Design

One Approach to Evaluating Educational Games

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I’m always looking at the intersection between education and the world of gaming and I just came across what Katrin Becker refers to as the “magic bullet” of evaluating educational games. The argument, as a I can understand from the powerpoint alone, is not too convincing but it does serve as a good introduction of the inherent problems of educational gaming.

My favourite part has to be “MUST avoid repeat of Edutainment Era”.

Magic bullet talk-queens-2

View more presentations from Katrin Becker

The Current State of Augmented Reality

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Augmented reality is, in essence, becoming more real as mobile technology improves and access to it increases. For those of you new to augmented reality it’s using technology to superimpose information on real things like a price of a candy bar when you look at it through your phone or to translate language.

The uses of augmented reality (AR) are only limited by imagination and computational power so expect to see even more AR apps in the future. There is a tone of opportunity for game designers to incorporate AR into their games. The Nintendo 3DS has a camera for this very purpose.

The Wall Street Journal has this code intro video to AR:

When we can put cameras into glasses that overlay information on our view of the world in real time we’ll see a whole new wave of innovative information product and gaming opportunities.