"Games and the Future of Learning"

The Lolita DS English Game Scholarship!

DS game Moe Sta is here to teach people English. The instructional software features 5,000 English questions that range from junior high school to Tokyo University entrance examination level. To mark Moe Sta's release, its developer Mirai Shonen has announced the "Moe Sta Scholarship Institution." Here's the deal: Use Moe Sta to study English and pass the notoriously difficult Tokyo University entrance exam, and the Mirai Shonen will provide ¥500,000 (US$4,600) in financial assistance. The developer will carefully select two students who use the software to help enter the university. Study hard!

Moe Sta Scholarship [Official Site via Hatimaki]

EA Explores Children's Minds With Brain Quest

Electronic Arts is hopping on the Nintendo DS learning tool train with the announcement of two new games for the handheld based on the educational card series Brain Quest. The two titles, one focusing on third/fourth graders and the other on fifth/sixth, will translate the cards into a series of questions based around a light story mode, with more than 6,000 questions per game.

“Brain Quest is EA Casual Entertainment’s first educational game and we are thrilled to bring this beloved brand into the videogame space,” said Robert Nashak, VP of Casual Studios, EA Casual Entertainment. “By adapting the series to the DS, we are able to reach today’s tech savvy children and provide them with an educational experience that is interactive, engaging, and fun.”

EA's creation of educational DS titles could be a very good sign, indicating that U.S. publishers are beginning to get a grasp of the true potential of the handheld, much like Japan already has. That, or they just want some more of that delicious parent money. Mmmm.

More on the Playstation-edu Initiative

Europeans Find Good Use For Wii Fit Board: Controlling WoW

Anyone still using their Wii Fit Balance Board? Matthieu and Simon, students at German Research Centre For Artificial Intelligence, are! They've got the board hooked up to a PC via Bluetooth and are using the Nintendo peripheral as a World of Warcraft movement controller. Nice to see some folks still using the Balance Boards innovating.

Oh, and the music used in this video is FRIGGIN' AWESOME.

WoW Fit [Rock, Paper, Shotgun]

25 Best Games for the Classroom

Nintendo Handing Out Free DS at UK Teaching Conference

Nintendo plans to hand out free DS Lites and copies of Brain Training to the teachers attending an upcoming Handheld Learning Conference in London later this year.

The conference, supported by Nintendo, will explore how technology can be used for learning.

Graham Brown-Martin, founder of Handheld Learning, said: “Providing teachers with free Nintendo DS Lites is not intended to be a gimmick, we expect our delegates to use them during the conference and experience an environment that would typically not be allowed in a classroom.”

I think it's a great idea. In fact in my recent conversation with Nintendo's Cammie Dunaway I was telling her that Nintendo should work to get some WiiWare educational games out and then provide the Wii to schools around the country. It worked for Apple, so why not Nintendo? Personally, I think all three hardware companies are obligated, as good corporate citizens, to create educational games for their download services. They may not make money, but I can't imagine it would cost them that much and think of the good will, both to the company and the industry.

Nintendo to hand out free DS consoles [Digital Spy]

MSU Offering New Chinese Language/Culture MMO

Kaplan Using Nintendo DS For SAT Prepping

Kaplan, the makers of all those test preparation books, is teaming with Aspyr Media to create an SAT prep program for the Nintendo DS. Sure, the same title will also be made available for the PC and Mac (probably just like the stuff we've seen for years), but the flashcard form factor of the DS version makes it incredibly appealing.

If high school didn't represent some of the most stressful and awkward years of my life, I'd go back in a flash to play this SAT game on my DS! Think of it as Brain Age with a real tangible result. Would you be more likely to prep for the SATs on your DS than through a book or browser?

SAT Prep Game Coming to DS [GamelLife]

Second Life and ESL Instruction

A while back, we mentioned a journal article on using MMOs to aid second language acquisition. Now Forbes has a piece discussing the same issue, only with Second Life. The author spoke with several teachers about their approaches to using SL to educate:

Another popular way to teach English in "Second Life," says Boahn, involves role-playing and quests. "I once dressed up as a pirate, had a ship and everything. I was kind of rough on the students," he admits. "I put some of them in cages, and had them confront language in a shock-and-awe kind of way. They seemed to like it, and they learned all sorts of new words, like 'loot' and 'booty.'"

Boahn's approach may appear nontraditional, but he feels a new medium calls for a new way of teaching language. Even using the game's English interface gives students a chance to practice what they've learned. "We like to encourage teachers to see 'Second Life' itself as a classroom," he says.

How To Spark Remote Learning [Forbes via Worlds In Motion]

Playing the AIDS Game in China

The AIDS epidemic in China is huge and of serious concern to a lot of people (the best work I've seen to date is the wonderful and heartbreaking To Live Is Better Than To Die, an underground documentary by Chen Weijun on a hushed-up tragedy in Henan), but the Ministry of Education is using computers and 'games' of the quiz variety to fine effect:

Launched by the Ministry of Education and sponsored by the China AIDS Roadmap Tactical Support Project, the contest ran for three months last year, yet its effect continue - the site remains up and nearly 19 million people have logged on.

In a survey of participants, 95 percent found the test enhanced their understanding and concern for the HIV-infected and AIDS patients; the same proportion felt better equipped to protect themselves against the disease; and more than 83 percent thought the contest should take place regularly.

Students take up AIDS challenge [China Daily via PlayNoEvil, photo Wu Shuibin]

Call For Papers: Games, Learning & Society Conference

Grand Theft Childhood: In Depth

We've mentioned the latest study coming out on aggression, kids, and violent video games, a book by two Harvard researchers entitled Grand Theft Childhood: The Surprising Truth About Violent Video Games. In case you're just itching for more information on the study that comes down on the side of the gaming industry, an education blog has three lengthy articles up discussing the book. The three-parter (as of now) includes some thoughts on the research, an interview with one of the researchers, and some more thoughts on what all this means when it comes to parenting.

The book is due out next month, but there's lots of information floating around out there on the new study. The articles are quite lengthy all told, but worth browsing if you're interested in the subject.

Shoot-em Up Video Games - The Cause of Greater Anti-social Behaviors in Teens?; Author Reveals "The Surprising Truth About Violent Video Games"; Experts State: Do Not Banish - Instead, Manage Violent Video Game Play [Open Education]

I don't remember learning modules being this good when I was a munchkin: Samorost creators Amanita have put together a lovely game for the BBC, designed for 11 year olds. Questionaut is point and click, very pretty, and is tripping up adults left and right (that's what happens when you get far removed from your junior high school years and the concepts contained within, I guess). It's short and worth taking for a spin for the lovely environment alone, even if finding 20% of 140 is a bit below your intellectual level.

Questionaut [BBC via Rock, Paper, Shotgun]

Cosplay, Dress Up for College Credits

We had been running traditional fashion and hair/make-up courses for a long time, but we came to realize that many of our students wanted to apply those skills to cosplay.

IBM Launching Educational MMO For Teens

In an attempt to convince high schoolers that math and science are cool (hey guys, they're not beating down the door to history classes, either), IBM is launching a new, free to play MMO called PowerUp that will challenge players to solve problems involving solar, wind, and hydropower before the environment of a fictional planet is destroyed by mounting crises. Of course, there's more:

IBM international foundation president Stanley S. Litow said, "Innovation is the key to competitiveness in today's globally integrated economy, but just when we need it to skyrocket, interest in math and science has been declining in the United States. American competitiveness demands more interest in math and science by students. Virtual worlds and 3D are an unexplored resource in education. We asked our best researchers to incorporate the use of this technology into traditional educational curriculum."

We'll see how popular this experiment winds up being, but I'm sure we'll see more of the same in the future. The game is launching today, and you can find details at the game website.

IBM Announces Environmental Learning MMO For Kids [Worlds In Motion]

by Brian Ashcraft

Going to Japan to make video games. It's the twenty-first century's version of running off and joining the circus. Lots talk about it, but few do it. Evan Shulgold did. He'd first come to study Japanese, but when his visa ran up, he thought about entering a college in Japan. "I was in an izakaya with a few friends discussing our futures, and one mentioned he had heard about this school called HAL," recalls Evan. "I looked into it, and it seemed perfect. It's a school in japan that would lead to a career in the video game industry. Plus they have close ties with Nintendo, and I'm a bit of a fanboy."

First founded in Osaka in 1986, HAL is a specialty school that focuses on game development and 3D computer graphics — as well as robotics and automobiles. By 1988, a Nagoya branch, where Evan attends, was added, and there are plans to open a Tokyo one in 2009. The institution has strong ties with companies like Nintendo, who provides HAL with Nintendo hardware so that students can work with tools actually used in the industry. That's doesn't mean everyone at HAL is gung-ho Nintendo. According to Evan, he's the only student with a Wii, and he's only seen two other kids playing DSes. "It's not that everyone dislikes Nintendo," he says, "They're all mostly into online games like Ragnarok Online." Still, guests like Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto occasionally make the trip out to HAL and speak with students. All the programming that's done for consoles is done for Nintendo systems (Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, GameCube). The GBA programming class even uses a programming manual that's designed especially for HAL students to use and learn from. "Before coming to HAL, I had literally zero programming experience," says Evan, "so i couldn't even begin to imagine what the code for a video game would look like."

Gearbox Cares, It Really Does

The only thing growing faster than our industry is the critical need for new and creative talent. I think it is clear that the videogame industry has the vast financial support and consumer demand it needs to continue its global growth. But what I and many industry leaders are very worried about is hiring and retaining world class talent.