Brain Based Learning

Does video support learning?

Anyone who has ever watched kids play knows it can be serious business. “I’ll be the mommy, you be the dog.” “No, the mommy has to have a baby, not a dog. Besides, I’m a girl – I have to be the mommy.” There are always rules to follow, mistakes to be made, and do-overs to be held. Kind of like life, but with unlimited chances (at least, until the crying starts and someone storms off slamming doors). Games are a great opportunity to role play and learn about different …

Create “Choose Your Own Adventure” stories with Scratch
Elisa Gopin – Interactive Storytelling

These two terms get thrown around a lot, often interchangeably, but they’re not really the same. They’re both important concepts, and they’re both useful. However, they are useful in different contexts and that’s why I think it’s important to define each one.
Game Based Learning, often shortened as GBL, is about using games to teach – facts, concepts, attitudes, whatever. It can use digital games, which is becoming increasingly popular, but has also been used for decades in the classroom with board games, team games, Jeopardy-like quizzes, etc. Anything that uses …

The game Lemonade Stand demonstrates the application of several learning theories in its design. The game uses both text and images to provide prompts and information for the player, which exemplifies Paivio’s dual-coding theory. According to Paivio, there are two “modes” of representing information in long term memory – verbal, consisting of language expression, and imaginal, consisting of visual and spatial information (Schunk, 1999). LS utilizes both of these modes in its gameplay.
Another learning theory evident in Lemonade Stand is situated cognition. This theory explains that thinking and learning are affected …

The idea of game based learning, also known as GBL, has been in the news a lot lately and you may be wondering if it’s more than just hype. Kids learning from games? The same games that were in the news not to long ago as possibly increasing violent tendencies, and definitely taking time away from homework and studying?
Well, like anything else in life, there tend to be positive and negative aspects to games. Some games are overly violent, and many games are more appealing than homework without offering anything …