One of the key outputs of the two-year project, funded by the European Commission under the Lifelong Learning Programme, is a report and a set of recommendations to increase mainstreaming of games for learning in schools, vocational and adult education. The report outlines conclusions related to the use of digital games for learning, as they affect education policy-makers and decision-makers in school, vocational and adult education, presents the underlying evidence behind them and makes a series of recommendations arising from the conclusions and evidence.

This is the conclusion of an important paper on games for learning from the Education Arcade at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The paper starts by making a case for learning games grounded in principles of good fun and good learning. From there the paper explores the commercial games market, gleaning lessons from this rapidly growing and diversifying place. In order to address the concerns of those who see “edutainment” as a dead market, the paper analyzes the downfall of edutainment in the 1990s and establishes how the current movement differs. As
there are many applications of games related (more or less) to learning games, the paper lays out the ecology
of games with a purpose beyond play. Much of the rest of the paper establishes principles and best practices
for moving the field forward in a positive direction. The paper should provide a good grounding in the field
and both motivate and inform those wanting to participate in this rapidly growing domain.

In Learning by Playing: Video Games in the Classroom, Corbett describes the Quest To Learn project running in New York schools. A carefully watched educational experiment funded by the MacArthur Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, among others, Quest To Learn provides equipment to schools and enables children to learn through collaborative and individual play and to design games themselves.

Coinciding with the World Cup is a new feature, enabling children to pool the reward points earned playing games and a class can then run their own Footee team and take on other teams in the same or different countries. Users only see their own language which means, for example, that an English school class can take on a Spanish one and each sees it in their own language. This motivates the children to try harder so the whole class / team can benefit.

http://games.eun.org/2009/09/teachers_handbook_on_how_to_us_1.html#more

ISFE (the Interactive Software Federation of Europe who commissioned the study) say that there has been much interest in the handbook, and they are considering to translate it into other languages. Watch this space for possible further translations in the future!

The handbook, in addition to the full Games in Schools study, has received a lot of interest also in countries outside of the study's focus group. The study has now been presented in Sweden, Austria, Italy and Switzerland, where the handbook was particularly appreciated for being a user-friendly guide for teachers interested in starting to use games in their lessons. The study was also presented at the European Parliament at the European Internet Foundation's breakfast debate on ''Smart learning: video games and other technologies” on 14 April 2010. The link to the programme (and soon the presentation) can be accessed here:

http://www.eifonline.org/en/fiches/events/upcoming-events/10-04-14-breakfast-videogames.cfm?event=11067

To start learning with MovieStarPlanet click here: http://www.moviestarplanet.com/noflash.html

http://www.dpu.dk/site.aspx?p=11097

- Austria
- Denmark
- England
- France
- Italy
- Spain