Are you one of those strange people who like to eat moths? (As a vegetarian, I’ll pass.) Perhaps not a typical dish on your celebratory table, but birds like them. And if you are trying to teach kids the concept of natural selection, they can be a good way to do so. Digital Glass, an … Read more Learn About Natural Selection: Play a Game
“Gamification” has become a bad, bad word in a lot of circles. If you are getting an MA in Serious Games, for example, your fellow students will likely be horrified that game elements have been co-opted in pursuit of commercial gain. (Except, perhaps, when it is a game design company designing games in pursuit of … Read more Gamification: Not Always Evil
The 2012 Olympics start in 32 days, and recent TV programming was lousy with Olympic trials. (Including this amazing tie for third place in the women’s 100 meters.) And while the athletes (and advertisers) are preparing, teachers are also preparing to use the Olympics to engage students. Project Britain has developed some teaching resources — … Read more Olympic Teaching
Play a game, get a job. Knack, a start-up, has released Happy Hour, a game designed to test the cognitive skills employers might want, including emotional intelligence, comfort with risk, and flexibility. Playing the short game can give employers as much info about you as extensive interviewing. (Just try convincing the HR people, though.) Turns … Read more Happy Hour as the Path to a New Job
The Institute for the Future is running a 2-day game starting April 3 to “cultivate back-of-the-envelope ideas for new technologies, social enterprises, skillsets, educational approaches, and other strategies or methods to help and empower poor and vulnerable populations around the globe.” Anyone can play. Interesting example of a “serious game.” Serious games are a expected … Read more Gaming to End Poverty
This is a cool little game — the Kerning Game. Anyone interested in typography or printing knows about kerning — the variable space between letters that makes a font look coherent and readable. (And anyone old enough to remember keylining, really knows about kerning.) But what I really like about the game is that it … Read more Actually Kerning