By: Joanne Oh Source: JESHOOTS.COM on Unsplash   We know from Part 1 how learning transfers from one context to another, and we know from Part 2 how to encourage this transfer more explicitly, but what makes video games in particular a productive environment for learning? Lieberman, Biely, Thai, and Peinado (2014) suggest four areas…

By: Joanne Oh Source: Pexels, Jessica Lewis   In Part 1, we looked at 6 ways learning can transfer to different contexts. Given that we know players can learn a variety of skills from playing video games, and that they are able to apply these skills to contexts outside of video games, how can we…

By Joanne Oh Can managing resources in games like Minecraft benefit classroom education? It depends on the success of a capacity called transfer of learning, which occurs when existing knowledge and skills learned in one context are applied to a new task in a new situation.   Source: Patricia Prudente on Unsplash   Many scholars…

By: Asha Kumar The joy of open-world gaming From the beloved 8-bit forests of T&E Soft’s gem Hydlide to the expansive post-apocalyptic Commonwealth of Bethesda’s Fallout 4 in VR, the concept of an open-world gaming environment has grown since its introduction in 1984 to become a hallmark of successful role-playing video games. Rather than forcing the player…

By: Asha Kumar Earlier this year amongst the slew of education debates that have taken the United States’ political sector by storm, the Pew Research Center released a comprehensive study comparing the math, science, and reading abilities of American students to those of their peers from countries across the globe. What resulted was a series of shocking…

By: Aubrie Amstutz I had always dreamed of being a public school student. I went about my work as if instructed directly by a teacher, craving the traditional assignment and completion gratification cycle, wanting so badly to sit in neat lines with eyes pointed forward to experience what all of the young adult fiction, teen movies,…