Would young people learn science better if it were packaged in a videogame?That’s the question at the heart of the Selene project. Originally funded by NASA and now carried on through a four-year grant from the National Science Foundation, Selene studies videogame learning and the ways researchers can assess how effectively that learning takes place.The Center for Educational Technologies® at Wheeling Jesuit University created the Selene online game to see how organizations like NASA could best use videogames to introduce important science concepts.
Ever wonder what it would look like to travel at the speed of light? The folks at MIT’s education games lab have created a simple 3D simulator to teach the masses about the counterintuitive principles of one of physics’ most important concepts: special relativity. The professionally-designed, yet simple first-person game places users in a Lord of the Rings-looking town and slows down the speed of light as scattered light “orbs” are collected throughout the level video below. The goal of the project was to make something familiar that was very unfamiliar: the laws of special relativity. What would they look like in a familiar setting?,” says Sonny Sidhu, A Slower Speed of Light’s Game Producer.
Onlineuniversities.com has rounded up 18 major universities in the US and abroad that offer graduate programs with an interest in game-based learning. While there are many programs that focus exclusively on game development (e.g., DigiPen), this list is interesting because (1) it is clear that universities from around the world recognize the merits of game-based learning and (2) these institutions are incorporating game-based learning into graduate programs.
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