Studies highlight the benefits of playing educational video games, but a new partnership seeks to understand whether the act of designing video games boosts students’ computational thinking and science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) skills.
Collaborating with Microsoft and the Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) Foundation, education researchers at the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery, located at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, have created the curriculum and tools to make the video game design program Microsoft Kodu — a computer language that lets children create and program their own games — more accessible in K-12 classrooms.
Called Studio K, the instructional toolkit makes it easier to teach students how to design video games and assess whether the activity affects their abilities to solve problems with computers.
Pupils with regular access to games based on traditional favourites such as space invaders and penalty shoot-outs significantly improved their scores in GCSE English, maths and science, it was revealed.
Teachers said the use of the system – employed by some 900 primary and secondary schools – promoted “stealth learning”, with children unwittingly picking up key skills while being engrossed in computer games.
A new magnet program at Miami-Dade County Public Schools will launch this fall that focuses on digital design and coding, drawing on recent nationwide calls for emphasis on education in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). Named the iTech Academy at Miami Springs Senior High, the program becomes the first video game-themed magnet in the country’s fourth largest school district.
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