Assessment and Teaching of 21st-Century Skills (ATC21S) using Serious Games

The ATC21S project is a multi-stakeholder research project lead by the University of Melbourne and sponsored by Microsoft, Intel and Cisco. The project aims to use assessment as a foundation for change. To make effective changes at the classroom level it is important

Challenging Ourselves to Design and Build a Serious Game in under 8 hours!

We often hear about hackathons and codeathons, times when very talented people get together to really challenge themselves, but having never taken part in one myself,  I’ve always wondered how challenging it would be to put yourself in that situation. So I did, but from a design perspective.

PIXELearning recently attended our belated group Christmas Party, graciously hosted by DLM in London. As well as the company presentations about strategy and operations, team bonding

Is technology changing the way you educate students or the way you may learn as a student: The six trends identified by Horizon Report in Education.

The recently release NMC Horizon Report: 2012 Higher Education Edition looks at emerging technologies that will impact education through adapting the way in which education is delivered and received.

Categorised into time-to adoption – when they are expected to enter the classroom – these technologies will look to enhance learning experiences, engage the learner, introduce

Innovation In Learning; The Six Sigma Serious Game

For those of you who attended Learning Technologies 2012 and those who didn’t make it! Here is a copy of the presentation by myself and Kate Smith of Capella Associates. Enjoy

The 10 Best Schools for Serious Gamers

We’ve just come across this nice little list on the best schools for serious gamers. So for anyone looking for a college to attend and if you’re interested in serious game’s this list might be of interest!

Also noted are other schools that use serious games in their teaching practices. We would love to see this list expanded as we’re sure there are many institutions out there who use gaming techniques just waiting to be discovered!

 

 

 

Gloucester Language Immersion Centre

PIXELearning are delighted to announce that we have signed a contract to provide serious game and virtual world products to the Gloucester Language Immersion Centre (“GLIC”).

GLIC is a unique purpose built centre created specifically to teach languages through a “full immersion” technique, whereby pupils behave as though they are in a foreign country. The main target audiences for the centre are the local community, SME businesses and students between the ages of 14 – 19.

The initial roll-out will be for four languages; French, Spanish, Chinese and Russia, but there are plans to expand the offering to 11 languages, including rarely taught languages, such as Pashtu and Urdu. Pixel will be working in partnership with the Serious Games Institute (“SGI”) a world leading pioneer and innovator in the field of serious games and language training.

Andy Hasoon, CEO of Intellego said, “With hundreds of millions of people across the globe learning new languages at any one time this is a very exciting and a whole new market for Intellego to focus on. Importantly, serious games are the ideal tool to help people quickly grasp and retain a new language. The work being undertaken by GLIC cannot be underestimated and we are very pleased to be working closely alongside them.”

Tim Luft, Operations Director, of the Serious Games Institute, commented, “These new and highly effective training techniques provide a fundamental change to traditional teaching methods and are very well suited to learning a new language. All our courses are fully engaging and deeply interactive, allowing the student to remember more facts for a longer period of time.”

eLearning Innovation Seminar- The Presentations

As promised the presentations from, a very successful seminar if we do say so ourselves, are freely available.

The first presentation you see here is from Andy Hasoon, Director of Strategy for Intellego introduced the

Microsoft gives $15M to schools for games and cloud

 

The President of the United States hosted an education roundtable with business leaders, Secretary Duncan, Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett, Domestic Policy Council Director Melody Barnes, America’s Promise Alliance Chair Alma Powell and Founding Chair General Colin Powell to discuss building upon strong industry-led partnerships that are working to transform the American education system. Other corporate partners in attendance include representatives from the Business Roundtable, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Business Coalition for Student Achievement, the Business-Higher Education Forum, and the United Way.

Fred Humphries, senior vice president at Microsoft, met with Pres. Barack Obama in a Monday roundtable on education reform with other business leaders from State Farm, Intel, AT&T, Time Warner, Accenture and others.

“A world-class education is the single most important factor in determining not just whether our kids can compete for the best jobs but whether America can outcompete countries around the world. America’s business leaders understand that when it comes to education, we need to up our game. That’s why were working together to put an outstanding education within reach for every child,” said President Barack Obama.

“Around the world, every day, students are engaged in playing games. These digital exercises provide us insight into their motivations and passions. And yet, our classrooms and content take little advantage of this information,” Anthony Salcito, vice president for Microsoft Worldwide Education.

New commitments announced during the round table included Research and Development for Next Generation Learning Models and Resources for Students and Teachers: Building on its history of commitment to education and recent $25 million STEM Scholarship grant program in Washington State, Microsoft Education is announcing a new $15M investment in research and development for immersive learning technologies including game based instruction and the creation of a lifelong learning digital archive. Through the creation of these innovative solutions, the disengaged can become passionate problem solvers and the struggling student can be offered other pathways to success.  Rooted in this investment is the understanding that technical innovation alone will not help. Therefore, over the next 3 years, Microsoft is committing to train over 150 thousand educators and leaders and provide access to professional learning communities and training to every teacher in the United States through the new Partners in Learning Network.

The full White House press release can be found here.

PIXEL’s Biz Sims win “Best in Tech” Award from Scholastic Administr@tor Magazine

PIXELearnings Business Simulations have received the 2011 “Best in Tech” Award from Scholastic Administr@tor Magazine. Our US based partner Realityworks, Inc entered the products into the prestigious competition earlier this year. The RealCareer Business Education Simulations reinforce classroom lessons with hands-on experience in
running a business.

The national awards were presented at the 2011 International Society for Technology Education (ISTE)
conference in

Some Crystal Ball Gazing: What does the future of education look like?

Earlier this year I was a co-author on a chapter examining serious games in education with the goal to help teachers implement these tools into their classrooms, what was clear from our research, personal knowledge and experiences was that education hasn’t really changed all that much in the last 150-200 years; we’re still deeply entrenched in the 19^th century factory model of education. Anyone who’s not been living under a rock for the past decade will know our world is moving at an unprecedented pace with regards to