evidence on which design variations of support provision influence learning. In order to better understand the impact of support design on novices' learning, the current study…

This mixed methods study examined the flow experience of 5th graders in the CRYSTAL ISLAND game-based science learning environment. Participants were 73 5th graders from a suburban public school in the southeastern US. Quantitative data about students' science content learning and attitudes towards science was collected via pre-and post surveys.…

This study explored the potential of digital games as learning environments to develop mindsets capable of dealing with complexity in the domain of sustainability. Building sustainable futures requires the ability to deal with the complex dynamics that characterize the world in which we live. As central elements in this system, we must develop the…

This Forum paper explores how Matthew Gaydos and Kurt Squire in their manuscript, "CITIZEN SCIENCE: Role Playing Games for Scientific Citizenship," represent issues of games literacy and science literacy. What is the meaning of expertise in the context of games-based learning? An examination of the studies presented suggests that games, like other…

The authors have developed a computer-based learning module on the unit cell of various types of crystal. The module has two components: the virtual unit cell (VUC) part and the subsequent unit cell hunter part. The VUC is a virtual reality simulation for students to actively arrive at the unit cell from exploring, from a broad view, the crystal…

Along with the development of new technologies, orchestrating computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) has become a topic of discussion because new learning spaces challenge teacher to support collaborative learning in new ways. However, despite the optimistic notions of teachers' orchestration in CSCL situations, there are still no…

The author discusses how she made up some dice problems for a child's birthday. She presents some activities that can be used with younger and older children based on dice. (Contains 4 figures.)

The authors present a simple classroom experiment that can be used as a teaching device to introduce important concepts of organizational economics and incentive contracting. First, students take the role of a principal and design a contract that consists of a fixed payment and an incentive component. Second, students take the role of agents and…

Exploring the Solar System in the elementary school curriculum has traditionally involved activities, such as building scale models, to help students visualize the vastness of space and the relative size of the planets and their orbits. Today, numerous websites provide a wealth of information about the sun and the planets, combining text, photos,…

A game is a set of activities involving one or more players. It has goals, constraints, payoffs, and consequences. A game is rule-guided and artificial in some respects. (Richard Wilson, 2010). According to Garris et al. (2002), define educational game play as "voluntary, nonproductive, and separate from the real world"; and they found…

This paper draws on lessons learned from the development process of the entertainment games industry and discusses how they can be applied to the field of game-based learning. This paper examines policy makers and those wishing to commission or develop games for learning and highlights potential opportunities as well as pitfalls. The paper focuses…