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Video Games a Good Supplement to Physical Therapy for ICU Patients

james_fudge — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 14:22:53 PDT

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New research published online in the Journal of Critical Care from Johns Hopkins researchers claims that video games are a good supplement to traditional physical therapy for patients in intensive care units (ICU).

Professional Developers Left Out Of Second STEM Edu-Game Design Challenge

(author unknown) — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 11:47:00 PDT

Organizers have announced the second annual STEM Challenge to encourage education through game design, but professional game developers are seemingly excluded from this year's competition. While last year's inaugural STEM Challenge offered a Developer Prize that asked "experienced game developers" to design games that educate grade-schoolers in science, technology, engineering and math, this year's Challenge includes competition tracks meant only for college students and educators, according to the STEM web site. The new competition will ...

Serious Games For Material Handling

Eliane Alhadeff — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 10:35:41 PDT

Serious Games in Innovative Companies DNA

Via: GriN Multimedia - Forklift simulator

GrinN blog reports that UCAN & GriN partnered up to build an installation that connects controls of a real forklift surrounded by 4 screens to a virtual environment – a Serious Game where users can learn how to operate the forklift and take special notice to safety regulations (find also The Case For Serious Games In Heavy Industries).

Toyota will use this simulator for training forklift drivers.

Multi-screen setups have several challenges. First one being that Unity3D will only allow one screen to play the application fullscreen. Typical dual monitor setup will not work full screen on both monitors. The most common solution that is used in professional multi-screen 3D simulators is to have multiple computers render different views. These computers are connected to each other via Local Area Network where one computer does all the physics and processing and the other computers act as mere render windows.

Crucial to the success of this project is that it must be able to connect the forklift controllers to the simulator software. GriN came up with the DIY joystick controller board with 8 analog inputs.

GriN received a 3D model of the forklift they will be using in this simulation. But… the model has over 2 million triangles. Naturally this is totally unusable for realtime rendering. In fact they were having trouble just opening the model in their 3D software. After 5 days modeling and 3 days normal mapping and texturing, they believe to have a great basis to work with. The resulting model has about 8.000 triangles.

Integration Exercise

Driving forward, backwards, transporting cargo from point A to point B.

About GriN - Multimedia Wizards In Virtual Wonderland

GriN was founded in 2002 as a research and development agency for online and browser-based Serious Games and applications. GriN creations are used for installations, events, promotions, campaigns and educational purposes… to name but a few. Apart from working for clients, GriN also develops self-managed online games and a 3D location mapping system with touchscreen kiosks.

New At Spongelab: Serious Games For Playing With Science

Eliane Alhadeff — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 10:37:51 PDT

Serious Games challenging us to promote STEM education

Via: SPONGELAB BETA – New Spongelab Content

Following my prior The New Spongelab Site Is A Serious Game Itself, Spongelab has been busy playing with science – its website dedicated to the global science community offers amazing new Serious Games and interactive learning tools.

Biochem Gems is a deceptively simple looking puzzle game where players are tasked with assembling basic biochemical structures from their constituent pieces. Players may connect 3 identical pieces for points, but are also tasked with building a target molecule if they wish to succeed. There are 4 main stages to the game (carbohydrates, fatty acids, nucleic acids and amino acids), each containing 3 - 5 levels. After completing these levels, players are granted access to a "freeplay" mode, where they are free to work towards a leaderboard topping high score.

Biochem Gems is match-3 games based on the building blocks of life (learn to assemble carbohydrates, nucleic acids, fatty acids and amino acids)

In Build-a-Frog, Build-a-Worm, and Build-a-Fish, players can explore the stunning anatomy of these organisms.

As always, earn credits and experience points for trying out these new interactives.

Updates At Spongelab.com Beta

The new Spongelab learning platform is growing rapidly. With currently over 300 stunning images, videos, and animation as well as over 170 simulations, Serious Games and interactives - spanning biology, chemistry, physics and space science - the community is doubling every month and they have new content being added from all over the world, at all levels of learning. They’re also in the final stages of releasing an updated reporting system steered from the feedback from all players.

All users can create lesson plans, connect video links, create case studies and add assessment questions. Gain credits and experience points for everything you do: from playing Serious Games to creating classes – everything earns you points.

About Spongelab Interactive

Founded in 2007, Spongelab Interactive is a Toronto-based educational gaming design and production company that aims to inspire a new generation of learners to be passionate about the natural and scientific world.
Recognizing the instructional potential of video gaming, the Spongelab Interactive team creates interesting and intuitive online programs that challenge students through discovery-based learning.

Thanks to a team that combines educational, technical and scientific expertise, Spongelab Interactive has created Genomics Digital Lab (GDL), a series of biology Serious Games based on curriculum for Grades 7 through 12.
The company’s award-winning GDL games currently boast users from over 50 countries worldwide.

Spongelab Interactive is building on these achievements by using educational design with advanced web and gaming technology to produce more Serious Games is biology, in particular for university level students.

Video Games Enhancing Physical Therapy For ICU Patients

(author unknown) — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 03:03:00 PDT

A new medical research report has found that interactive video games can be utilized to enhance physical therapy in intensive care units. The report from research facility Johns Hopkins, entitled Journal of Critical Care, surveyed 22 criticially ill adult patients, providing them with video games as part of their routine physical therapy over the course of a year. These therapy sessions included use of the Nintendo Wii and Wii Fit hardware, with boxing and bowling ...

Fun & Serious Game Festival Bilbao

Eliane Alhadeff — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 10:39:05 PDT

Serious Games challenging us to play at building a better future

Via: Fun & Serious Game Festival Official Website

The Fun & Serious Game Festival was established in 2011 to recognize the best European video games of the year. Awards will be granted to the best productions and most brilliant careers in the video game industry, both for games developed for fun and those fulfilling cultural, educational, healthcare, or corporate purposes.

The Festival Awards Gala will be held at the Campos Elíseos Theatre in Bilbao on November 8, 2011.

On November 8 and 9, Serious Games professionals will get together at the 1st International Professional Conference on Serious Games, to be held in Bilbao, in the context of the Fun & Serious Game Festival.

In its first edition, the event aims at consolidating the video game industry in Spain and the European continent.

The conference will take place at the Euskalduna Conference Centre, next to the Guggenheim Bilbao Museum.

One of the highlights of the Fun & Serious Game Festival is the emphasis on Serious Games and the future prospects of video games developed for purposes other than entertainment.

“Serious games are converging in the virtual world and social networks, and immersive technologies will be used in the recruitment of professionals, evaluation, and continuous learning.” This is the future of the Serious Game industry in the words of the president of the Serious Game Jury, David Wortley, founding partner at Immersive Technology Strategies and Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA).

Those who attend the 1st International Professional Conference on Serious Games on November 8 and 9 will be able to listen to keynote speakers like Wortley himself, Samir Abou-Samra (CTO of DigiPen Corporation USA who has led simulation projects for Boeing and Renault F1), Jurriaan van Rijswijk (director of Serious Games for Health Europe and founding director of Games Factory Online), or Julián Álvarez (ICT consultant specializing in Serious Games at the French consulting firm Ludoscience and regular contributor to the annual report on the Serious Game Market produced by IDATE).

They will describe the contemporary scene of Serious Games and show the most successful applications with users and developers in the fields of health, education, worker training, and the promotion of culture.

Other keynote speakers at the Euskalduna Convention Centre and Concert Hall in Bilbao include the health psychologist Pamela M. Kato, who, after founding HopeLab and being a clinical instructor in Paediatrics at Stanford Hospital in the United States, is currently developing and testing a clinically validated serious game to train medical residents in patient safety; Gareth Mills, who, as head of Futures, Innovation, and E-learning at the QCA, has led major developments in the curriculum in England; Maurizio Forte, professor of World Heritage at the University of California, Merced, and of Virtual Environments for Cultural Heritage at the University of Lugano; and Tim Luft, who at Coventry University has supported the development of economic regeneration programs and has delivered projects in partnership with the European Union and UK Trade & Investment.

The Sessions in Detail

http://www.funandseriousgamefestival.com/english/conferencias-programa.html

Keynote Speakers

http://www.funandseriousgamefestival.com/english/conferencias-speakers.html

Registration

http://www.funandseriousgamefestival.com/english/inscripciones.html

RescueSim: Serious Games For Multi-Agency Emergency Response

Eliane Alhadeff — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 19:13:52 PDT

Serious Games allowing emergency crews to experience the incident as they would in real-life

Via: RescueSim

In recent months, VSTEP, a Serious Games developer and provider of virtual training platforms, held a number of regional workshops across The Netherlands to demonstrate the capabilities of its multi-agency emergency response trainer RescueSim.

RescueSim is mono and multidisciplinary training software that prepares public safety and security professionals for real-life incidents in a virtual environment.

RescueSim allows emergency crews to experience the incident as they would in real-life. They assess the situation and determine the best response strategy, implement it and then observe the consequences of their decisions.

The workshops were used to demonstrate the RescueSim application to the emergency services in the context of VITTOS project.

The VITTOS project has started two years ago to develop a new generation of virtual training tools that would allow Emergency services to train for large scale incidents.

VITTOS stands for Virtual Incident Training for Tactical, Operational and Strategic decision making. Purpose of the VITTOS project is to expand the existing RescueSim virtual training platform where any incident or disaster can be simulated in realistic 3D virtual environments.

RescueSim has become commercially available and has been adopted by various safety regions and agencies as their prime training tool for both single and multi-agency training.

The application is modular with interchangeable components (different physical environments can be simulated) scenarios (Operational, Tactical and Strategic levels) and content. The user can customize the scenarios themselves easily, which offers a great freedom in practicing different incident trends.

The project was designed by VSTEP in collaboration with the Port of Rotterdam, Safety Region Rotterdam-Rijnmond and various other emergency services.

RescueSim Offshore Incident Management Module Introduced

Late September, VSTEP released its Offshore Incident Management module for the RescueSim virtual training platform.

The offshore incident management module focuses on disasters and incidents taking place offshore. These incidents can take place on board of different types of vessels, as well as include incidents or disasters on board of oil rig platforms. The new module makes it possible to train specialized offshore incidents and response strategies, including oil rig incidents & on-board fires, as well as search & rescue and evacuation scenarios, all from within the RescueSim platform.

The module contains many offshore specific objects. By placing different vessels and oil rig configurations, a realistic and believable offshore training environment is created.

The Offshore Incident Management module is created specifically for use by Coast Guard, Port authorities, Offshore Safety officers, Vessel commanders and Company incident command teams (dealing with offshore).

Spill Response SIM

The Industrial Fire Journal published an article this quarter about the advantages of virtual training with RescueSim for Oil Spill simulations.

Here are the excerpts!

After the explosions and the subsequent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico on the Deepwater Horizon platform, the port industry has shown increased interest in oil spill simulators.

VSTEP is now developing a spill response simulator for the Port of Rotterdam in The Netherlands.

Cristijn Sarvaas, CEO of VSTEP, believes that although small spills happen on a regular basis, the real challenge lies in how port authorities respond to large incidents.

The simulator VSTEP is currently developing calculates the projected course of a spill based on fluid dynamics, dependent on the type of agent, as well as its viscosity, weight and other properties. External factors that determine the course of the spill are tides, weather circumstances and river flow. In this spill simulator the capability of the responsible agency to contain and dispose of the agent is tested.

Cheshire Fire & Rescue Services State-Of-The-Art Training Facility In Winsford, UK

VSTEP has completed a project with the Cheshire Fire and Rescue Service in the UK, opening an advanced training centre in Winsford where the emergency services can train for major incidents.

The new facility incorporates VSTEP’s fully customizable virtual reality 3D training platform RescueSim. “The training centre is divided into six different training areas, where incident commanders from all levels can train virtually, exactly as if it were a real life situation.

The training centre is built according to the incident command structure used in the UK. Incidents are approached from four sectors, front, back, left and right. The training rooms (pods) correspond with these sectors and the different screens show what is going on in a specific sector of the incident, according to where the different levels of command – bronze, silver, gold – would be normally stationed.

The students all wear their actual gear, and use the same means of communications (radio, laptop) as they would during a normal incident. In general they conduct the exercise from their own pod but, as in real life, they convene in the command centre for the incident command meeting to determine the best strategy.

Instructors follow the incidents via webcams or walk around during an exercise, monitoring progress on their iPads to receive the best possible overview and assess student capabilities.

Port Incident Management

Ellesmere Port Authority, near Liverpool, is within Cheshire FRS’s jurisdiction, and will also benefit from this new centre, as the authority needs to train its own personnel for the initial response to a major shipping or industrial incident and the handover to the fire service when it arrives.

RescueSim already has an extensive object and environment library, and all it took was to adapt these to the UK. Basically, it depends on the type of client and the training goals that they want to reach with the exercise.

Industrial Incident Management

About VSTEP

VSTEP is a leading European developer of simulators and virtual training software. Using interactive 3D technology from the computer gaming industry, VSTEP creates training applications and games that allow people to build their skills in a practical and cost effective way.

The company is headquartered in the bustling business heart of Rotterdam, The Netherlands. VSTEP currently employs over 40 staff members, supplemented with an extensive network of value-added subcontractors. Since its founding in 2002, VSTEP has successfully completed over 40 training applications for leading industry clients and governmental organizations. A pioneer in the creation of innovative games and virtual training, VSTEP has provided solutions for customers like the Royal Dutch Navy, Port of Rotterdam, Falck/Nutec, Shell, DSM, Dutch Railways and many others.

Gamasutra - Features - How to Prototype a Game in Under 7 Days

(author unknown) — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 04:14:44 PDT

Hailing from the the Experimental Gameplay Project at Carnegie Mellon's Entertainment Technology Center, the authors of this article give tips and insights into quickly churning out game prototypes, drawing from their experience in making 50 games in one semester with a team of only 4 grad students.

IBM Launches CityOne Urban Crisis Simulation Tool

(author unknown) — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 14:26:00 PDT

Today, IBM announced the availability of CityOne, an interactive application giving business, government, and academic institutions the ability to simulate and discover solutions to real-world issues affecting cities and industries. Presented to players as a simulation game, CityOne includes over 100 scenarios focusing on issues such as traffic congestion, water conservation, and alternative energy sources. Each scenario tasks players with balancing a simulated city's financial, environmental, and sociological interests. To succeed, players must explore clean ...

Gamification: Serious Games and Real Life Colliding In Unique Ways

Eliane Alhadeff — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 05:27:07 PDT

Games as the ultimate tool for engagement

Building game-like incentives into non-game applications

Gamification 1: Playful (Persuasive) Toothbrush

Despite the skepticism when Jesse Schell explored hypothetical scenarios such as teeth brushing earning sponsored awards from Crest, here is an example of Playful (Persuasive) Toothbrush by students Yu-chen Chang, Chao-ju Huang

Via: iCare Research Projects. It is about a playful toothbrush to assist parents in motivating and getting their young children into a habit of proper and thorough tooth brushing. The system includes a vision-based motion tracker that recognizes different tooth brushing motions, and a fun tooth brushing game in which a young child helps a cartoon character clean its dirty virtual teeth by physically brushing his/her own teeth.

Organizers announced last week plans the first ever Gamification Summit, which will take place January 20 - 21, 2011 at San Francisco's Mission Bay Conference Center, dedicated to the use of game-like experiences to drive participation in non-gaming activities.

The concept was the subject of a widely viewed talk by Jesse Schell at DICE 2010, on how game-like structures can revolutionize the motivations for everyday activities.

Here is a recap of my prior post Anecdotal Evidence Of Jesse Schell's Game Design Futuring - NOW!, about a week after his superb presentation: Design Outside The Box.

Jesse Schell’s talk, at a DICE Summit session in Las Vegas early this year, went far beyond an entertaining delivery from a CMU Professor: it may well represent a “stake in the ground” for game designers getting sensitive to the magic behind trend-changers and the rising of new core values for game creation, amongst them:

• The perceived entertainment value (approached by Jesse in the context of “Psychological Tricks”, derived from changes in the real-world physique);

• The value of "realness" (when Jesse challenges game makers obsessed over creating fantasy as a disconnect);

• The value of rewarding game-life achievements (please find also Ian Bogost’s post: On the Achievementalization of the World);

• The value of embedding games in our everyday lives (which Jesse translates into “a world of opportunity for game designers).

Here is the link to Jesse Schell’s 28-minute provocative futuring:
http://g4tv.com/videos/44277/DICE-2010-Design-Outside-the-Box-Presentation/

And here is some anecdotal evidence:

Gamification 2: Playful (Persuasive) Tray

by students Tung-yen (Dori) Lin, Jen-hao (Arthur) Chen, Keng-hao Chang, Shih-yeh Liu

It is an interactive, persuasive game built into an ordinary food tray to assist parents to improve dietary behaviors of their young children. The persuasive game is played over a playful tray. By eating from the playful tray, a child can see his/her favorite cartoon character being colored or running in a race. The playful lunch tray incorporates both the context-awareness (of pervasive computing) and the persuasive media (of persuasive computing), enabling the creation of a smart object that is not only aware of human behavior but can also influence and shape human behaviors through their natural interactions with the object.

Gamification 3: Vine Grows As You Save Fuel

The dashboard of the Ford Fusion shows how fuel efficient the driver is operating the vehicle with a vine on the right-hand side that grows and withers

About Gamification Summit 2011

Know the Score

The Gamification Summit (January 20-21, 2011 San Francisco) brings together top thought leaders in game mechanics and engagement science for the first time.

Attend Gamification Summit 2011 and learn how game mechanics and the new science of engagement are rewriting the rules of brand marketing, product design and customer acquisition and get your business in the game.

“With an increasing focus on gamification, major brands, advertising agencies and UI/UX practitioners are starting to see what game designers have always known: games are the ultimate tool for engagement,” said Gamification Summit Director Margaret Wallace.

The first day is filled with informative keynotes, lectures and panels, with plenty of networking opportunities mixed in throughout. The second day is a full-length, hands-on workshop led by renowned gamification designer Amy Jo Kim that will help you take your specific business requirements and turn them into actionable gamification strategies.

Gamification will be also the focus of the entire second day of the upcoming 2011 Serious Games Summit

Blog Action Day: Serious Games For Water Conservation

Eliane Alhadeff — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 08:03:47 PDT

Serious Game to to successfully managing a river catchment

Via: ABC Catchment Detox Game

Catchment Detox is an easy-to-play but tough-to-master online Serious Game from Australia. Catchment Detox is an online game challenging the player to successfully managing a river catchment while creating a sustainable, healthy economy.

According to the experts that perform a similar juggling act in real life, “the challenge of planning and implementing activities on a catchment scale is a very complex issue, and the game to a large degree picks that up. The wonderful thing about the game is that there's instant feedback about the impact of industries and the cost of removing or changing land uses. In reality it's not so simple.”

Experts’ suggestions for doing well in the game, and in real-life catchment management as well are to keep that need to balance industry and ecology in mind, and to move industries away from the edges of watercourses.

In 100 turns, you decide how and where to plant crops, when and where to log forests, where and when to build factories or set up national parks.

Keep your eye on the impact stats to compare the economic and environmental pros and cons of your decisions.

Some activities bring in more money, but use a lot of water; others bring environmental benefits, but not much income. You can add or remove as many activities as you like (until you run out of money and/or turns!)

Catchment Fact Sheet – A System in Balance

The catchment of a river is the area of land that water falls on to feed that river. Every area of land on the planet is part of a catchment. As water moves over the land, it finds its way into streams and down into the soil, eventually feeding the river. Some water remains underground and this slowly recharges the river even when there is no rainfall. Not all catchments feed rivers that flow to the sea. Some are the source of rivers which flow inland, ending in a dry lake or wetland.

Every one of us lives in a catchment. Look at a map or street directory of your area and find the nearest stream, creek or river. If you are in the city it may now be just a drain or even a pipe under the ground.

The concept of a catchment is useful, because it is the scale on which many parts of the landscape work. The soil, plants, animals and water all function together in a catchment – anything that affects one of these will also have an impact on the others. The health of our catchments is vital for human existence because they are where all food is grown. The water you drink comes from a catchment near you. The oxygen you breathe comes ultimately from a growing green plant or algae. So catchments are part of our life support systems, and support the lives of all plants and animals.

In 2002, an assessment was made of the overall health of Australia’s more intensively used catchments.

The assessment looked at land, water and biodiversity in each catchment, including problems such as salinity, erosion, sedimentation, pesticide use, pollution, roads, native tree-cover, human population and pests.

The survey, done by the National Land and Water Resources Audit, found that the condition of 70% of Australia’s most populated catchments is merely average or worse than average.

Over the last 200 years people have been busy clearing land for farming, mining, building towns and cities and changing catchments which had been in equilibrium for thousands of years.

One reason they are so damaged is because we have not understood that changing something in one part of a catchment can have a huge impact somewhere else.

Catchments will benefit from a more integrated approach to management: where the impact of all activities – farming, development, tourism, and so on – are considered as part of the entire landscape and can be done in greater sympathy with the natural plant, animal, soil and water assets of the catchment.

Game Background

Catchment Detox is a major initiative by the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) and its partners to help Australians better understand and manage the environment they live in.

The free online game, begins with a catchment in critical condition and through virtual years, decisions must be made on how to restore and sustain it, balancing three basic factors: the health of the environment, the economy and population growth.

To assist players and give listeners a greater understanding of catchment management, ABC Local Radio decided to broadcast insights into five key elements of natural resource management: surface water, ground water, biodiversity, soil health and community sustainability.

The radio series broadcast over a two week period, coincided with a competition where the top player would win a trip for two to one of Australia's most pristine catchments - Lake Argyle in the Kimberleys. A special school prize was also available for school groups who registered.

Catchment Detox is an ABC initiative in partnership with eWater, the CSIRO, the Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research and National Science week. Catchment Detox is based on an original idea by Natural Resource Management advisor Tim Stubbs and consultant Lucy Broad.

Step 1.04 Set the Right Expectations - Most educational sims developed for corporations are about the complexity of an iPhone app

clark.aldrich@gmail.com (Clark Aldrich) — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 06:23:00 PST

Setting expectations is a critical part of building an educational sim. All of us, from sponsor, to designers and developers, to subject matter experts, need to understand the level of complexity.

It was not too long ago that clients would initially ask me for a serious game that had the feel of World of Warcraft or Halo. This was absurd, of course, for so many reasons, including:

Approach	World of Warcraft	Corporate Sim
Budget	$150+ Million	$100,000
Time to Develop	$3 + Years	7 months
Operating System	PC, Installed	Flash, Web deployed
Desired Addictiveness	Very high	Low
Player Time	15+ Hours/Week	1 Hour in Total
Predictability of Success*	Low	Very high

*Predictability of success is critical: WoW has been attempted to be duplicated by quite a few game companies with little success.

Instead, it is much more relevant to point to iPhone app games or (increasingly) other enterprise-built serious games (such as PlayTrue) as much better level setters. This keeps the conversations sane and productive, while delivering solutions that are manageable and, better yet, highly effective in building competence and conviction.

U.S. Air Force Awards $750,000 Contract for Anti-Phishing Game

(author unknown) — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 15:37:00 PDT

The United States Air Force has awarded a $750,000 SBIR Phase II contract to Wombat Security Technologies for the creation of "an innovative micro-game platform for cyber security training and awareness." Wombat previously developed a number of business-oriented games designed to teach users to recognize and avoid malicious security threats and phishing scams, including titles such as PhishGuru, PhishPatrol, and Anti-Phishing Phil. Under the new contract, Wombat will deliver copies of its most recent title, ...

EU In Readiness For Mainstreaming Serious Games In Education

Eliane Alhadeff — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 15:03:22 PDT

We know more about how games work and how to apply them to teaching and learning than we ever have

Following on my post 2010 Horizon Report: Educational Serious Games Adoption - 2 To 3 Years, dated April 2010, and revisiting some of the “Serious Games in Education” ongoing projects for institutional transformation, it seems that the European Union is in readiness for mainstreaming Serious Games in education according to the referred timeline.

Here is anecdotal evidence.

Project: GaLA - Games and Learning Alliance

Countries: The GaLA Consortium involves 31 partners, coming from 14 countries all over the EU: Italy, Germany, Austria, Finland, UK, Spain, Switzerland, Norway, Denmark, The Netherlands, Portugal, France, Romania and Ireland.

Scope: GaLA motivation stems from the acknowledgment of the potentiality of Serious Games for education and training and the need to address the challenges of the main stakeholders of the Serious Games European landscape.

GaLA aims to shape the scientific community and build a European Virtual Research Centre aimed at gathering, integrating, harmonizing and coordinating research on Serious Games and disseminating knowledge, best practices and tools as a reference point at an international level.

The other key focuses of the project are the support to deployment in the actual educational and training settings; the fostering of innovation and knowledge transfer through research-business dialogue; and the development high-quality didactics on Serious Games by promoting and supporting courses at Master and PhD level.

Timeline: Started in October 2010 and will last 4 years

Funding/Sponsorship: Funded by the European Union in FP7 – IST ICT, Technology Enhanced Learning with a budget of 5.65m Euros.

Blog Post: GaLA Kick-Off: Newly Created Network of Excellence in Serious Games

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Project: Increasing Mainstreaming of Games in Learning Policies (IMAGINE) project

Countries: EU - The outcome will be a substantial community of policy makers with a high level of commitment to pursue the implementation of games based learning across a large number of countries and all three levels of education covered.

Scope: There is now a large amount of evidence available to suggest that the use of Serious Games for Learning (SGL) can make a positive impact on learning outcomes at all levels of education.

However, adoption of SGL by policy makers as a mainstream learning remains limited.

The IMAGINE Project has brought together and evaluated results from initiatives to-date, in order to launch a powerful effort to persuade policy makers in school-based, adult and vocational education to mainstream SGL in their strategies.

IMAGINE will produce a series of recommendations to policy makers on the use of SGL. The recommendations will cover multiple dimensions of policy making concerning the introduction of games in education.

A most impressive Project Tile is available at http://www.imaginegames.eu/eng/content/download/759/4564/version/1/file/Project_Matrix.pdf

Timeline: Started in January 2009, as a 2 year project. A final project conference will be hosted and organized in Brussels for policy makers and representatives of national and European associations in the learning sector.

Funding/Sponsorship: Funded by the European Commission under the Lifelong Learning Program

Blog Post: Serious Games Transforming Education In Europe

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Project: Serious Games on a Global Market Place

Countries: Denmark

Scope: By unifying the forces of researchers, game developers and educationalists, the aim of this project is to create global serious games based on Danish traditions of play and learning.

Approximately 15 researchers in this project explore, build and implement prototypes of learning games and games for promoting play in collaboration with companies, using their products and experience to develop knowledge about game challenges, didactic design, methodologies, play and learning.

Timeline: Started in 2007.

Funding/Sponsorship: Funded by The Danish Council for Strategic Research (KINO)

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Project: The Consolarium

Countries: Scotland

Scope: The Consolarium is the Scottish Centre for Games and Learning, established by Learning and Teaching Scotland (LTS) to explore the world of computer games and how they can impact on teaching and learning in Scottish schools, and, more recently, to encourage pupils to become creators - not just consumers - of games with the game design initiative.

Timeline: Since 2006 Learning and Teaching Scotland’s game-based learning initiative, The Consolarium, has been working with teachers across Scotland.

Funding/Sponsorship: Learning and Teaching Scotland has developed partnerships with local authorities and established links with many Teacher Education Institutes and where appropriate, with industry partners.

Blog Post: Presentation: Bringing Serious Games Into The Classroom

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Project: Futurelab - Serious Games In Education

Countries: UK

Scope: This project aims to identify and document the usage, definition, and as far as possible pedagogy of serious games. That is, games where the educational goal takes precendence in training outside of the school education system.

By identifying and documenting the usage of serious games in schools the project will analyze the benefits and risks of these games, and look at how they are being used and assessed effectively.

Timeline: Ongoing research project.

Funding/Sponsorship: Becta - UK government agency leading the national drive to ensure the effective and innovative use of technology throughout learning.

Blog Post: Futurelab: Challenges In Embedding Serious Games Into Formal Education

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Project: Futurelab - Games-Based Experiences for Learning

Countries: UK

Scope: The project aims to develop an overview of what makes a game a motivating and engaging learning experience. It will examine the narrative elements of gaming; game mechanics; technological aspects; game play; social and collaborative aspects; social and digital cultures related to games; and the language of games.

A guide for teachers on designing games-based experiences for classes including a set of design principles, activities, materials and templates to facilitate active participation will be developed based on research outcomes.

Timeline: Ongoing research project.

Funding/Sponsorship: Becta - UK government agency leading the national drive to ensure the effective and innovative use of technology throughout learning.

Synthesizing Portal 2

(author unknown) — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 09:00:00 PDT

Valve writer Erik Wolpaw discusses the creative challenges of adding co-op to Portal 2, keeping the story interesting, how the team has once again brought in fresh talent, and how he's sick of cake.

Illinois School Sees Gains from Game-based Learning

pete_gallagher — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 11:25:37 PDT

A St. Charles, Illinois school for disadvantaged children saw significant gains in cognitive skills development after implementing videogame-based developmental software.

The Glenwood School for Boys and Girls first introduced BrainWare Safari software, from developer Learning Enhancement Corporation, in the 2008-2009 school year, according to a story on NWI.com. As part of a pilot program conducted between September 08 and February 2009, 96 students were tested both before and after using the BrainWare Safari program for 30 minutes a day.

The kids who used the software ranged from second to eighth graders and posted improvements, measured from testing, in reading, writing and math, while cognitive abilities improved as well.
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Deus Ex: The Human Question

(author unknown) — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 09:00:00 PDT

Stéphane D'Astous, general manager of Eidos Montreal, discusses the development of Deus Ex: Human Revolution, and how the fledgling studio was able to staff up and tackle such a challenging project.

Research Associate for GALA and TELMAP at Informatik 5 (Information Systems), RWTH Aachen, Germany

Ralf Klamma — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 01:39:33 PDT

This time it is me searching for a new collaborator in my group. Please refer only to the official announcement with job reference number 7856 since the text below is not legally binding. Anyway, you can apply electronically using our email address jobs@dbis.rwth-aachen.de.

The Chair of Computer Science 5 (Information Systems) of the RWTH University Aachen is an internationally renowned research group with numerous projects in the areas of Database Systems, Software Development, and Technology Enhanced Learning. For the cooperation in the EU funded projects GALA (Game and Learning Alliance) and TELMAP (Future gazing TEL: the roadmap for the unknown learning landscape) we search for a Research Associate (TV-L13). You have completed your university study or PhD in Computer Science or in similar fields with an over-average success and you posses good knowledge in these areas:

Databases and Information Systems
Mobile and Web-based e-Learning / Serious Games
Mobile and Web-based application development
High motivation, cooperation and teamwork
Abilities of independent, responsible, and successful project implementation
Good English necessary

Job reference number: 7856

Mobile Learning: Is It Doing What It’s Supposed To?

susan@beyondutopia.com (E-Learning Queen) — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 09:10:55 PDT

Is mobile learning really doing what it’s supposed to be doing? The core allure of mobile learning is that you can engage in substantive, meaningful learning any time and any place. Ideally, mobile content and instructional strategies effectively create conditions for learning – you’re engaged, the content is relevant, you’re able to connect it to applications and real-life settings that mean

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Me Tycoon: Serious Games for 11-14 Y/O On Career Choices

Eliane Alhadeff — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 11:12:37 PDT

Serious Games getting young people to discover potential areas of future growth

Kam Star, Managing Director at PlayGen, forwarded me earlier today the link to PlayGen’s newest Serious Game, which I’ve been playing ever since.

PlayGen has just soft launched Me Tycoon, a Social Serious Game-based approach to encouraging students to explore and develop their own life, where their decisions directly affect their prosperity, achievements and happiness.

Young people do not often have the resources, help or opportunities to think about careers, find out about different types of jobs that they may not have previously considered, get to grips with transferable skills, or discover the changing nature of the jobs market and the potential areas of future growth.

What PlayGen Did

PlayGen developed ‘Me Tycoon’ in partnership with icould and support from Nesta.

Me Tycoon is a Social Serious Game (SSG) in which students are encouraged to explore ongoing decisions that directly affect their life.

The game provides an exciting online experience for players to better visualize and understand that today’s careers are not always achieved as a linear progression.

Breakdown of the Game

Players play as themselves, represented by an avatar on the game screen. Players are in charge of their life path and can choose to enter further education to achieve academic or vocational qualifications, or start a career as soon as they end compulsory education.

Players control the game by:

• Managing jobs – search and apply, gain promotions, change career paths.

• Managing qualifications - Choose what to study and how (part time of full time).

• Managing friends – Search and add friends via unique name or email; send friends gifts; compare lives, jobs, money and happiness.

• Purchasing items from the shop – items relate to hobbies, transport, accommodation and activities.

•Improving transferable skills

• Keeping a check on their happiness

• Watching iCould.com videos linked to jobs

• Managing their upkeep and expenses - including accommodation, transport and lifestyle.

How can they win? As with life, it depends on what’s important to the individual. Players are ranked based on happiness, wealth, jobs held, achievements completed and items bought.

The game is over when the player reaches retirement. The retirement age increases throughout the game in relation to events the player may encounter, such as healthcare improvements.

Key messages explored within the game include, grabbing any opportunities for learning, developing skills and gaining experience, understanding that other peoples experience can provide a rich source of learning, and discovering a vast range of careers – new jobs are emerging all the time.