Gaming and Programming in Education

What does it mean to grow up gaming? Critics warn that games may be addictive and lead to aggression. Supporters say that games may be the best educational tools ever.

Marc Prensky is an internationally acclaimed speaker, writer, consultant, and innovator in the field of education and learning. He offers deep experience and insight into educating today’s youth and into using technology — including social media, virtual worlds, programming, games and apps — in powerful ways for learning.

This episode focusing on gamification features a great rundown of learning games and programs, including Minecraft, Gamestar Mechanic, NYC Haunts, and Gamedesk, a game company that recently opened a game-based learning school within a school in Los Angeles.

This infographic explores the use of gaming in classrooms, and how it can help boost students' engagement and motivation.

As video games continue to permeate our culture, schools and students are increasingly interested in using video games for learning. This interest and growing influence has prompted universities and neurologists to question what makes a successful educational game, what the current barriers to adoption are, and how gaming as a whole affects the brain?

Chocolate-covered broccoli. That’s what designers of educational games call digital products that drape dull academic instruction in the superficially appealing disguise of a game. Instead of placing the fun of discovery and mastery at the heart of the game, these imposters use the trappings of games “as a sugar coating” for their otherwise unappetizing content, note Jacob Habgood and Shaaron Ainsworth.

http://youtu.be/IrSky41lhUc The Infinite Thinking Machine is back after a summer hiatus. This episode focusing on gamification features a great rundown of le

MinecraftEdu is the collaboration of a small team of educators and programmers from the United States and Finland. We are working with Mojang AB of Sweden, the creators of Minecraft, to make the game affordable and accessible to schools everywhere. We have also created a suite of tools that make it easy to unlock the power of Minecraft in YOUR classroom.

Gamestar Mechanic uses fun, game-based quests and courses to help you learn game design and make your own video games!

Fast, cross-platform games development: GameMaker:Studio is the perfect tool to develop casual and social games for iOS, Android, desktop and the web from a single source. It offers a powerful yet simple-to-use integrated development environment (IDE) that can make game development 75% faster.

The Computer Science Teachers Association is a membership organization that supports and promotes the teaching of computer science and other computing disciplines. CSTA provides opportunities for K–12 teachers and students to better understand the computing disciplines and to more successfully prepare themselves to teach and learn.

GameSalad is the world’s fastest game design engine. Learn to make and publish hit games for free on iPhone, iPad, Android & HTML5. No coding required.

Create original interactive games, simulations, and puzzles for entertainment, education, and the Web.

Scratch: a programming language for everyone. Create interactive stories, games, music and art - and share them online.

Free activities for classroom or home CS Unplugged is a collection of free learning activities that teach Computer Science through engaging games and emphasizes logic/reasoning skills without computers.

Teacher edition of exercises for beginning computer programming skills without computers.

This video shows an entertaining way to introduce Computer Science to school students. This version is the full 65 minutes video.

eSchool News offers up new parallels between video gaming and 21st century curriculum in this article. Learn how subjects are continuing to be applied successfully to the gaming platforms that kids love.

A young elementary student explains how to use Minecraft and why kids love it.

The term 'gamification' doesn't do the new video game Ludwig justice. It takes the most cutting-edge graphics and couples them with some of the most important lessons a student needs. The creators of Ludwig delivered a TED talk (below) that unveils a bit more information on why and how they built the epic game.

Scot Osterweil, a pioneer in learning and game play, shares his thoughts on the concept of "The Four Freedoms of Play."

The mission of the Center for Advanced Technology in Schools (CATS) is to conduct high-quality research, development, assessment, and evaluation of games and other advanced technologies intended to improve learning.

Helping students disentangle misconceptions they bring to the classroom from the concepts and content they learn in the classroom, particularly in the sciences through games

One of the simplest and most widely known encryption techniques.

MakeGamesWithUs has a whole free year of iOS Curriculum for students to learn to build their own apps!