Microsoft to see if shoot-em-up games can enhance education (El Paso Times)
Comments(1) Microsoft has put up $1.5 million to start The Games for Learning Institute, a joint venture with New York University and other colleges. The goal of the research is to see whether video games — and not just software specifically designed to be educational — can draw students into math, science and technology-based programs. The institute has begun lining up middle school students to study. –Dave Kolpack
[Sources such as Linda Burch, chief program and strategy officer for Common Sense Media, claims that “There isn’t a lot of good research out there,” referring to shooter games. However, James Paul Gee’s What Video Games Have to Teach Us about Learning and LIteracy is a book-length examination of the first-person-shooter video game genre, recently revised and updated in a new edition. BK]
category: Gaming, Literacy, Pedagogy, Popular Culture, Rhetoric and Poetics, Technology