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.
So how can I test a game then (urban science)?
Thanks!
Julia
This is good! I’ve always felt and known computer games could be used to teach. The Army uses one of the biggest games known to teach tactics and skills to tank commanders and their crews.
THIS IS A GREAT IDEA. DON’T LET IT DIE
Would it be possible to allow downloads of these games from the site? Even if they are not 100% QA tested, they could still serve some useful purpose. I would pay $5 to trial these games.
Outstanding
My Father who was on the SES staff at the GAO office, made some simular suggestions to a group of educator from all over the country, with hopes of upgrading our way of teaching to meet today’s challenge. The suggestions of his team where met with the Deer in the head lights look.
My Nephew 12 and Niece 3 routinely play educational games. They are both leaps and bounds ahead of thier class mates at private school. They also attend Kumon.
I woulld like to assist in any way, to further your quest to get these and many other games like them into the main stream.
You people are making a difference in the world
I applaud your efforts !
Ron Frazier
I live in Brazil. Can I take the game in my computer? HOW?
Dear David Williamson Shaffer,
yes, educational games are the future of learning.
How about free game construction kits (not only) for our children, such that we all learn to set up our own games, incorporating, reinforcing and even selling stuff and skills to be learned.
This is at the same time the future of work in a knowledge society.
Fridemar Pache
PS.:
Could you please point us to free available game-authoring systems like Blender, Alice, etc. Thank you.
I have a 13 and 14 year old who grew up on Magic School bus books, videos and computer games, as well as any other fun but educational games I could get my hands on. In many subjects they are ahead of their peers for having this exposure. Both they and I would love to have them participate in any trials that are available.
My middle son is your average learner. Struggled through school most of the time. He became hooked on Age of Empires and played all the versions–passed his World History classes with flying colors. I think this is a terrific way to encourage our newest generation that learning can still be fun while being educational–please let us know when we can purchase–or even do beta testing on any of these products.
As a professional technical writer in the field of IT and the mother of two now successful professionals, I would love to be involved in this project. If you need a writer/editor, I’d love to hear from you.
hay, I don´t know making domwload´s of the games.
I can help.
I´m brasilian boy, Can player this very, very inteligent games for studants.
Who games of human sociedad, etic, advocat and judge for me install.
tank you.
Games or simulations are the key to advancing education. I’m sure such software will become the defacto standard in schools. Eventually this software managed by A.I. will become the equalizer in education.
Would donate my services to help design, execute and analyze in-situ experiments to determine the impacts on randomly assigned students. To accurately assess this potential a comprehensive statistical design is essential with clear metrics and process.
Please don’t hesitate to contact me. My work email is al.clary@eds.com; ph:972-797-9112. This work is “priceless” and is essential to improving our ailing educational system.
Thank you for your pursuit of knowledge.
Al
Epistemic as in epistemology, -ic rather than -ology?
It doesn’t matter: What aptly named such games as those meant to instruct, inform, shape, or educate by harnessing the pleasure of play to motivate and stimulate learning.
Bravo.
I’m a 60-year old boy that still likes to play all sorts of games, ludic or didactic, and who likes to read books or surf the net to know more about games as epistemic phenomena or stochastic potentialities, and learning about the existence of your enterprise makes me purr delightedly.
Again, bravo. My very best wishes to your pedagogical enterprises.
YPC
PS: Sure, you can use me as a rat; I’ll play.
I’ll second the praise for the concept. In fact, I have been working on my own journalism games (I am a longtime journalist and journalism educator, and parent of a 10-year-old who I have been training as a proto-journalist). I am thus of course very curious to see what you have been doing, and perhaps to find enthusiastic and able collaborators, in and out of academe. Journalism is quite simple is some ways, but complex in others, and blending new and old thinking as technology changes its delivery and practice is a challenge game theories and praxis are well-suited to approaching. If anyone is interested in sharing thoughts, this is as good a nexus as any to get some useful exchange going. Feel free to email me, putting Journalism Game in the subject line for most effective filing and managemnet. Thanks, and good luck with your important work.
Chris Vaughan
Associate Professor of Communication
and
Journalism Program Director
Santa Clara University
cav1898@yahoo.com
As a graduate student in Instructional Technology at Southern Illinois University, my focus has been in games as learning environments. I would like to see more of your research and gain access to your strategies and methods for planning and creating these games within the frameworks of IT. At times I have come to odds with others in the field of how IT priciples can and should be applied in the gaming field. Particularly in the possibility of creating constructivist learning environments in MMORPs and the like. Please let me know if you have examples of research and if I can gain access to your games and IT design(s).
Keep your shield up and your sword drawn. Your battle with educators and parents may be long and difficult, but your work is VITAL! Continue at all costs!
Here’s some empirical data for ya:
Father of 6 kids. Ages 7-16. 3 boys, 3 girls. ALL kids play video games.
Boy, 16, WWII game fanatic. Increased confidence in high school as World History class is now studying WWII people, places, and events which boy knows at a professor level. Also, tested boy’s tying speed: low 90 wpm to high 104 wpm. 90-100% accuracy.
Boy, 14, football gaming fanatic. Football gaming led to interest in playing live football. Played first year of high school football. Increased body size and strength, confidence in school, and group of friends.
Girl, 10, “Neopets” fanatic. Video game play inspires her love of drawing, especially those Neopets characters. Love of drawing led to love of Photoshop. She now possesses Photoshop proficiency level that can get her a job. (As a writer/photographer, I pay her slave…I mean “parent” wages for Photshop work she does at my office.)
Other kids have similar experiences.
Video games CAN be an ally to parenting and to 21st Century education. Keep up your fight. Heck! Find a way to testify before Congress!
Btw, I will buy 4 or 5 of those software titles the day they are publicly available.
Rudy Hightower, II
As a parent, who has recently discovered I have a gifted child, this is the type of “game” we have been searching for. We live in a rural area and do not have many resources available. Keep this going!!!
I’d like to see some Math games…esp for algebra, geometry and trigometry
Julie, “gifted” means next to nothing nowadays.
You are on the right track. I look forward to reading the book. Sadly I would guess that you are hopelessly naive on the propspect of using games based learning in the U.S. educational system. The system is controlled by unions that will do everything in their power to maintain the status quo. Their efforts are directed towards keeping education as it was at the turn of the last century. Good luck in your efforts to modernize this system.
Neat-o-Keen. I’m the father of a 9 year old with auditory processing issues. The little man loves gaming. Wondering if any software is being devoloped for those with learning disibilities.
I’ve seen software for this but it’s not “fun type” gaming.
We are a home school family with 2 children who are keenly interested in everything. Learning through technology helps them learn faster and retain the information more efficiently. We would love to use these games,test them, share them with the million or so other homeschool families in the United States! I wish this existed when I was young!
Fantastic idea to have gaming to help in the learning process to advance education. My son 14 spends hours playing different games, but ask him to read he does it for less than 30 min. Print becomes boring to children after the fast paced action of 3D video. If you need a tester for your games we are here for you. Pursue your idea and don’t give up!
Please provide any information on how we may get signed up for a trial as my son aspires to be a biomedical engineer. Currently in high school I can discuss any details and be contacted via email or at 612-747-0111.
I am an education student here in the philippines and I believe that video games can be used as a powerful tool to educate the students, as a constructivist approached teacher I believe that learning can be done through experiences and that experiences can be also acquired through video games.
Bill: if you want an algebra game, check out Dimenxian (www.dimenxian.com) by Tabula Digita.
Thank You – I am glad to see a university doing this research. We have been deploying similar curriculum for middle and high schools since 2003 and have had terrific success all over the country in a broad range of topics. Your research is validating what we have been doing with our standards based interactive game curricula. Again Thanks – Steve Waddell Lead Developer I Support Learning, Inc.
Hey just stumbled on this site.
I’ll echo the comments of all in here. I grew up in the days of Apple IIc and E, then Commodore days, and etc.
The school board in my area had apples in the class, and I learned angles from a silly turtle (read triangle) drawing on a page with LOGO. Later on, our board upgarded to PC compatible machines, and gave the students the ability to use the “Math Blaster” series of games, a series of games where you had to capture the badguy, but were quized on math problems along the way, both word and numeric. Settlers, where in the world is Carmen Sandiego, where in time is Carmen Sandiego, are a few more titles that I remember fondly from my childhood – that the school had on their machines. I can remember being giddy that my parents went out and got me Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego, because I got a HUGE dictionary with it!?! Can you imagine a kid becoming happy with getting a dictionary???
Almost 20 years later, I have downloaded a copy of a majority of these titles to play again for the nastalgia of it, but those were fun times!
I think to make this venture more succesful, I have a number of suggestions:
1. Make these available to the public for download for a donation to the cause.
2. Make these nominally costed and available through PTA organizations globally.
3. Make them available in Public Libraries.
4. Provide them to major ISPs around the globe, and allow users to Download them.
5. Partner with a major software company (not making any derogatory remarks about current size) like EA, and have them carry your titles under a new section of games.
In this day an age of globalization, making your products available to the “older kids”, parents, teachers, students, etc of the world will increase the likelyhood of its success. When I have kids of my own (still way too much of a kid myself to venture there yet
) I will ensure that they will be wired (or wireless now right) growing up. I am much more knowledgeable and proficient than my own counterparts that didn’t have the benefit of having a wired upbringing, and I will bring this to my children, and their friends.
Anything that I can do to help, please let me know. I would love to play these games myself, and would be happy to beta any of this.
I believe I can get a grant for finishing the development and make this available to either public schools, private schools, and/or homeschool organizations such as the The Learning Community, Int’l which our kids are enrolled in.
Please call me at 301-831-9480 to let me know your thoughts. I think we can catapult this to new and greater levels.
I am doing my doctoral work at Capella University on gaming and education and I am very interested in helping in this project. It has been my belief that gaming is the next big “thing” in education and I believe this will meet kids where they are.
I would love to participate and talk to you in relation to my dissertation.
Thank you,
Billy Bowen
Oak Hill, Florida
I think this is a great idea. Please give us a link to access trials.
I’m an administrator in a school (1st through 12th grade) for children with ADHD and related disorders. Our school is very technologically oriented (over 1:2 computer/student ratio). We use many learning games with our students on a daily basis with great success. The games encourage students to stick with the subject matter longer than any worksheet or oral instruction could ever accomplish.
I have a masters degree in cognitive neuroscience and, because of my education and understanding of how the brain learns, I would implement your learning games in our school immediately if it were possible.
Keep up the good work and keep us posted. We will want to purchase your games as soon as they are made available. Thank you
HAY, I´M BRAZILIAN BOY. VERY GOOD THIS PAGE AND YOUR ARTIG’S. I’M GOOD OF GAME “THE PANDORA PROJECT”, BUT, DOENS’T CAN DOWNLOAD OF GAME.
HOW CAN DOWNLOAD THIS GAME.
THANK YOU.
Ad the Director of English Language Learner Programs in a small district, I find thie whole game concept as a wonderful idea. Using technology, it would be a simple addition to allow students to click to check-for-meaning as they learn a second or third language.
I hope these come out soon!
It is great to see more and more people involved in bringing new technology in schools and in home !! But isn’t this what Alan Kay is doing with is work since 30 years ?
They have developed a multimedia platform (SQUEAK) by which it is possible to develop game for children and not children.
Multimedia in education is a vast movement that is growing from the above … istitution (especially in europe) will be the last to help this process …
Just picked up this site thru Reuters..You cannot
get this to market fast enough. Have grandchildren who beg for learning games. “Age of
Empires” fabulous…Need more math and science
games…All on your list sound great but need to
be geared so that children can become involoved at
earliest ages possible..Please send me names of
learning games that are available now.
Appreciate your work….
Why are there only games available to learn about careers? What about helping our kids/college students and even adults learn things such as economics, history or information technology.There are NEVER any games like this on the shelves at retailers. Its sad. Most adults have been out of school for so long they couldn’t identify 5 states on a map. As technology advances amd time constraints continue many people are keep in the dark.
Dear David Williamson Shaffer,
I am a Technology Specialist in the educational field. We are currently testing a bunch of different software implementations to prove the theory, so far results have been astounding. Using simple flash games, we were able not only to stimulate under exercised parts of the brain, but to also improve the quality at which our educational curriculum is presented. We have found through especially our primary section that motor, analytical, mathematical and perception skills have increased tenfold by focusing on fun. I will be more than happy to assist you in the testing and development of these programs, I also believe that due to the exact nature of our school that we can carefully monitor progress and with the help of our resident psychologists give a bit more to the program.
Yours Kindly
Izak Visser
I.T Facilitator
Windhoek International School
Hello….How can donwload this game???
Thanks…
I live in Mozambique. How can donwload this game?
Another homeschooling parent checking in. I came here hoping to find out how to purchase the games, but see they are not available yet. I can’t wait until they are!
My son is only 7, so hopefully, by the time he’s old enough to participate in these games (they seem geared more toward older kids), access to them will be easier.
Please keeping working toward that goal, games such as these are much needed, especially for those who are willing to think and teach outside of the box!
jennifer
Another homeschooling parent wishing to buy this for my middle-schooler. Please have it available SOON !
Dear Dr. Williamson
I enjoyed your book so much.
I recently began my PhD. in Valencia Spain. My work is on interactivity and education in museums, and your project gave important information. Is there any chance I could integrate your team of researchers, I would love to contribute and learn.
hope we can get these games someday, please let me know when they are available,
congratulations and thanks in advance,
xochitl
I’m coming to Madison in the fall for a semester. I would like to take your Human Learning course. I’m very interested in the intersection between brain research and human learning and games.
I am an Instructional Technology Specialist and very interested in epistemic gaming for middle school students. I would love to find out more about these types of games/simulations as they are developed.
I teach board gaming and mathematics in a K-12 school and would love to help as required.
I am working with a at-risk youth in an alternative secondary school near Vancouver, BC, Canada. I am exploring how to incorporate web-based resources into our curricula to improve student engagement — i.e. to get my kids to turn off their devices and tune into their schoolwork. I would love to be part of this project — so would my students!
I would like to buy Urban Science and Math blaster but where is a web site or store?
‘Designed to be tested not distributed.’
What a facile understanding of what the internet can do for this project. Put some kind of educational GNU license on them and let people use them.
The logic of not distributing a game to people that helps people learn is bizarre. Unless, of course, there is a profit motive involved.