Educational Gaming Commons - Press Start

If you're thinking about adding games to your lesson plan, its a fairly safe bet that you'll see gains in areas like student satisfaction (which in and of itself can be extremely beneficial).  But while satisfaction is great, it can also be somewhat nebulous, which makes it a difficult metric by which to support an educational tool like video games.  If we hope to prove the value of games we must be able to show that they can improve learning - and that means improvements to test scores and grades.

One the goals of every engagement project the EGC runs is to find a way to produce evidence that shows how exactly games are impacting learning.  In the case of ChemBlaster, our Faculty Partner Mary Shoemaker has been collecting data for the past several years on how her students perform on early semester quizzes designed to test students on elements, ions, and polyatomic compounds (the same content which we have used as a foundation for the ChemBlaster game).  As you can likely guess, this sets the stage for a very obvious question - will ChemBlaster help to improve student quiz scores?  But there are also several other important questions we're curious about.  Will the use of a game aid in improved long term information retention?  Will it lead to longer periods of engagement with the subject matter than more traditional study aids?  Will it serve as a catalyst for additional Chemistry based discussion, competition, and mentorship among classmates and friends?  And with Chem101 recently having gone online, will ChemBlaster have a different impact on purely online students as compared to those taking resident classes.  These are just a few of the many questions we're hoping to answer in the coming months when ChemBlaster is deployed to Mary's students this coming spring and beyond.

Just how will ChemBlaster do?  For that answer, you'll need to stay tuned. 

Not Education in Jeopardy - another topic that is continuously debated in the US!

This is in reference to a recent blog post about the game Jeopardy at

http://www.hastac.org/blogs/etussey/pre-digital-edutainment-jeopardy-cla...

It's a short read - well worth the five minutes you'll spend to read it. Things that stick out for me:

• The Jeopardy game is an accepted cultural norm.
• The game can be used as a springboard for social discourse, part of a good learning experience.
• The producers of the game show have a classroom version of Jeopardy that includes authoring software and hardware used to produce a delux experience. See http://www.classroomjeopardy.com/index.aspx .

What other good things arise when we use a "standard" game like this for educational purposes?

BTW - The EGC has a version of the game, named Peril! Check it out.

Many of you may have heard about the EGC's work with Ann Clements and Tom Cody (Music Education), who were interested in looking at ways to bring the commercially successful game Guitar Hero into the music classroom.  The Guitar Hero project is currently being run for the second semester and is enjoying great success.  However, beginning next week, we're excited to share that the project will be taking its next step.

Though using Guitar Hero in the classroom can provide a number of benefits to music students, at the core of Ann and Tom's efforts has always been the goal of teaching Music Education majors (who will themselves, become the next music teachers) how games like Guitar Hero can be used to inspire the next generation of music students.  As a part of the project, MusicEd students have been asked to create customized songs in Guitar Hero World Tour's music studio - songs, which, based on their own experience learning to play guitar, could help younger students bridge the gap between playing a game and learning to play a real instrument.  Over the next two weeks, those MusicEd students will have an opportunity to put their efforts to the test, as they visit several music classes at Mt. Nittany Middle School and work directly with middle schoolers using the custom tracks they have created.

Be sure to check back next week - we can't wait to share how things go!

Hi Everyone,

We wanted to give you information about an upcoming event in the Libraries. On Tuesday, October 13, from 5:30–7:00 p.m., we will be hosting a Digital Literacy Contest for students in 302 Paterno Library.  Students will compete for cash prizes by using the Internet and our library databases to answer questions. Contestants will be given 30 minutes, 20 questions and Internet access. Correct answers earn points, and incorrect answers are penalized. Questions are graded in near real-time and the highest score wins. The competition will be followed by free pizza and discussion about the future of libraries, technology, and society.

We will also host an optional, free 45-minute workshop on digital literacy, on Wednesday, October 14, 11:30 a.m. in the same location (open to the PSU Community) and a subsequent workshop at 1 PM for the Libraries' faculty and staff to discuss the contest and engaging students with similar events. Please let us know if you would like posters, handouts, or table tents about the contest for your area.

Purdue University students created the contest in 2007, and in 2009, they received the MacArthur Foundation Young Innovator Award. Cornell University, Indiana University, Northwestern University and the University of Michigan are a few participating universities. The contest creator, Daniel Scott Poynter, will be here to facilitate the contest and the 2 workshops.

Free and open to all students, registration is required due to limited space. Registration is available online at: http://www.DigitalLiteracyContest.org or edit and text the following to 41411: signmeup your@email.com.

Please encourage any students you know to participate, including students in your classes and your student employees (who should have an edge on the completion!).

For more information contact Emily Rimland, erimland@psu.edu or Loanne Snavely, lsnavely@psu.edu.

Thank you,
Emily Rimland and Loanne Snavely

Have you heard about EGC Works? It's a new offering from the EGC. Every several weeks, our "Mr. Podcaster" Jamie Oberdick interviews a PSU faculty member that has worked or is working with the EGC. These 10 minute interludes are a great way to catch up with the EGC during a walk, the drive home, or time at the gym. Check them out!

EGC Works Podcasts

Podcast #1:  Ecoracer Game Accelerates Learning in Penn State Engineering Course

Peter Idowu, Electrical Engineering at Penn State Harrisburg

Podcast #2: Guitar Hero Enhances Learning in Music Education Course

Ann Clements, School of Music, Penn State University Park

Podcast #3: A Virtual Hacienda in Second Life

Gloria Clark, Humanities and Spanish at Penn State Harrisburg

Podcast #4: Second Language Learning Immersion via World of Warcraft

Steve Thorne, Department of Applied Linguistics, College of Liberal Arts, Penn State University Park

Though its been a bit longer than I had intended since my last update, I wanted to take a few minutes to show off some new screen shots from ChemBlaster

These screenshots were taken from the game's second level, which deals with ion identification (as compared to level 1 which is about element identification).  Though the core gameplay is the same, in level two, the player fires positive and negative charges at randomly generated elements to build out 10 of a possible 30 cations or anions. 

As you can see if you compare the new screens to the old ones, quite a few new interface elements have been added since the last update.  A few highlights for your reading pleasure:

• Logisitcal additions have been made to the interface, including a score field, timer, current target, and progress meter (right hand side), as well as a level indicator (bottom left as well as background). 
• A "targetting sight" has been added to the blaster itself, allowing the player to fire with greater accuracy (visible in the second screen - a small white cirlce near the top of the board)
• Improved completion animations (screen 3) create an explosion of confetti after a successful "blast" as well as reinforcement of the element/ ion/ or compound blasted on the right hand side of the screen.
• An optional "Elemental Aid" has been added to help players who might be struggling or playing the game on their own without an acompanying chemistry class.  By default, the aid is toggled off (screen 1) but it can be activated at any time and will scroll each of a level's possible targets along the bottom of the screen (screens 2 and 3).  Activiating the aid will cause a score or time penalty. 
• A "next ball" button added to the end of the upcoming blast balls bar (a light blue circle in all screens).  Though not necessary for level 1, this allows players to increase the speed of a playthrough by cycling right to the charge or element they want to fire next.  An advanced feature that will help players improve their score and maximize class bragging rights.

Next up on the ChemBlaster agenda is the addition of compound levels as well as conducting student testing to make sure the game scratches chemistry students where they itch.  Stay tuned for more updates and maybe even a gameplay video in the near future.

What a great idea!

http://campustechnology.com/articles/2009/09/17/nyu-poly-students-challe...

Why not take some course content and wrap some game activities around it?

The EGC participated in the PSU Libraries 2009 Open House over the past several days. We had a booth in the main check-out area, and talked to quite a few students about educational gaming and the new EGC Lab. Wow - it's always good to talk to the students.

Day two of the event we brought in the new Beatles Rock Band. The Beatles are timeless, so it's maybe not so amazing that traditional age students know the tunes and the lyrics. We even had the Nittany Lion sit down at the drums for a song!

In addition, the EGC worked with the library to help conceptualize an Augmented Reality Game (ARG). The premise here was that our President, Graham Spanier (an amateur magician) was practicing a magic trick and it want awry, causing a Nittany Lion statue in the library to disappear. Your job in the ARG is to scour the library for clues that eventually lead you to a "reverse the spell" spell that bring the lion back. View the great intro video for the ARG done by the PSU Digital Media Commons.

Fun stuff, and if you complete the ARG you are entered for a prize drawing of a Dell laptop! So far 53 players have completed the ARG, with six days of play time remaining.

All told, this was great event, and I'm happy the EGC was invited to participate. It helps us keep current on student thoughts in the realm of gaming.

A ED 322 Visual Culture and Educational Technologies

The course provides a foundation for innovative integration of digital technologies in art making, viewing, and teaching.

Long Desc -

The purpose of the course is to develop skills, questioning attitudes, and uses for technology in art and art education; and to engage in electronic mediated communication and new media artmaking. This course is for both undergraduate Art Education degree options: (1) Schools, and (2) Museums & Cultural Institutions. The focus is on students' constructing a critical understanding of technology as a cultural interface in contemporary art, visual culture, and art education. This course addresses issues, practices, and potentials of instructional technology for art education. Course participants explore the pedagogical implications of intertextual Webs, hypertext & hypermedia, blogs, simulations, virtual reality, threaded dialogue, WebQuests, online games, media communities, collaborations, adaptive and assistive technologies, and media-rich "student papers." This course emphasizes the importance of sharing perspectives in an educational context, and on how e-learning course tools, along with specific teaching strategies, can facilitate shared perspectives.

A grad student teaching the course approached me several weeks ago to request space on Penn State Isles in SL for this class. I was happy to grant the request - SL is perfect for it. Here's a shot of the build so far:

I've asked the grad student to provide more info as the class rolls - so hopefully I'll have more to report here soon. It's great to see this PSU resource being utilized - you really should stop be and check out the many projects underway in this space.

Ok, this is a dubious honor, but it's all I got!

The EGC spent two days that the Student Involvement Fair, handing out information and inviting folks to our open house next week. We had a great time talking to students. Most students were interested in the lab - many were excited!

It's always good to touch bases with your clients!