Monday, March 24, 2008

A Gaming Example in Secondary Ed Example

I wanted to share a resource for a 3-D, immersive, virtual world style game that has been getting a lot of attention lately. DimensionM is by Tabula Digita (http://www.dimensionm.com/) and is a 3D FPS style game in which students use Algebra skills to complete missions and various tasks. As you know, most video games for education fall into the drill-and-kill category, but this goes beyond that model to provide an immersive game with a higher prodction value that is nearer to the games students play in their own time. We are going to be implementing this game in the Algebra classes at our school soon, as part of a research study with some researchers from the Ed Tech department at UF.

While this is not a virtual world in the sense of a persistent, social environment, it does provide an immersive world for exploration and experiential learning. The multiplayer version of the game is very intense both in terms of game-play and math skills. I have never played anything quite like it - http://thejournal.com/articles/21915 .

-David

2 comments:

Javahawk said...

Shit, do they offer this in linear algebra? It reminds me of this MMOFPS called Planetside.

Tiwei Lin said...

I played it. I think the idea in this game is cool but may not be completely implemented in second life. Although it's more like a game, I believe it's a good example in education and interactive application.