A new update for Minecraft: Education Edition, called Update Aquatic, is adding underwater science to the educational version of the popular world-building game.
A competition hosted by the NYU Tandon School of Engineering is challenging humans to create algorithms for producing adaptive settlements in Minecraft. (These are the villages and cities and other environments that players create at will in the online game.) The competition addresses a fairly new area of inquiry for machine learning in games: how to develop algorithms that can design rather than play.
- By Dian Schaffhauser
- 05/31/18
The use of gaming for student-centered learning eliminates constraints, increases engagement, boosts collaboration and empowers students to find answers through deep and rich experiences.
- By Dian Schaffhauser
- 05/23/18
When Giulia Bini introduced the use of a video game in her high school calculus class, she saw a 100 percent pass rate on testing about limits compared to 80 percent in the previous year; plus, grades rose by 10 percent. The game she used, Variant: Limits by Triseum, places players on an imaginary planet. To rescue the planet from "imminent doom," they help "Equa," the main character, solve a series of increasingly tough calculus problems.
- By Dian Schaffhauser
- 03/19/18
Nintendo plans to release the highly anticipated Labo for Switch gaming systems April 20. Today at an event in San Francisco, the company revealed a unique component that adds a new dimension of invention and node-based coding to the mixed-reality system — Toy-Con Garage.
Minecraft: Education Edition has received a new resource pack designed to let students learn chemistry within the game itself. Resources also include new lessons and activities, a teacher lab book, a downloadable world and community support.
Researchers don't agree on the inclusion, but gaming has just been added to the latest draft version of the next International Classification of Diseases.
- By Dian Schaffhauser
- 01/15/18
An education game maker expects to release a deluge of new education games for grades 3-5 this winter.
- By Dian Schaffhauser
- 11/30/17
Quests lays a teacher's existing lesson plan over a fantasy world that students traverse by completing assignments, or quests. Completing each task, which may be an assignment, discussion, in-class activity or something else, unlocks the next.
Kahoot! has launched its mobile app for iOS and Android that is designed to make homework fun and more social for students.