BP9_W2_Reading

The articles I reviewed for my Action Research project this week focus on two different aspects of my research in education gaming. One is based on educational theory and how gaming may improve learning through motivation and the others are related to the implementation of games into the curriculum. The four articles I selected are as follows:

Li-Chun, W., & Ming-Puu, C. (2010). The effects of game strategy and preference-matching on flow experience and programming performance in game-based learning. Innovations in Education & Teaching International, 47(1), 39-52. doi:10.1080/14703290903525838.

This article is very interesting because it dealt with game play theory. That is, how people play the game and whether or not certain educational components take away from the game experience. The authors wrote about how matching components of the game took away from the flow of the game experience. This research is important to my Action Research because as I implement the game into the curriculum I need to be sure that I strike a perfect balance between game play and academics.

Gordon, S. (2010). what's your game plan?. T H E Journal, 37(5), 33-38. Retrieved from Academic Search Premier database.

This article was quite a find in relation to my action research. The content of the article relates to several pilot programs for the DimensionM software in Florida. It gives a teacher’s perspective to the implementation process as well as words of wisdom. One statement that hold true is, "Don't pick a technical person who cannot make an academic decision," he advises. "Get an academic you can geek out." This is a statement that many people miss when developing software for the education community. Too often, companies produce items for education that are ill conceived and not capable of meeting the needs of teachers and student.

Newmark, W. (2005). Enhancing the social studies curriculum through play. Retrieved from http://www.brainmeld.org/TeachingGuideLibrary/BrainMeld-AgeOfEmpires-Newmark.pdf.

This article by Wendy Newmark is quite helpful because it is an example of how to implement the game Age of Empire into the middle school curriculum. It also includes the California standards that are met through game play. By reading through the information, it gave me another option for a game to implement. This game is older than Discovering Babylon, but the content is of high quality.

Federation of American Scientists (2010). Learning technologies projects. FAS website. Retrieved from http://www.fas.org/programs/ltp/games/index.html.

This website gives information about the various games and simulations available from the Federation of American Scientists. This organization has the knowledge, ability, and in most cases the funds to create a game for educational purposes. This is the organization that developed the Discovering Babylon game, which was my first choice to implement into the middle school curriculum, but the more I research the more I think I may have to opt for another game.