Innovation is a term that has become widely used in education; especially as it pertains to technology infusion. Applying the corporate theory of diffusing innovation to educational practice is an innovation in itself. This mixed-methods study examined 38 teachers in a science educational gaming professional development program that provided…

This paper reports on research of a game designed for scientific inquiry in a new and publicly available massively-multiplayer online environment (MMO). Educators and game designers worked together to create a highly immersive environment, a compelling storyline, and research-grounded tools for scientific inquiry within the game. The designers…

This is a narrative article, highlighting effective teaching strategies for teacher candidates at a four-year university in the South. The author examined preconceived negative notions teacher candidates expressed about being enrolled in a Math Block class and having to teach children about mathematics. After involving the teacher candidates in a…

Drawing on a participatory study of the Perplex City alternate reality game, this paper considers the data obtained through participation and a detailed survey of the most engaged players, in order to determine the most engaging features and suggest methods for their transfer to educational contexts. Originally presented at a conference in 2008,…

This article presents the current development of a serious game for the simulation of massive evacuations. The purpose of this project is to promote self-protection through awareness of the procedures and different possible scenarios during the evacuation of a massive event. Sophisticated behaviors require massive computational power and it has…

The battle between educators and entertainers continues when it comes to gaming. While this is so, the edutainment battleground has expanded to include actors outside formal schooling agencies, namely International Non-Governmental Organizations (INGOs). These actors employ digital games with the aim to educate and activate towards specific social…

Business simulations serve as learning platforms that stimulate the "gaming" interest of students, that provide a structured learning environment, and that should help manage the time resources of faculty. Simulations appear to provide a context where students feel learning can take place. However, faculty perception of simulation…

Traditional experimental paradigms have focused on executing experiments in a lab setting and eventually moving successful findings to larger experiments in the field. However, data from field experiments can also be used to inform new lab experiments. Now, with the advent of large student populations using internet-based learning software, online…

This response to Leah A. Bricker and Phillip Bell's paper, "GodMode is his video game name", examines their assertion that the social nexus of gaming practices is an important factor to consider for those looking to design STEM video games. I propose that we need to go beyond the investigation into which aspects of games play a role in learning,…

In this paper I explore how Margaret Beier, Lesley Miller, and Shu Wang make claims for the validity and reliability of the instrument they developed to explore the construct of "possible selves" as described in their manuscript, "Science Games and the Development of Scientific Possible Selves."

Although competition is regarded as a powerful motivator in game-based learning, it might have a negative influence, such as damage to confidence, on students who lose the competition. In this paper, we propose an indirect approach, substitutive competition, to alleviate such negative influences. The approach is used to develop a My-Pet v3 system,…

The five characteristics that influence new product rate of adoption are routinely covered in the Principles of Marketing course. Any particular marketing concept such as relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, divisibility, and communicability may not capture interest or engagement among students who take the course as a graduation…

Objective: Compare feedback strategies in 3 versions of an educational game. Participants: Study abroad students (N = 482) participated by playing the game and completing pregame/postgame surveys January-March 2010. Methods: This study employed an experimental design. Primary outcome measures were knowledge gain, player satisfaction, and risk…

One of the trump cards of digital educational games is their enormous intrinsic motivational potential. Although learning game design is often understood on a one-fitsall level, the actual motivational strength of an educational game strongly depends on the individual learners, their very specific goals, preferences, abilities, strength and…

Digital games and their power as a tool for acquiring knowledge, training skills and changing behavior are--for some laymen--associated with rather negative concepts, and are thought to pose a general health risk. This paper shortly reviews and evaluates the scientific evidence for both positive and negative outcomes. It describes how particularly…