Why you might already be using games-based-learning … and never knew.

There’s a cycle to games that reflects Kolb’s learning styles. He’s the guy who talks about experiential learning, and that learning happens even when there is no teacher around. You might see this in action whenever you see a kids huddle around a computer game. You might have also noticed that even though only one [...]

Games are not like Web2.0, they started with critical mass

It was suggested to me that games are not that practical in the classroom, that there is too much to do already, and finding times to play games would be nice, but unrealistic. So I’d like to be realistic, and put forward that most commercial games are dripping in common types and principles of learning [...]

How to keep attention flowing

Borrowing from Flow-theory, and easing a somewhat ranty-last-post about people believing tokens and level ups will engage students, I thought I’d add something about the variables involved, and the problem of creativity. First some variables. Not all kids like video games, not all kids like computers. Most kids don’t like sofware that crashes or tasks [...]

Something wicked this way doesn’t come

In the debate about which technologies are more or less important in the lifecycle of classroom learning, it’s worth pointing out that the introduction of Internet based tools and practices also introduces digital-culture. Games will introduce game-culture. Are we ready for either? are we rushing into games simply because we’ve rage-quitted the digital-culture debate. Digital-culture [...]

Kids don’t play games for fun, but to tune their thinking

I’ve been thinking about Social Enterprise a lot this week, and this idea of jobs being tradeable and non-tradable. Musing over bacon while personally fascinating isn’t productive, so where would these thoughts occur in our growing game-community. First, consider the fuss if we were to make a list of things teachers do that has become [...]

8am disaster, 9am Salvation – an hour in Massively Minecraft.

I woke this morning to the alarm. Not the clock, the drama that was unfolding as Netball Star was stuck in a giant lava flow in Minecraft. Her sky house has a feature lava-waterfall, which falls about 100 metres to the ground. Netball Star has a particular interest in volcanoes as many kids of her [...]

Kids expect to learn differently

Thanks to Sarah for her take on Massively Minecraft. I was a little taken back by the responses from the metaverse, including Will Richardson’s post. [open invite to come thump a tree Will]. I thought I’d pick up on it, and expand some of the ideas we’re using and the things we are seeing. De-sensitizing [...]

Massively Minecraft

This documents our story into playing with kids in the game Minecraft – and how we are building an epic learning community open to kids, parents and teachers to explore the nature of learning and play in todays world – actual and imagined. “ "Kids expect to explore, experiment and crowdsource." http://t.co/8nmVVYL Nice post on [...]