Category: Gaming

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Gaming

Quantifying the Impact: An Interview with Dan Norton

Using digital gaming as an instructional strategy is being explored by many. Educators are attempting to leverage their students’ excitement to play digital games outside of school   by bringing them into the classroom. In this post, Joe Schmidt interviews Dan Norton, a founding partner and CCO at Filament Games. They discuss iCivics; a non-profit organization dedicated to reinvigorating civic learning through interactive and engaging learning resources. 

Screenshot of iCivics, produced by Filament Games
Screenshot of iCivics, produced by Filament Games

Original Source

Posted by: Ryan Schaaf

iCivics Teacher Council Member Joe Schmidt interviewed Dan Norton a founding partner and CCO at Filament Games who specializes in crafting educational game design documents and storyboards that originate from learning objectives. Here is their conversation on game based learning:

How did you get involved in creating games used for game based learning?

About nine years ago, I worked as an interactive designer at an online resource center in Madison that eventually partnered with the UW-Madison organization GLS (then called GAPPS).  That group was studying the effects of games and education and we got to work with them to get involved in game based learning. Combining what I had learned and my lifelong interest in games it was a natural fit.

Three of us saw an opportunity to make games that embodied the contemporary research about good games and learning, so we started Filament Games, and here we are today!

What does gamification in teaching mean to you?

I think as a term, it doesn’t just mean a development of reward system to what you are already doing.  I don’t believe that this [misconception] works and research tells us that just adding incentives doesn’t work.  If you are going to use games in the classroom, then you have to think about what you are adding as intrinsic rewards.  You have to develop ways of expressing learning objectives that have intrinsic values to them.  You can’t just add a reward to a boring lesson plan and expect it to work.  For example, with an egg drop activity, there are Newton’s laws and engineering  practices embedded in that activity, but there is a context with those objectives that allows students to be engaged and creative in the learning.  When you look deep enough into almost any lesson, you should be able to find the intrinsic motiving ideas for that lesson, that [motivator] can be tied to a gamified lesson plan.

What do you think are the benefits of using games to help students learn?

There are a bunch of them.  Games do a great job of helping more of the underserved students.  It is a different way to address literacy and hit different learning objectives. Filament looks to use games to help express: Identities– asking you to take on a role inside the game, allows different perspectives;Verbs– working towards a completion of a task; and System Thinking Rules and Principles– having to working within a set of rules.  These are all different ways that teachers are already looking to engage students.

How do you see game based learning evolving in the coming years?

I think what game based learning is good at is providing authentic assessments.  Games are the perfect way to assess learning objectives compared to taking a test.  In the future as we work towards more complicated assessment, I think that games will continue to evolve as the exemplar model of assessments that should be used.

What is your best example of how game based learning affected an individual/group/class?

Just about in every user test we do, there are always a couple students with a learning disorder or that traditionally underperform in the classroom and we see that they pull out all of the stops to play the game.  To try to pick just one is hard, because just about every time we have tested games, the students that seem to shine cover such a wide variety of student types.

How would you respond to someone that says, “They are not learning, they are just playing games”?

I would counter back that every game has value and the part of what we consider “fun” is just part of a learning cycle that takes place.  Games are naturally a learning engine.  When we no longer have fun, it is because we no longer find value with it.  Play is just an open learning environment and that is something that all living things do as part of a learning process.  The word “fun” is really just a code word for a learning in a game, and if that game is designed in such a way that the “fun” problems are aligned to learning objectives, we can create truly valuable experiences.

If you could tell teachers one thing about using iCivics games in their classroom, what would you say?

They shouldn’t just see iCivics as an arcade of cool Civics games, but rather as a robust and flexible curriculum that allows a great context for teaching civics far beyond the computer screen.

Joe (@madisonteacher) is currently in his tenth year of teaching and is a dedicated life-long learner that works to support social studies teachers in his district.  He is looking to change the world one student at a time, and continue to look for ways to connect students and classrooms to the world around them through a variety of learning experience.

 

 

 

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Gaming

24 Video Games You Can Say Yes To After School

Learning comes in all shapes and sizes. As soon as children arrive home from school they plug into their digital devices to connect and escape. However, learning does not have to stop outside of the classroom. Jeff Haynes, Senior Editor at Common Sense Media provides parents with 24 educational video games children can use for learning. This list also provides a wonderful resource for teachers to provide to parents for learning at home.

Posted by: Ryan Schaaf

Original Source

Summer’s over, and school’s back in session. Time to pull the plug on your kids’ video games, right? Not so fast, Mom and Dad. To the great relief of kids everywhere, it turns out video games and school are not incompatible. New studies on the effects that playing games has on kids indicate positive benefits for learning, thinking, social-emotional skills building, and, yes, even school performance.

Games provide new ways to engage with various subjects, whether it’s learning about math through an air-traffic-control simulator or practicing musical timing with a dance app. So the next time you see your kid playing a strategy or music game, know that he or she may actually be learning history or working on physical fitness. Below, we have recommendations of apps and games to support every subject on your elementary, junior high, or high school student’s schedule.

Math

Elementary School: Math Blaster Online, 7+
Do your little ones need help with equations? Math Blaster Online gives them plenty of practice as they join the Blaster Academy to save the universe using their math skills. It also lets your kids team up with other players to solve problems together in a safe, socially positive online environment.

Middle School: Monkey Tales: The Valley of the Jackal, 10+
The Valley of the Jackal is part of the math-focused Monkey Tales series, which tasks players with taking on a villain named Huros Stultas in his plan to resurrect the ancient Egyptian god Wepwawet. Using logic, strategy, and math skills, players defeat booby traps, fight mummies, and explore underground temples in an attempt to save the world. The game gauges how well your child does with its puzzles, and it ramps up the difficulty accordingly, so there’s always a challenge for players to test what they’ve learned.

High School: Sector 33 App, 12+
Sector 33 gives kids an idea of how math works in the real world, as they take on the role of an air traffic controller, directing flights to San Francisco International Airport. Players must not only gauge distance, time, and the rate of speed of each plane, they also have to balance flight plans, delays, and other complications.

Science

Elementary School: Lifeboat to Mars, 8+
Young scientists can experiment with creating a brand-new ecosystem on Mars to help support terrestrial life on Earth. Players can choose to work on microbes or on animal and plant missions to accomplish the task of terraforming the red planet. Even cooler, once they’ve finished a few missions, players can design their own missions for other players to try.

Middle School: Spore, 11+
Can you design and develop the perfect creature? Spore lets you develop a species from its microscopic origins to an intelligent, social alien life form that can venture into space and interact with other sentient life forms. This is a great way for your young scientist to explore the methods and ideas behind biology.

High School: Solar System for iPad, 13+
Bring stargazing to life for teens with this far-out collection of astronomy facts, photos, and animations. The app focuses on our solar system in particular, with information about the sun, planets, moons, asteroid belts, and more. Kids can learn about gravity, patterns (such as rotations around the sun), and each planet and moon, including facts about diameter, mass, volume, gravity, and atmosphere.

Language Arts

Elementary School: My Reading Tutor, 5+
My Reading Tutor builds on the basics of early reading skills to help strengthen kids’ literacy. Phonics, letter sounds, and more are presented in a fun, engaging manner, and kids can even record their voices as they read stories. Parents can track their children’s progress in the reading tasks to see how well they’re doing and what they need help on.

Middle School: Duolingo App, 12+
Whether your kids need help with a foreign language class or are simply interested in learning a new language, Duolingo can help. In a friendly environment, the app provides practice in basic words, phrases, and sentence structure in six languages. Players can test what they’ve learned against the computer or other players in competitive games or help translate Web pages for other users around the world.

High School: Shakespeare in Bits: A Midsummer’s Night Dream, 13+
Shakespeare is a staple of high school English, but the old English text is challenging.Shakespeare in Bits helps make the Bard more accessible, with animated characters acting out the plays and multiple ways to understand confusing or obscure words.

History/Social Studies

Elementary School: Oregon Trail, 9+
Oregon Trail has been teaching and entertaining kids for more than 40 years. The game continues to innovate through digital versions that provide realistic story lines and context. Players take on the role of a wagon leader directing settlers from Missouri to Oregon in 1800s America while dealing with issues such as disease, food, and weather.

Middle School: Sid Meier’s Civilization V, 11+
With a total of 43 playable civilizations from around the world, Civilization V is an ideal supplement to history class. Players lead a civilization from the Stone Age to the future with a range of political, scientific, or military goals, learning how cultural, ideological, and geographical factors can change a world’s geopolitical landscape.

High School: Tropico 4, 15+
Political analysts frequently talk about unstable or corrupt countries that spring up around the world, but how many times do you get the chance to run your own? Tropico 4 makes you president of your own island and lets you choose factions to appease according to your political goals. A parody of political simulations, Tropico 4 will make teens laugh — and teach them at the same time.

Music

Elementary School: Just Dance: Disney Party, 5+
You don’t have to be a fan of Disney classics such as “It’s a Small World” to love Just Dance: Disney Party. Players imitate characters on-screen that are dancing to hit songs from Disney movies and TV shows. The completely contagious game teaches how movement and music work together in a fun, social environment.

Middle School: GarageBand, 10+
GarageBand has exactly what fledgling musicians need to take their music to the next level. Kids can record vocals and instruments and mix tracks to create — and share — new songs while learning essential audio-engineering and composition skills. It’s like having a professional recording studio in the palm of your hand.

High School: The Beatles: Rock Band, 14+
The Beatles created classic, timeless music, and this Rock Band will take teens on a magical mystery tour of their entire career. Similar to the other Rock Band games, you can sing and play drums, bass, or guitar on 45 remastered Beatles tracks. 

Art

Elementary School: Art Academy, 8+
Art Academy is more than a video game — it’s a fun art tutorial. The game walks you through the basics of drawing, shading, and other skills so you can apply them to real-life creations.

Middle School: Scribble Press App, 10+
With more than 500 writing and drawing tools and 50 pre-made story templates, Scribble Presslets kids write and illustrate their own tales. This is kid-led learning at its creative best, as kids choose which type of writing or storytelling they want to try — for example, greeting cards or full books — as well as whether they prefer private sharing or online or print publishing.

High School: Scoot & Doodle, 13+
If you’re looking for a way for kids to collaborate on artwork or projects, Scoot & Doodle is the solution. Teens can gather up to nine Google+ friends to work on a single shared artwork, communicate their ideas via video and voice chat, and share the final products via social media channels.

PE

Elementary School: Zumba Kids, 6+
Want to get your little ones’ blood flowing? Zumba Kids takes kid-friendly songs from pop artists and lets them perform 30 routines in a wide variety of dance genres. Plus, they get to imitate the kids dancing on-screen, who provide lots of positive reinforcement through each song.

Middle School: Wii Fit U, 10+
Wii Fit U turns getting physically fit into a game. In between the many mini-games and activities, kids will learn that moving their bodies can be fun and yield meaningful results. Wii Fit U comes with a pedometer to help track your steps taken, calories burned, and distance traveled so you can make fitness progress even away from the game.

High School: Dance Central 3, 13+
The most advanced dance game on the market, Dance Central 3 tracks every bit of your body, making you a better dancer as you perform routines for more than 60 popular songs. This game includes a new story mode for dancers to move through, as well as a dance tournament for up to eight players and even a fitness mode that acts as a serious workout for dedicated players.

Social Skills

Elementary School: Sesame Street: Once Upon A Monster, 6+
Parents who want to make sure their kids learn about friendship, generosity, and other positive life skills should look no further than Sesame Street: Once Upon A Monster. An interactive experience wherein players engage with characters from the show, the game teaches as it lets kids play active roles in stories and participate in entertaining games.

Middle School: Thomas Was Alone, 10+
Thomas Was Alone is a unique puzzle game. It doesn’t focus on graphics, complex control schemes or tense gameplay; instead, the two-dimensional game tells a story about friendship and human relationships. With humor, well-paced storytelling, and an emphasis on diversity and trusting others, Thomas Was Alone will stay in players’ minds long after they’ve finished it.

High School: Papers, Please, 15+
Papers, Please manages to meld social and historical commentary with an exercise in making ethical decisions and navigating their consequences, forcing you to think during every portion of the game. Players take on the role of an immigration inspector in a communist nation, approving or rejecting applicants seeking to enter the country. As political events change throughout the story, players will need to handle situations such as terrorist attacks, asylum seekers, and the undocumented while also dealing with the effects of their choices. 

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Gaming

The ‘Makers’ of Minecraft

Posted by Ryan Schaaf

No, this is not about the game developers of Minecraft (although they deserve accolades). The ‘makers’ refers to a movement picking up speed in the realm of education and society as a whole. It is not a new trend, as I helped my third graders construct race cars using household items over a decade ago. It is a trend that is being explored with its potential to bolster STEM education initiatives in classrooms and beyond.

The Maker movement is about creation. Whether the product is new or improved, makers are experiencing deep, engaging learning while using 21st century skills. According to Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy, creating demonstrates the highest level of thinking and learning, because we must utilize all other forms of thinking to create something new or improved.   So, what does the Maker movement have to do with a video game such as Minecraft?

 Makers are our Future

With STEM education being such a hot topic in schools, business, and the government, a resurgence of hands-on, brains-on manufacturing and engineering is reemerging.  What demographic is feeling the excitement of this resurgence? Children!

It has never been more important and exciting for students to learn the process of creating, tinkering, engineering, making and producing. The students of today will design the space ships of tomorrow, solve pollution and hunger, cure cancer and develop technologies we have yet to fathom.

Before a promising future is developed, teachers, parents and the business community must prepare the digital generation to excel at making. Video games like Minecraft can help

 Minecraft: The Maker’s Digital Playground

My son, Connor, is an active six year old with the mind and drive to make and create. Through my classroom experiences using digital game-based learning, I encouraged him to play Minecraft because of its educational potential. Connor was now in charge of a digital realm with unlimited space and pixelated materials to build with. He started off slow with minimal instruction or training. I monitored the amount of time he could play and adhered to the ‘hour of screen-time a day’ rule.

What I’ve seen is extraordinary. Connor has developed his own little world filled with underground bunkers, monolithic skyscrapers, oceans, buildings and vast landscapes built brick by brick. Everyday, Connor is excited to report his progress and share his plans with me. Jane McGonigal would be proud of his “blissful productivity”. 

Courtesy of C. Schaaf
Courtesy of C. Schaaf

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Digital vs. Non-Digital Making

Is reality-based creation better than digital creation? A few years ago, we might have given reality-based as our collective answer. However, technological innovation and disruption has a way of changing our minds at times. Nowadays, the digital tools are a great way to help conceptualize what to make before building it. Honestly, physical materials cost money and are often consumed after one use.  Digital materials in Minecraft are never scarce.  The game doesn’t penalize for constructing and deconstructing virtual products. Makers can simply build, destroy and rebuild without significant consequence. As a real world application, makers can duplicate their build using real materials.

Support and Collaboration

The potential applications for Minecraft in the classroom seem endless. Numerous Minecraft educational forums, communities and services have sprouted up to support teachers with the ambition and courage to introduce digital game-based learning into their classrooms.

MinecraftEdu.com

MinecraftEdu is the collaboration of a small team of educators and programmers from the United States and Finland. They are working with the creators of Minecraft, to make the game affordable and accessible to schools everywhere. They have also created a suite of tools that make it easy to unlock the power of Minecraft in YOUR classroom.

 Minecraft Wiki

The Minecraft Wiki is a publicly accessible and editable “wiki” for gathering useful information related to Minecraft. The wiki holds thousands of articles related to game play.

Minecraft is available here for a PC, on Xbox consoles, in Apple’s App Store and Google Play.

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Gaming

Digital Gaming and Simulations: Real World Relevance and Classroom Applications

This post, originally appearing in Corwin Connects in June of 2014, is a tie-in to Making School a Game Worth Playing: Digital Games in the Classroom; a book written by myself and Nicky Mohan examining the potential of using digital games and simulations as instructional tools. Below you will find several suggestions for implementing digital game-based learning into your K-12 classroom.

Angry Birds Space : Rovio
Angry Birds Space : Rovio

Posted by: Ryan Schaaf

Original Source

Do you remember back in school when you were learning something and wondered why you were learning it? When would you ever use ancient world history, or exponential equations, or that dreaded algebra? When I was a freshman in high school, a student asked my teacher how they would use imaginary numbers in the real world. Sadly, my teacher didn’t know the answer off the top of her head. She had to ask the math chair for the answer. The next day, she informed the student with the good question that it was used in electrical engineering.

Do you think this student from my academic heyday was interested in imaginary numbers afterwards? Do you feel the teacher made a positive impression on the relevance of this topic?

Every concept must be immediately relevant to students. They must see that one day, when the situation calls for it, they will use what they are learning in the classroom in their future experiences. The classroom must prepare students for the real world.

How can teachers bring this type of real world learning into the classroom? Learning through scenarios, simulations, and practical applications – situated learning experiences are the key to establishing relevance for students. How can teachers implement this intense focus on embedding curriculum into real world situations?

One of the teaching approaches teachers can embrace is using digital games and simulations during instruction. Games and simulations are rich in scenarios and have an amazing ability to embed information into their storylines or gameplay. With so many digital games and simulations available across numerous platforms such as web browsers, tablets, computers, and handheld devices, teachers have a wide crop of games to choose from.

Here are five strategies for teachers to embrace digital games and simulations for deep and powerful learning.

 Set Up a Scenario

This should be a fun and creative scenario to establish interest, relevance, and a connection to the concepts students are learning. For example, if a teacher is instructing their students on dividing numbers, then use a scenario such as cutting up apples for a pie or slicing pizza pies. Here is a game that students can play that aligns with the apple-cutting scenario mentioned above. Click here to visit KidsNumbers.com.

Although some storylines may be silly, bizarre, and complete fantasy, many of the embedded scenarios student gamers will find themselves in will be engaging and mentally transferrable to the real world. In other words, if an alien is measuring something using the metric system, the students will focus on the concept and mentally suspend the storyline for a brief moment. By doing so, the student will experience the information or accomplish the challenges set forth by the embedded assessment tactics of the game. The student gamers resume their gameplay unaware of the deep learning and assessment occurring during their fun— engaging in the digital game-based learning experience.

Use Questioning and Subject Discussions to Connect Gameplay to Lesson Content

The connection between in-class instruction and the gaming and simulation experience will be clumsy and an uneasy transition without the help of questioning and classroom discussions. These questions and discussions can occur naturally before, during, and after the gaming and simulation experience. For example, the teacher is asking questions such as, “Why must the apples be divided up equally? Why does the number start large and end up small in the quotient? What does each number represent in the problem in relations to dividing up apples? What other situations can you think of where division would be needed?” Teachers must remember to vary the questions they ask according to Bloom’s Taxonomy.

Use Strategic Classroom Observation to Differentiate Instruction

The digital game or simulation is not a teacher; it isn’t even a person. However, it will keep students engaged during the learning and practice portion of a lesson. Teachers must use this valuable time to observe student performance and use the gaming and simulation time to reteach students that may be experiencing difficulty with the concept. This also promotes the opportunity to differentiate instruction for students that are gifted or having learning challenges. Another potential strategy is to form a buddy system. Pair students that are academically strong in the lesson to a struggling learner. This form of peer coaching will help the struggling learners by providing a learning buddy to assist them with questions.

School/ Home Connections

If you are tired of the ‘death by worksheet’ mentality when assigning homework or recommending extra practice to parents for their children, send the name of a digital game home that matches the concepts they are presently learning at school with directions explaining how to access it. *It is important to be cognizant of the students’ access to digital devices at home. Teachers must try to select games accessible to all devices.*

The ‘Center’ 

Many classrooms have an area devoted to center activities — either a place students go when they are finished with their work or a station they visit during a subject activity block such as Language Arts (stations may include: Reading group, writing center, listening center, etc.). Most classrooms now have a desktop computer connected to the internet. Teachers can easily find and curate digital games and simulations for students to use independently during centers time. They must simply teach students how to access the list of digital games they will use at this learning station.

These strategies will help teachers (and parents for that matter) leverage the engagement and motivation students have for playing digital games in the context of learning with digital gaming. The only real potential implementation mistake teachers or parents may face is pretending digital games will teach their child or student. As wonderful as games and simulations are, they are not teachers and never should be treated as such. Teachers and parents must use digital games and simulations in the proper manner — as valuable learning tools.

Ryan Schaaf

Ryan Schaaf is the Assistant Professor of Educational Technology at Notre Dame of Maryland University, and a faculty associate for the Johns Hopkins University School of Education Graduate Program, with over 15 years in the education field. He is the co-author of Making School a Game Worth Playing.

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Gaming

6 Ways To Find Video Games You Can Teach With

Digital games are being touted as instructional tools with incredible teaching in the classroom. Written by Ryan Schaaf and posted on March 15, 2014 via TeachThought, the article describes 6 strategies teachers, administrators and even parents can use to find potential digital games for learning. 

Minecraft: Image Courtesy of C. Schaaf
Minecraft: Image Courtesy of C. Schaaf

posted by:  Ryan Schaaf

Original Source

Many people, whether young or old, male or female, introverted or extroverted, love playing video games. Why is this form of media so enticing for such a wide range of people?

The constant feedback and reward, the visual and audio stimulation, the player interaction, the variety of genres and game types, the rich storylines, and the opportunities for competition and collaboration are just a few of the enticing reasons players come back for more.

The Video Game Phenomenon

By 2016, global video game sales are expected to exceed 80 billion dollars a year. In Apple’s App Store and Google Play, the #1 app category downloaded to mobile devices such as smartphones, tablets, and media players is games. Whether using video games as a learning tool or a digital babysitter, more parents are exposing their children to digital games at an earlier age.

If you visit a restaurant, grocery store, or shopping mall, then chances are you see more and more children using their parent’s devices for hands-on, brains-on gaming experiences.

Digital Games: Teacher-Approved

More and more educators are turning to video games to engage their students in hands-on, brains-on learning. The Joan Ganz Cooney Center in collaboration with BrainPOP published Teacher Attitudes about Digital Games in the Classroom back in 2012. The report summarized the results of a national survey of 500 K-8 teachers using digital games in their classroom. Some highlights from the survey data include:

* 70% of the teachers agreed that using digital games increases motivation and engagement with content and curriculum.

* 62% of teachers indicated games make it easier to differentiate lessons for the wide range of learners in their classroom.

* 60% of teachers observed that games foster more collaboration amongst students.

* Negative classroom experiences using digital games were below 10%.

Further evidence of positive teacher attitudes towards digital games is also present in the 2009 PBS report Digitally Inclined Teachers Increasingly Value Media and Technology. The report, summarizing the results of a national survey of almost 1,500 teachers, indicated teachers are making significant progress in adopting digital media in schools.

Teachers value many different types of digital media, with games and activities for student use in school topping the list at 65%. Despite their popularity with students and teachers, it is a struggle to find digital games relevant for instruction.

These six strategies might prove useful when finding instructional digital games.

6 Strategies To Find Video Games You Can Teach With

1. Google It

This might seem too good to be true, but in most cases teachers will hit pay dirt. Using a search engine, enter content-specific search terms to find browser-based games. Search terms like “probability interactive digital games” or “food chain interactive games online” produce a robust list for previewers to choose from. In many cases, these digital games are free.

2. Skim App Stores

The App Store and Google Play now contain over 1 million apps each and the number is growing exponentially. More and more educational gaming apps are added each day. With BYOD initiatives and the popularity of tablets in schools, this strategy can provide an assortment of educational games for students to use in class.

Making it a habit to skim these sections, and even following a service like Humble Bundle, can be an easy way to find new games as well.

3. Use PC Platforms: Steam, Green Man Gaming, And More

The 1980s provided the first PC games. Where in the World is Carmen SanDiego, Number Munchers, and The Oregon Trail were just some of the digital games from the dawn of the personal computer. Nowadays, there are many popular titles specifically designed to be instructional; targeting specific learning objectives. Despite the decline in desktop computer sales over the years, personal computer games are still immensely popular and relatively easy to install and use with students in an individual, small-group, or whole-group manner.

4. Use Accessible, Popular Video Games

This might be a hard sell for some administrators, but it has been done before with success. In 2010, Learning and Teaching Scotland in partnership with Futurelab conducted surveys, interviews, and observations of console gaming in the classroom.

The study found students and teachers enjoyed the learning experiences present in game-based learning and offered opportunities to engage in activities that enhance learning. Although there are many obstacles to implementing console gaming in the classroom (namely content, violence in gaming, and money), students will be enthralled with the amazing graphics and immersive storylines present in professionally-produced commercial games.

5. Use An RSS Reader

This is a great way to discover new content, and can take just a few minutes a day. Set up your feedly (or other RSS reader) to grab articles from rockpapershotgun, ign, joystiq, and others to get a constant feed of info on video games that you can skim, save, and delete at your leisure.

6. Word Of Mouth

The power of sharing is alive and well in the field of education.

Teachers enjoy sharing new strategies, tools, and instructional approaches with others, because the pay-off of helping colleagues and/or students succeed is rewarding. Using new tools or instructional materials invigorates the classroom and the practice of teaching. Due to the abundance of digital games and the unlimited potential for teacher creativity in lesson planning, ideas will only spread and evolve.

Conclusion

The digital generations go home and tune in to a wide variety of media. Schools should not be a place they turn-off their digital lives. Educators will fail to reach them in the digital and media-rich reality they are growing up in. It is essential to use the tools of the digital generations to stay relevant in their ever-changing, never-static existences.

Digital games can be a tool with limitless potential for learning.