Posts on “ GameUp ”

A playful, thoughtful professional development day at the BrainPOP office in Manhattan brought designers, educators and gamers together to discuss the future of educational gaming in classrooms across the country. Beginning with a presentation by Nick Fortugno of Playmatics, the New York-based group responsible for The Walking Dead: Dead Reckoning, two Breaking Bad titles, Lego City: On Patrol, Find the Future and Kingdom Keepers, we pondered how to tap into the high engagement potential and adaptable learning opportunities available within games. Noting the natural curiosity youngsters and adults alike tap into whilst exploring fictional game worlds (much like the PS3‘s adventure/art masterpiece and award magnet, Journey), Nick spoke to attendees about team loyalty and motivation through competition. Mastering in-game achievements requires skill, practice, patience and perseverance, just as learning standards in the classroom do, now defined by the Common Core State Standards Initiative. Unlike the sluggish turnaround time for multiple choice or open-ended test questions in school, games provide instant feedback to users so they may refine game-play strategy and persist. The lecture concluded with the group wondering how best to collaborate, given the rarity of serious gamer-turned-educators. Next up, BrainPOP’s Allisyn Levy introduced mathematics puzzler Lure of the Labyrinth:… Read the Rest»

BrainPOP’s Allisyn Levy shares her experience integrating assessment into game-based learning. For a long time, I was on a hunt for an amazing English Language Arts game that tied into curriculum and the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). A big part of my role at BrainPOP® is vetting games for GameUp®, our online games portal. I focus a lot on working with teachers and students to play-test new games and features so we can shape our offerings to meet our audience’s needs. For months my search continued, and for every huge handful of games we saw, only one or two were really gems. We did discover some outstanding Language Arts games, including Classroom Inc.’s TSN2, Learning Games Network’s Quandary, and many of the iCivics games, all featured on GameUp. But we started to realize that you can actually tie digital games across all subject areas into English Language Arts (ELA) using assessment. In one of my favorite student challenges, I ask the class to create a “cheat sheet” or walk-through. This involves the kind of 21st-century skills the CCSS focus on, both in terms of ELA and literacy in the content areas. Quality digital games are a powerful way to teach the formulation of evidence-based arguments, for… Read the Rest»

Wednesday, March 13th at 3:30 PM ET- Get Your Game On: BrainPOP & National STEM Video Game Challenge  You’ve heard about the tremendous potential games have for learning and engagement, but how do you bring them into your own classroom? This webinar, featuring our friends at the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop, highlights different ways to implement game-based learning. You’ll also get the details on the National STEM Video Game Challenge: work with your students as they design their own games and strengthen their STEM skills.

Heading to the SXSWEduConference and Festival, March 4-7 in Austin? Be sure to check out Got Game? Learning Through Play. Seriously. Taking place on Monday, March 4 at 3:00 PM, it features our very own Arturo Guajardo,Texas District Relations Manager, as well as some of our amazing GameUp partners. Arturo, with Jennifer Groff (Learning Games Network), Dan White (Filament Games), and Michael Angst (E-Line Media), will explore the role of learning games, barriers to their implementation, and related research. Plus, you’ll have the chance to to play games alongside the panelists. Don’t miss this session bringing together the perspectives of true game development and education experts. We’re thrilled that many of our GameUp partners are set to participate in other SXSW sessions as well. Among those you might want to add to your schedule are Educating the Create and Share Generation; Mind the Gap: Games, Impact, Potential, Reality; LRMI: A Peek Under the Hood of Personalized Learning; and How to Play: Models for Game-Based Learning. You’re guaranteed to leave SXSWEdu feeling inspired! Keep up with the action on Twitter with #SXSWEdu and @brainpop.

You might remember Todd LaVogue from his guest blog post back in September. He continues to do incredible projects with his students and was able to organize and complete a field trip for 38 students to the 2013 Presidential Inauguration through 10 months of fund raising and planning.  BrainPOP was there to help him along the way, so check out his reflection of his presidential planning below! While the election and government related BrainPOP movies laid the groundwork, the biggest BrainPOP contributor to student learning was the GameUp section. Three games – Win the White House, Budget Hero and Executive Command proved to be addictive for the students, who quickly learned it is not a simple or easy job to be President of the United States. In Win the White House, students learned about the strategy involved with a campaign. The game reinforced higher-order thinking skills needed to successfully run a presidential campaign. “Politics seem complicated,” said seventh grader Eugena Butler. “Win the White House game made it easier for me to understand a campaign. Obama and Romney had to work real hard to get enough votes.” Budget Hero and Executive Command allowed the students to make future-altering decisions as… Read the Rest»

Boston Area Teachers! Friday, 11 January 2013, 10:00 a.m.-4:00 p.m. EST Join local learning game designers, educational researchers, and fellow teachers for an intimate one-day professional development workshop designed to help make game design a reality in your classroom. Organized by BrainPOP, Learning Games Network, and the MIT Education Arcade, the day will focus on new ways we can all make learning playful for our students. Learning game designers, researchers, and educators will lead sessions on how you can more effectively integrate BrainPOP’s GameUp resources into your classroom teaching and introduce the Learning Games Network’s Game Design Tool Kit as a way to engage students in conceptual game design. In the afternoon, you’ll be the first to play a handful of new games, produced earlier in the the week by teams of designers and programmers from MIT, BrainPOP, Learning Games Network, and Emerson College’s Engagement Lab; these new games are being produced to help us better assess and understand student learning through games! We’re looking for Boston-area teachers to join us for this exciting and productive professional development program. Each participant will leave with a sense that… Game-based learning is doable! It’s educational! Teachers can shape the direction of games being… Read the Rest»

Wednesday, November 7th at 4:00 PM ET- edWeb.net Presents- Transgressive Play: How Games Invite Kids to Break the Rules and Why Its Great for Learning Are you interested in implementing games in the classroom? Join edWeb.net on November 7th for their community’s next webinar when instructional technology specialist and game designer Marjee Chmiel will be exploring transgressive play, what it means for educational games, and its implications for practicing educators. Transgressive play includes breaking rules, competition, searching for game exploits, and exploring taboos. With over 97% of school-age children having had played a video game “yesterday”, kids bring certain expectations and habits of play to educational games. Often, educational game design fails to anticipate these habits and expectations, making it harder for teachers to achieve desired educational outcomes. Marjee will show how transgression can help promote learning. She also will share examples from games that maximize learning via transgressive play elements as well as classroom management strategies for implementing games for learning. Join her on November 7th to learn how and why transgressive play is great for learning. To Participate in the Live Session – Login at www.instantpresenter.com/edweb3 at the scheduled time. – There is no pre-registration for this event. – This webinar… Read the Rest»

The presidential election is just around the corner and GameUp has quite a few games that will engage your students while learning about the election process.  With a special election edition of “Budget Hero,” students will form a better understanding of the budget impact of President Barack Obama and Gov. Mitt Romney’s policies, as well as those plans championed by their running mates.  Additionally, our friends at iCivics have created some excellent election-focused interactive games that you can find on GameUp.  “Win the White House” takes students on the campaign trail to explore both the primary and general elections and the Electoral College.  Once they’ve secured the president’s seat, a round of “Executive Command” will give them the opportunity to exercise their power and learn about the day-to-day obligations of our nation’s leader. Not sure of where to begin?  All of our GameUp games have related teacher resources to support the use of these games in the classroom.  And, don’t forget to check out our election spotlight for additional games and movies that are linked to the election.

Wednesday, October 17th at 4:00 PM ET- On the Ballot: Election-Themed Games from iCivics It’s election season and we’ve got just what you need to teach your students about the path to becoming president. Our friends at iCivics join us for this hour-long webinar to discuss the fabulous teacher resources and interactive games they have to offer. The iCivics games such as Win the White House and Executive Command paired with our BrainPOP resources are the perfect tools for you to engage your students while teaching about the election process. With the presidential election just around the corner, this is one webinar you won’t want to miss.

Wednesday, October 10th at 4:30 PM ET- Using Games in a Blended Lesson Want to make your mark as a blended educator? Look no further than the fast-evolving world of using Digital Games Based Learning in the classroom. As the availability of good curriculum-based games improves, teachers across the country are innovating rapidly in how they blend games based learning into their lesson plans. Using game-driven problem solving, certificates, exciting tournament formats and after-school clubs, teachers are finding new ways to amplify this powerful mode of study, motivating students across a wide range of abilities and supporting them as they tackle difficult problems. Join Toby Rowland, CEO of Mangahigh.com, the K12 online math site, as he explores some of the classroom activity in this exciting field, and get ideas for your own program of games based learning.