Speaking of badges, good news folks: the American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning is a Stage 1 winner in the MacArthur Foundation’s Digital Media and Learning Teacher Mastery badge competition (whew, that was a mouthful). Our proposal is to develop a badge system for an online professional development community in which teacher-learners develop their skills as history educators, instructional designers and peer collaborators. We are working with game developers and education researchers on the Stage 2 proposal which describes the functionality of the badges in more detail. And, if all goes very well, we’ll be heading to San Francisco at the end of February to pitch the project in front of a live panel of judges. Whatever happens, we are learning the ins and outs of badging as a way to motivate and recognize life-long learning.
Category Archives: Announcements
Games Network Presentation at the CUNY IT Conference
CUNY Games Network members are presenting at the annual CUNY IT Conference this Friday, December 2nd, at John Jay College in Manhattan. Our session takes place at 1pm — here’s a teaser:
Gaming Your Classroom
Games-based learning is an interactive, interdisciplinary pedagogy that uses best practices in collaborative learning and simulations. Join the CUNY Games Network as we showcase some of our research in teaching through gaming. A short introduction to the theory of games-based learning will be presented, followed by a game brainstorming and creation activity. Participants from all disciplines will find something to use in the classroom, from computer-based games to “ordinary” board and card games.
Hope to see you there!
Image credit: Erik Hungerbuhler
“Learning Through Quests and Contests: Games in Information Literacy Instruction”
Games Network member Maura Smale (I’m her!) just published an article about using games in information literacy and research instruction in the latest issue of the Journal of Library Innovation. The article reviews the ways that games-based learning has been used to teach information literacy in a variety of settings, from digital to non-digital games, in classrooms and online, and discusses benefits of games-based learning in library instruction for students and librarians. JOLI is an open access journal, and if you’re interested you can read the article on the journal’s website.
Image credit: Ewa Rozkosz
