When Playing Halo is Good Teaching, I’ll Be l33t

Interesting article in the December 6th edition of Education Week on the Serious Games Summit held in October. The upshot of the conference was that video games might not be such a bad thing, and the article lists some good examples of educational software:

History:

• Virtual History: Ancient Egypt from KnowledgeMatters.com
  
• Discover Babylon from the Federation of American Scientists

Math:

• Video Game Development (really, that’s the name of the game) from I Support Learning Inc.
  
• Hot Shot Business from Disney Online

Science:

• Hidden Agenda Games, written by college students with money from the Liemandt Foundation. There are games on chemistry, physics, algebra, and biololgy.
  
• Immune Attack, also from the Federation of American Scientists
  
• Uncharted Depths: The Game of Scientific Literacy from Filament Games. However, it hasn't been published yet.
  
• Wonderville, from the Science Alberta Foundation. This one doesn't really pass muster as a video game, to me, but all the same....

It makes one wonder why there isn’t a teaching simulation. Combine elements of Leisure Suit Larry with a dash of Phantasy Star and a little bit of Doom II thrown in for good measure, and you’d have it. Put it online and it could be a course requirement in ed schools around the country; the lazy/good professor’s best friend.

The conference is also mentioned in this month’s edition of Interactive Educator magazine.