In the past couple of years, there has been an increase of game device use for areas other than actual gaming. The newest area of use is for physical health. Medical researchers and physical therapists are finding that using virtual reality games are very helpful in terms of treatment and rehabilitation for stroke patients. The…
“It turns out video games are just a Trojan horse for studying interest-driven learning” – Constance Steinkeuhler Jesse Schell lead the development of an educational game called Lexicawith the goal of developing life-long habits of reading in children. Lexicais set up as an action game, and in order to progress in the video game the…
Incentive Research Foundation Annouces The Do’s And Don’t Of Gamification With 1 in 4 corporate programs now using some form of gamification, it is more important than ever to make sure you are doing it right. In a recent publication, Gamification Done Right – The Do’s and Don’ts, The Incentive Research Foundation (IRF) offers 10 crucial…
Survey Shows Majority of Employees Would Welcome Game Elements in Daily Tasks Employee engagement is one of the biggest challenges in the business world, yet recent numbers show many companies are missing opportunities to increase worker motivation. A survey conducted by TechnologyAdvice revealed that more than 70 percent of office employees felt digital engagement software…
Over the course of the last 15 years there has been a great amount of debate about how video games are shaping the minds and behavior of young people. Video game addiction has become a prevalent concern, and some researchers suggest impressionable adolescents may be driven to brutality by the violent fantasy world of video…
May the Force (Shoe) Be With You! It’s a long way from the runways of Milan to low-earth orbit, but the two have one thing in common: a new generation of shoes called ForceShoes. While certainly eye-catching, they don’t look like designed footwear, but are designed to help NASA gather data on how astronauts are walking…
A Serious Game Helps Analyze Complex Cancer Research Data Although serious games have many uses – employee engagement, marketing and learning among them – one area that may prove as a surprise is cancer research. After all, researchers don’t need games, and cancer research cannot be done by just anyone, right? Play to Cure: Genes in Space…
Since the beginning of the gamification movement, we’ve had our fair share of naysayers. Some have been academics, others simply impassioned folks with strong opinions. At their most charitable, these critics have stated – as fact – that basic gamification mechanics simply won’t (can’t) work. At their worst, they’ve accused us of being manipulative, under-informed…
We were very excited to have Andrea Kuszewski join us at GSummit again. Andrea is a Researcher and Manager at Scientific Vortex Group. Below are her bio, video and slides from GSummit SF 2014: Andrea is a research scientist in the fields of cognitive neuroscience and psychology, focusing mainly on creativity, intelligence, motivation, sociopathy, and…
According to The Guardian, as many as 2 million children are believed to be affected by Math anxiety in England alone. The symptoms of Math anxiety may vary, but typically when facing a spike of cortisol (stress hormone) by being presented with a math challenge, the mind of the student with Math anxiety triggers symptoms that reflect stress in the body (tension, sense of paralysis, forgetfulness, sweat, etc). The issue silently sabotages the learning experience of students not only in Math, but across other disciplines from the STEM spectrum that use Math. Fortunately, there have been studies and even a game that aims to help these students cope with the symptoms of Math anxiety.
As we move into our next installment of GSummit (June 10-13 in San Francisco), we look at some of our speakers and experts that have helped shape the gamification & user engagement space. This week’s Spotlight Expert is Andrea Kuszewski (@AndreaKuszewski) — Researcher & Manager, Scientific Vortex Group. Andrea has been one of our top rated speakers at GSummit multiple…
A study published in PLOS ONE, an online peer-reviewed journal, gives quantitative evidence of what effects video gaming has from a physical, biological perspective. At very least, playing video games can alter your brain.
Studying a mix of 152 teenagers, both boys and girls, testing was done on two areas of the brain: the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and the left frontal eye fields (FEF). What the researchers discovered was that these areas, responsible for executive control, strategic planning, and eye movement relative to “visio-spatial attention” were all positively influenced by video game play in a significant way.
Two different experiments were conducted to find out whether white players assigned to play as black avatars made them more prone to develop racial bias against black people. Each study aimed approached this experiment from two angles, testing different types of game play and testing different degrees of immersion. The results were quite interesting…and probably what you’d expect.
What determines your blood type? The Nobel Prize organization is offering a number of game based learning exercises rooted in the work of Nobel Prize winners of various science categories. One such game is The Blood Typing Game, which is based on the 1930 Nobel Prize for Medicine awarded for the discovery of human blood groups…
There has been a lot of buzz going on as more schools and universities adopt methods of game based learning. It’s gaining so much ground that studies are emerging to test if game based learning is truly effective. From what the studies have learned thus far , the answer is a resounding “Yes, it is.”
In late 2002, the iVISiCE (interactive Visualization in Civil Engineering) project was founded to assist students of Civil Engineering in their studies. The project was to test if learning by ways of animations and visualizations was more effective than traditional textbook methods.
