Here are some other resources regarding student engagement and educational gaming:
• TED Talk; Dr Jane McGonigal: Gaming Can Make a Better World; Game Designer
This clip talks about intense engagement in gaming, hours of play, and also the expertise that gamers derive from the efforts put forth in their games and how we can potentially apply it to the real world.
The average young person today in a country with a strong gamer culture will have spent 10,000 hours playing online games by the age of 21, which is the exact amount of time you will spend in school from fifth grade to high school graduation if you have perfect attendance. It’s also the amount of time it takes to become an ‘expert’ at something. Education may have something to learn from commercial gaming when it comes to focus and engagement.
• Featured in this clip is Pearson Connect, an online software for intermediate level courses in Math, Language Arts, Science, History and Geography. In the video, actual software users claim that student engagement is enhanced through the collaboration and interactivity allotted by the program. Student motivation and achievement is also said to have increased.
• In this EDUCAUSE in Conversation segment, instructors discuss how student engagement is changing with technology. Points of discussion include the collaborative nature of online learning and how students are now more actively engaged in their education. Also mentioned are the changing forms of student participation made possible by online discussion forums and the internet.
