Children and adolescents spent a considerable portion of their time watching television, movies, playing videogames and on the internet. Media has proved to be a very useful tool in the fields of education, arts, science, sports, and culture. Over the past few decades, there has been a surge in the use of media by the younger generations and…

This response to Rachel Muehrer, Jennifer Jenson, Jeremy Friedberg and Nicole Husain's paper, "Challenges and opportunities: Using a science-based video game in secondary school settings," explores the issues encountered while a science-based video game is introduced in secondary school settings. It highlights the importance of the context, the…

This article briefly summarizes findings from a review of 95 empirical studies of games used in instruction. The article suggests that such efforts are best assessed as transfer from game play to performance on external tasks that are targeted by the instruction. Review findings suggest that such transfer may be expected only if the cognitive…

In this paper we present WEEV (Writing Environment for Educational Video games), a methodology for educational "point-and-click" adventure game authoring. Our approach aims to allow educators to actively collaborate in the educational game development process, using a narrative-based representation. WEEV is based on a pragmatic reinterpretation of…

Stochastic Frontier Regression Analysis was used to investigate strategies and skills that are associated with the minimization of time required to achieve proficiency in video games among students in grades four and five. Students self-reported their video game play habits, including strategies and skills used to become good at the video games…

The relations between media consumption, especially TV viewing, and school performance have been extensively examined. However, even though video game playing may have replaced TV viewing as the most frequent form of media usage, relatively little research has examined its relations to school performance, especially in older students. We surveyed…

Some educational researchers claim that videogames can energize learning in both traditional and non-traditional contexts; cultivate skills more useful to a changing economy; and present information in ways more appealing to students. The notion of "serious games" dates back as early as the 1950s, but so far has failed to make a significant…

Effective design of training-related games (games for training and/or assessment) requires synergy between the mechanisms for delivering instructional content and the mechanisms for learning game play and game functionality (Becker, 2006). The learning domain must be embedded as a core game mechanic: that is, the game cannot be advanced or won…

Today virtual world instruction faces many of the same educational challenges faced by Web-based instruction during its infancy. There is a lot of jargon and visions of the future being bandied about, but as Hirumi et al. note in the May/June and July/August 2010 issues of "TechTrends" "there little understanding of how to apply" pedagogical…

Studies have shown that pathological involvement with computer or video games is related to excessive gaming binges and aggressive behavior. Our aims for this study were to longitudinally examine if pathological gaming leads to increasingly excessive gaming habits, and how pathological gaming may cause an increase in physical aggression. For this…

New media are commonplace in children's lives. Speech and language therapists (SLTs), educational psychologists and teachers are sometimes called upon by caregivers to provide advice on whether or how children and young people with language impairments should be encouraged to use these media. This article aims to illuminate some of the key…

Digital games offer an appealing environment for assessing student proficiencies, including skills and misconceptions in a diagnostic setting. This paper proposes a dynamic Bayesian network modeling approach for observations of student performance from an educational video game. A Bayesian approach to model construction, calibration, and use in…

Troy Thomas and Lynda Wiest share an engaging lesson on statistics involving analysis of real-world data on the top ten video game sales in the United States during a one-week period. Three upper-primary classes completed the lesson, providing insight into the lesson's effectiveness. The lesson description includes attention to the manner in which…

The present research examined how mode of play in an educational mathematics video game impacts learning, performance, and motivation. The game was designed for the practice and automation of arithmetic skills to increase fluency and was adapted to allow for individual, competitive, or collaborative game play. Participants (N = 58) from urban…

Games and other forms of play are used in today's libraries to attract underserved patrons, to introduce patrons to other library resources and services, and to facilitate engagement between library patrons. While many perceive gaming as a new library service, gaming services have been part of librarianship since the nineteenth century through…