Monument games
Or, where can I buy a copy of these games?
The epistemic games you can learn about on this site are monument games: games designed to test new ideas about learning that have been studied in detail. They show how games can help young people learn to think in innovative ways for a changing world.
The disappointing news is that these games are not (yet) widely available. They were designed to be tested, not distributed.
Monument is a surveying term for a permanently placed survey marker, such as a stone shaft sunk into the ground. Monuments serve as known reference points’”places whose location has been very precisely determined’”that can be used to establish the location of other points on a map.
These monument games provide images of what a new way of thinking about learning might look like. These games are deliberately designed to be best case scenarios. Building a new educational system for the digital age is a big undertaking’”one that requires political, institutional, and intellectual changes. Our hope is to begin that process of change by providing an image of what we need to do and how we might do it.
We hope and expect that, in the coming months, and certainly years, children will have easy access to these epistemic games and many others, at the moment they are quite deliberately images of possibilities, not blueprints or ready-to-use products.
For those interested in trying out the ideas about learning in these games, How Computer Games Help Children Learn also describes commercially available games that makes some of the same kinds of learning possible.
Hello,
I am a researcher who investigates the issues related to learning and games. Currently, also developed electronic games geared to the educational scene.
I wonder if there is the possibility of receiving free one of the games developed for you to be used in Salvador – Bahia with our students in undergraduate and graduate.
A little of our work can be seen in the URL http://www.comunidadesvirtuais.pro.br / triad
I await the return of you.
thanks
Hello! I a from Romania, and i work for University Bucharest. I think this is one of the most intresting projects for future education. We have the same opinion about Game Base Learning, and we use for entreprenorial education the licenses buyed from GoVenture. I want to know much things about your program, and maybe we have a colaboration. .Thank you very much. Sinceriously yours Columb Corneliu
Feel free to drop us a note via email if you want to follow up.
hi..i am a student from Malaysia..i am very interested in epistemic games and now i am doing some research for my final year project in this topics. i would like to have a sample of the Urban Sience games in order to let the participants of my questionnaire try the games and see the respond of the this games. it may help my research of this topic since there are no epistemic games available in Malaysia yet…i also want to know how this epistemic games research had begin and the flow of the research…HOPE TO HEAR FROM U SOON..TQ..
Mr. Shaffer,
a colleague of mine directed me to your work. Very interesting. We (Butch & Sundance Media, Netherlands) work on tools to help kids become self-aware and critical news-consumers. Is it possible to test your journalism.net game somewhere, sometime?
Thanks in advance,
Ludo Hekman
Hi. You should go ahead and contact David Hatfield directly about Science.Net and possible uses of it…. His contact information is on the website.
Hi – I would like an opportunity to play The Pandora Project to work out how you have built in game-based learning and assessment principles.I work in Central Australia where I ‘build in’ these approaches in the work I do. Currently I am managing an educational project to re-negotiate how researchers based in national universities and aboriginal people living in urban and remote communities carry out research projects. I am not so interested in designing an online game per se, more about applying the principles to ‘real-life’ in-the-moment projects and using technologies to suit.I look forward to hearing from you.
Hi! First off – it’s always a pleasure to see people’s interest in this work, so thank you. Next, a bit of disappointing news. Unfortunately, The Pandora Project isn’t currently available to play. If you’d like, we can add you to our contact list where we let folks know when new games come available – just send us an email.That said, the game’s learning and assessment principles are detailed in the chapter on The Pandora Project in How Computer Games Help Children Learn (chapter 12).
Essentially, the game involves players taking on the role of negotiator for different stakeholder groups and is modeled on the training of professional negotiators developed by the Harvard Program on Negotiation. Players develop an understanding of the issues involved – in the game, this means the costs, benefits, and risks of xenotransplantation — by learning about the science behind it and by grappling with the moral dilemmas that this new technology raises. The game thus helps make learning and judgment functional for achieving the goal of mutual satisfaction in the negotiations. For more details about this process, check out the book chapter.
Hello, I am interested in your games, they sound wonderful. Do you ever let schools use the games as a testing site? Would you be interested in collaborating with a school to test your games in the field and gather data on real kids in real schools situations? Please contact me at ipeshkess@thepegasusschool.org
Hi Iriet,
Yes we do collaborate with schools to test the games in classrooms. I will send you an email and we can talk more about it.
Hi, I am a teacher in a 3rd and 4th grade classroom where our students plan and build a small scale model city that exists 100 years in the future. I would love to use the technology in your Urban Science game to extend our curriculum and what the students are learning with what we already do. We’d love to test your game, or work with you to adapt it for our grade level and city, if that is of any interest to you. Please contact me at yellow.cluster@me.com. Thanks, Denise Benjamin
Hi Denise,
We haven’t ever used Urban Science/Land Science with kids that young, but I think it might be interesting to talk and see what kinds of changes we might be able to make. I will send you an email and we can discuss it further.
Thanks for your interest!
I also teach this age range. I am interested in your programs and any discussion on how they might be adapted for elementary level students.
Hello Ben,
Thank you for your comment. We appreciate your enthusiasm and interest in Epistemic Games. As Cynthia has noted, we have not yet used the games with students that young. However, a discussion about what sort of changes would need to be made in order to work with students in that age group is an interesting opportunity.
If you are looking for more information about using Epistemic Games with younger students, you may be interesting in looking at this lecture David Williamson Shaffer http://gcpsx.coeps.drexel.edu/videos/dgvs_ep3public/ gave regarding different age groups and the games, and how teachers assess learning during Epistemic Games. You can also view this post about STEM in elementary schools http://epistemicgames.org/eg/steminelementaryschools/.
Great Effort. I always questioned the conventional education ? and their results. I believe in innovative education is going to change the world. Please mail/call us to let us know how can we be part of your effort. I wish you success in all your future endeavors.
Thank you
Congratulations on some really creative and innovative work. I am leading a small effort here at OSU to build games on top of GIS platforms. We are currently moving our first prototype (see http://osu-geogames.blogspot.com/ for some info) to a web-based GIS environment and would love to discuss/test your Land/Urban Science games for ideas. I look forward to meet Art Graesser and David Hatfield this Friday at OSU for their presentation of Embedded Assessment in Video Games. Maybe there is a chance to meet separately during their visit? Thanks
Hi Ola,
Thanks for the encouragement! I will be showing some of our web-based GIS tool that is embedded in the Land Science game on Friday and would be happy to discuss it during the presentation if you have questions then. And while Professor Graesser and I will be joining the group remotely, you are welcome to email me with other questions as well. Good luck with the Geo Games work.
Hi, it’s so encouraging to see this leap forward in education actually gaining momentum – and yet so frustrating. I’m a teacher in the UK, working in the main with those young people who have ‘failed’ in the current education system, but I believe it is the education system which has failed them. There is, I believe, a different and more innovative path education can take – learning through gaming being one of them.
I run gaming sessions with whatever programmes I can get my hands on (usually free off the internet as I have zero budget for such ‘non educational’ activities). I find it so encouraging that games are being developed to accommodate such forward thinking and yet so frustrating as I can’t get my hands on them!
I know it’s a long shot, but if there’s anyway my learners could take part in your research, then it would be great to hear from you.
I’d like to congratulate you for pursuing your ideas, if nothing else, it makes me feel less isolated!
Regards
Debs Fisher
Hi Debra,
Thanks for your interest in our project.
I would be happy to talk to you more about opportunities to collaborate and use our games with your students. If you could send me an email at cmdangelo@wisc.edu we can chat further about the possibilities.
Looking forward to hearing from you!
Cynthia D’Angelo, Ph.D.
Post doc
I love and support what you guys are doing, but I’m skeptical of the influence publications, presentations, “monument” games, etc. can really have on the future of games in education. The proof is in the pudding. One truly successful educational game, available for purchase and played by millions of kids, is worth 1,000 publications.
Well, hope that these new games for a new era will be distributed and available soon.
Partnership with private sector must be sought and developed!
We agree, and are working on both of those points even now.
Hi,
I’m a 7th and 8th grade social studies teacher that is extremely interested in the epistemic game Land Science. For the past seven years I have been teaching a unit on urban planning and development and have always felt that a game or simulation such as yours would be the ideal culminating project for my students. I am currently on sabbatical but would love to integrate Land Science into my social studies curriculum for the 2012-2013 school year. Please let me know if this is a possibility. If not, do you have any recommendations on a next best option. This is very exciting work and I know that there are a lot of teachers out there who would love to use games such as these in their classrooms. Look forward to hearing from you. Thanks!
Skip Walter
Hello Skip,
Thank you for your question. We appreciate your enthusiasm and interest in Epistemic Games. Our games are designed primarily for research purposes and experimentation with learning in the digital age. They are not yet ready for commercial use. Implementation of these games in certain setting can be difficult and costly given the necessary equipment, training and personnel.
However, if you are interested discussing the opportunity of using Land Science in your classroom please contact Anjali Sridharan anjali.sridharan@gmail.com.