Virtual worlds for children are becoming increasingly popular, and yet there are few accounts of children's use of these worlds. Young children are spending increasing amounts of time online as technology continues to create significant changes in social and cultural practices in the 21st century. Some of children's online interactions can be…

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…

The paper presents results of a multi-year quasi-experimental study of student engagement during which a video game was introduced into an undergraduate dynamic systems and control course. The video game, "EduTorcs", provided challenges in which students devised control algorithms that drive virtual cars and ride virtual bikes through a…

The gaming and interactional nature of the virtual environment of Second Life offers opportunities for language learning beyond the traditional pedagogy. This study case examined the potential of 3D virtual quest games to enhance vocabulary acquisition through interaction, negotiation of meaning and noticing. Four adult students of English at…

Geosemiotics (Scollon and Scollon, 2003) frames this analysis of play, multimodal collaboration, and peer mediation as players navigate barriers to online connectivity in a children's social network and gaming site. A geosemiotic perspective enables examination of children's web play as "discourses in place": fluidly converging and…

In the therapeutic void created by over 20 failed Alzheimer's disease drugs during the past decade, a new marketplace of "brain fitness" technology products has emerged. Ranging from video games and computer software to mobile phone apps and hand-held devices, these commercial products promise to maintain and enhance the memory,…

At the University of New England in the rural town of Armidale, Australia, preservice teachers undertake courses in contextual studies in education, introducing the idea that context frames the curriculum. Some students, however, struggle to appreciate the relationship between curriculum and context, principally because socioeconomic dynamics and…

The continuous inventions and evolutions in all information technology fields open new channels and opportunities to enhance teaching and educational methods. In one side, those may improve the abilities of educators to present information in an interactive and media enhanced formats relative to traditional methods. This may help students or…

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…

In this study, an online survey was utilized to investigate relationships among participants' willingness to cheat in academic or business settings and the strategies they tend to utilize in video game play. 113 participants completed the survey, and 86 students (23 middle school, 44 high school, 8 college undergraduate, and 11 graduate) yielded…

Human factors (HF) is a discipline often drawn upon when there is a need to train people to perform complex, high-stakes tasks and effectively assess their performance. Complex tasks often present unique challenges for training and assessment. HF has developed specialized techniques that have been effective in overcoming several of these…

The purpose of this study was to determine whether there is a difference between an exergame-based and a traditional balance training program, in undergraduate Physical Education students. Thirty two third-year undergraduate students at the Democritus University of Thrace were randomly divided into two training program groups of 16 students each,…

The idea of digital game-based learning (DGBL) is that students (or players) learn something by playing a computer or video game and that an educator can employ digital games to assist and boost both formal and informal learning. There is game software that is not specifically produced for educational use but which is nonetheless regularly…

The chemistry-based computer video game is a multidisciplinary collaboration between chemistry and computer graphics and technology fields developed to explore the use of video games as a possible learning tool. This innovative approach aims to integrate elements of commercial video game and authentic chemistry context environments into a learning…

The objective of this study was to conduct an evaluation of Reach Out Central (ROC), an online gaming program designed to support the mental health of people aged 16-25. The evaluation sought to determine the benefit of playing ROC on alcohol use, use of coping strategies, psychological distress, resilience and satisfaction with life. Changes in…