The Classroom Can Be All Fun & Games

Learning can ’ t be fun , can it ?

Inspired by research by Carrie Heeter et al. and the MIT Games-to-Teach project we set up a small scale empirical study on two educational games on Art aimed at primary school children. We found that both boys and girls liked to play these games; that one game scored better on our ‘fun-index’ and that girls had less mouse skills and lacked certain game skills. This did not, however, affect thei...

Chapter 4 Serious Games and Seriously Fun Games Can

As already elaborated in the previous chapters of this volume, serious games have been acclaimed for playing an increasingly important role in learning, psychological development, and social change (see Ratan & Ritterfeld, this volume, chapter 2; Ritterfeld, Cody, & Vorderer, this volume, chapter 1). Serious games represent the effort to facilitate education through digital entertainment media,...

Can Library Research Be Fun? Using Games for Information Literacy Instruction in Higher Education

Can Distance and Classroom Learning Be Increased?

Professor Scott Overmyer of Baker College, in a discussion list post, raised four points bearing on a question of interest to those involved in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL): Can Distance and Classroom Learning Be Increased? My answer: “YES” judging from the fact that pre/post testing in courses in Newtonian mechanics has demonstrated an approximately two-standard-deviation su...

Formative assessment can be fun as well as educational.

An understanding of the hormonal basis of normal growth and development, including the changes occurring at puberty, is important foundation knowledge for contemporary medical practice in most fields of medicine. A quiz, testing the important physiological concepts of growth and puberty, was designed using the format of the well-known television game "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire." An evaluati...