<![CDATA[Kotaku: Learning]]> http://cache.kotaku.com/assets/base/img/thumbs140x140/kotaku.com.png <![CDATA[Kotaku: Learning]]> http://kotaku.com/tag/learning http://kotaku.com/tag/learning <![CDATA[Take Pity on a Newbie Today]]> Last night on the way back to my apartment in New York's Lower East Side, I saw a crowd of men standing around two motorcycles. I'm a fledgling rider myself, as well as newly returned to the city. I'd spoken to these guys a few times before and did what I typically do when I see a guy on a hot bike: walk up and ask him how he likes it. More »
]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5818545&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Learn The Scientific Method, Feed Aliens Hamburgers]]> Last year U.S. President Barack Obama challenged America's youth and game developers to create games that teach the fundamentals of science, technology, engineering & math. Today we have a game in which aliens teach the scientific method while hunting hamburgers. More »
]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5754149&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[How To Teach Math Using A Nintendo Wii]]> Teacher Robert Drewnowski had only $300 in grant money to help him develop a more effective way of teaching math to fourth graders. He used it to buy a Wii. More »
]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5738833&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Teaching Our Schools To Up Their Game]]> In this Finding Your Science video from the National Science Foundation Arizona State University linguist James Paul Gee discusses how schools kill the joy of learning and how video games can bring it back to life. More »
]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5646278&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Let's Abolish Schools And Teach Children With Video Games]]> For thousands of years, societies taught and trained their children through immersive gameplay and storytelling. Prospect Magazine's Julian Gough wonders why we ever stopped, and ponders a fantasy world where the games of today form the children of tomorrow. More »
]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5506274&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Underground Railroad Video Game Tells The Whole Story]]> After what she says was ages of misrepresentation in books, films, and television, Norfolk University history professor Cassandra Newby-Alexander wants to tell the true story of the slave-liberating Underground Railroad using a video game. More »
]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5309352&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[SOE Awards First G.I.R.L. Scholarship]]> Sony Online Entertainment has announced the first ever Gamers In Real Life (G.I.R.L.) design contest scholarship winner. Nearly 100 applicants submitted their video game concept art and essays for the contest, which kicked off in early April, and from those entries Julia Brasil of San Francisco was chosen to win a $10,000 scholarship at The Art Institute of California and a paid internship at Sony Online Entertainment. More »
]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5023026&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[New Leapfrog Handhelds Go Online]]> Leapfrog, makers of tech-based educational games, has announced two new products today. They are updating the GBAesque Leapster learning system with the new Leapster2 ($70), while also unrolling a new product called the Didj Custom Gaming System ($90). Both systems represent a new initiative for the company to connect child learning with online functionality. While the Leapster2 brings simpler functions like online rewards, the Didj allows parents to track what their kids are playing and coordinate gameplay with schoolwork. It's not a DS redesign, but these systems are pretty neat all the same. Both will be available this summer—just in time to keep those pests out of the dangerous, carcinogenic sun where they belong. More »
]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=352828&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Left Brain Right Brain Surprisingly Brainless]]> The success of Brain Age on the Nintendo DS had one very immediate effect on the handheld gaming scene, in that any game with the word Brain in the title and simplistic mini-games was bound to get a green light, whether it deserved it or not. Majesco's Left Brain Right Brain (Use Both Hands - Train Both Sides) teeters precariously between these two classifications. On one hand (ha!) it is a nifty little time-waster that is quite interesting conceptually - using drills to train your off hand to function as well as your dominant one. On the other hand the game boils down to 15 relatively boring mini-games and a simple progress tracking mechanism that are hardly worth $20 of your hard-earned monies. More »
]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=339157&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Spanish For Everyone - Act III]]>
Oh come the hell on now! This cannot be real! Shawn bids adios to the talking bull, who seems to have accepted the inevitabilty of his own demise. As whoever is driving the truck belonging to his grandfather leaves him in a dangerous part of town at night, yet another stranger offers him a ride. Jeeps are cool! More »
]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=319893&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Learning With Pokemon]]> For years Pokemon has been leaching away effectiveness from the learning process for school children around the country, so it's about time they gave something back. The National Institute of Aerospace and Nortel LearniT have teamed up with Nintendo to offer free, Pokemon-themed lesson plans to aid elementary and middle school teachers in capturing all of their students' attention. There are a wide variety of subjects available, from space travel to universal expansion, all featuring that distinctive Pokemon flavor.
"We're honored to have our characters take what sometimes may seem like dry topics and help make them come alive for students," says George Harrison, Nintendo of America's senior vice president of marketing and corporate communications. "The collaboration provides an opportunity for children to learn 21st century science using 21st century tools with characters they're familiar with."
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]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=319823&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Gamers, Our Brains Are Limited To Tracking Eight Objects At Once]]> At some level, no matter how many hours we dedicate to honing our...craft, if you will...our skills will always be limited by hardware based limitations. And by hardware we mean brain matter, not Cell processors. Researchers long believed that human perception was limited to tracking four moving objects at one time. But a new study, challenging participants to follow 16 dots moving at a very slow pace on a computer screen, found that participants were able to track up to eight objects at once (or double what we previously thought possible). There are limitations, of course. More »
]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=317736&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[The Wii Inspires Students To Care Where They Live]]> David Brantley is a teacher at Cumberland Elementary. An otherwise normal guy, Brentley is the first school teacher in his district (and many others we suspect) to realize that the Wii's forecast and news globe could be a great learning tool in the classroom, engaging students more than traditional maps. As Brantley puts it:
We do everything that's traditionally done...But as soon as we've done a little bit and they know it, we can turn around and make it a game and have fun.
The investment for a Wii is just $250, which even under tight school budgets, is probably not much less attainable than a new standard globe. And speaking from personal experience, even though I know my geography as well as the next guy, the Wii's news mapping puts stories in a context I otherwise don't fully process. Now if it were only efficient enough to use in blogging... More »
]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=307236&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Read Books On Your DS! (...hooray?)]]> Genius Sonority has teamed up with a Japanese publishing company Chukei to release Bunagku Zenshuu, a collection of 100 e-books you can read on your DS. Once you are done reading said 100 books, you can download more literature via WiFi. The catch that absolutely destroys the concept? The content is abridged. More »
]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=306106&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[LA Kids Learning Via Video Games]]> Now I have another reason to want to go back to school besides really cheap little rectangular pizzas. Starting today, children in schools across Los Angeles County will be playing video games in class...or more specifically as class. PlaySmart is a unique education program created by non-profit organization Star Inc. that uses video games to teach children skills like problem solving, objective thinking, literacy, and jumping on turtles. The program takes games like DDR, Mario Kart, and the Pokemon card game and twists them into tools for teaching PE, team building, and positive gamesmanship, whatever that means, noobs. Hell, if I had DDR in gym class I wouldn't have had to wear that fake cast every day. Check out the program's website for more details on this innovative merging of games and education. More »
]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=305632&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[High School Kids Make Meaningful Games]]>
Students at South Shore High School in New York have been passing up normal after school activities for video games...though not to play them. For the past year they've been meeting after school in order to develop meaningful video games with messages attached. It's all part of a program that melds game development with social awareness, and with the help of Global Kids and local developer Gamelab their first game has just been released online. Called "Ayiti: The Cost of Life," it puts the player in control of a family of five poor Haitians in what can best be described as a family management sim. More »
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