The integration of learning games into schools holds significant promise, yet faces numerous obstacles. Ubiquitous games (casual games for smart phones) attempt to motivate students to engage repeatedly with content beyond school, while enabling teachers to facilitate deeper reflection on game-related curricula during class. During a two-year…

Teachers and students face many challenges in shifting from traditional classroom cultures to enacting the "Knowledge-Building Communities" model (KBC model) supported by the CSCL environment, "Knowledge Forum" (Bereiter, 2002; Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1993; Scardamalia, 2002; Scardamalia & Bereiter, 2006). Enacting the…

The purpose of this study was to investigate teachers' beliefs regarding the integration of technologies from the 2011 K-12 edition of the "Horizon Report" into their local, public school contexts. Teachers read the "Horizon Report" and then participated in an asynchronous, threaded discussion focusing on technologies they…

Background: The host of costly individual and societal consequences of alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs (ATOD) use underscores the importance of ATOD prevention education. "It's Up 2U" is an evidence-informed, game-based, e-learning ATOD prevention program developed by Children's Health Education Center (CHEC) targeting middle school…

Mathematical ideas exist and develop in many different cultures. From this multicultural perspective, teachers can use a variety of approaches to acknowledge the role of culture in the teaching and learning of mathematics. Curricular materials that "emphasize both the mathematical and sociocultural aspects" not only help teachers achieve…

There has been a substantial increase in recent years in the interest in using digital games for language learning. This coincides with the explosive growth in multiplayer online gaming and with the proliferation of mobile games for smart phones. It also reflects the growing recognition among educators of the importance of extramural, informal…

Innovative teaching and learning is increasingly becoming part of medical education. We report the evaluation of a medical microbiology board game, Med Micro Fun With Facts (MMFWF), based on Trivial Pursuit™ principles. The game was developed to stimulate medical students' interest in microbiology and expose students to the subject content of an…

This paper provides an account of student teachers' responses to a simulation game about food scarcity and how the game served as a conversation starter regarding the influence of food scarcity on educational provisioning. The simulation game was utilised as part of a suite of activities during an educational excursion for first years in primary…

The use of portable devices to explore informal learning environments has recently exposed museums to a mobile learning (m-learning) scenario. In particular, location-based mobile applications that take into account not only a specific physical venue, but also the personal and social context can be valuable resources to enhance the visitor…

In previous publications, the author reported that students learned about Egyptian architecture and society by playing an educational game based on a virtual representation of a temple. Students played the game in a digital dome or on a standard desktop computer, and (each) then recorded a video tour of the temple. Those who had used the dome…

Serious gaming for health benefits is moving out of the realm of being potentially interesting, and the authors are starting to see a growing maturity in the field. This study of six serious gaming projects based either wholly or partly in Denmark investigates the changes taking place in the healthcare area based on experiences with serious gaming…

Evolution is a main concept in biology, but not many students understand how it works. In this article we introduce the game "DNA Re-EvolutioN" as an active learning tool that uses genetic concepts (DNA structure, transcription and translation, mutations, natural selection, etc.) as playing rules. Students will learn about molecular…

Collaboration is an important aspect of information systems (IS) education since work is typically performed in teams. However, IS students often do not fully appreciate the value of group work in their business courses. This teaching tip describes an activity that will objectively demonstrate the value of collaboration and diversity of…

A common area of difficulty and frustration for low achieving students is the operations involving negative numbers. The main objective of our innovations in this area with two classes of Year 7 low achieving students was to develop positive feelings towards mathematics, in particular of an appreciation for the "reasonableness" and clear…

The rise of digital game and simulation-based learning applications has led to new approaches in educational measurement that take account of patterns in time, high resolution paths of action, and clusters of virtual performance artifacts. The new approaches, which depart from traditional statistical analyses, include data mining, machine…