WRAP UP

So, after a semester of learning about information in a networked world, its time for one final blog post. At first when my group chose to focus on video games and gamification, I was terrified because I am the furthest thing from a gamer.

Even though my group was all focused on the same topic, we all managed to take a different approach to it. Xiaoran looked into the benefits of gaming, Cheng Zhao focused on the economic value of video games, while I looked at the educational benefits of gamification.

Admittedly, my posts were mostly influenced by TedTalks. Considering my lack of knowledge in this area, they were the easiest sources for me to fully understand.

Overall, the benefits of gaming and gamification are overwhelming. From my research, gamification tactics have been especially useful in grade school settings. With the advancements in technology, children are learning in many different ways, and it is important to consider how to adapt to this. Paul Andersen has done a great job of this, as was highlighted in his TedTalk video. He also noted how there was still room for improvement.

Obviously this is a field where there are so many opportunities for advancement and improvement, and I would not be surprised if an education reform is on the horizen.

Your brain on Video games

This is a TED presentation, the presenter is Dr. Daphne Bavelier and she is a brain scientist. She is talking about that video games cannot damage your brain. And screen time cannot make your eye sight worse. In her lab, the statistical data shows that video games cannot make your eyes worse. Another example is that games lead to attention problems and greater destructibility. In fact, she did some experiment in her lab, and the result is showing video games cannot make the attention problems and greater destructibility. On the other hand, video games can make your brain more efficient, in other words, the right video games can make you more smarter, better, faster and stronger.

http://www.ted.com/talks/daphne_bavelier_your_brain_on_video_games.html

What Gaming Means to the Canadian Economy

Canada has the third largest video game industry in the world. Although there is conflicting data about how large the gaming industry really is, we know that gaming is a large part of Canada’s economy and is expected to grow. This article talked about four different sections about video games industry of Canada that included Careers, Global, Growth and Trends. 

What Gaming Means to the Canadian Economy

Video game industry 'should be government priority

This news talked about the future of Scotland's games industry and the UK government priority. MPs on the Scottish Affairs Committee also said it was a "golden age" of opportunity for the sector but said it faced an uneven global playing field. Many of our competitors, like Canada, France and the US, offer tax breaks for games production, often at substantial levels, so the effect of that is that it is driving investment away from Scotland and away from the UK to these other jurisdictions. 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-12373513

Facebook games good for the economy

Today, there are many small interesting games what can be played on Facebook. However, those tiny games will make a great contribution to our economy. In this video, Li Anne will tell us how playing Facebook games is boosting world economy!

Being modern parent

This article is telling people that games can definitely be good for the family. In fact, this article explains why a video game can make parent be better. A good video game can teach kids to learn socialization and leadership and foster dynamic problem-solving and decision making. As Steinberg said, “Video games promote exercise and physical activity, encourage socialization and leadership, and foster dynamic problem-solving and decision-making skills – all areas of tremendous benefit to kids and adults alike,”

http://venturebeat.com/2012/04/10/why-video-games-are-good-for-you-the-cheat-sheet/

Flipping the Classroom

This video builds upon the TedTalk by Paul Andersen about flipping the classroom and being able to meet the learning need of students.

This teacher started this "flipping" process by recording lectures for kids who missed class, and that has grown so much so that he, as a teacher, is able to better teach his students during class time while students learn at home at their own pace.

So far, this teacher has seen decreased failure rates, and kids are learning how to better access information and process that information in meaningful ways, possibly even improving students' problem solving skills.

Even though there isn't any specific mention of technology in this video, the idea of flipping the classroom utilizes the power of the network, allowing teachers and students to better ineract iwth each other, and students are even better equipped to learn from each other.

http://www.upworthy.com/i-have-seen-the-future-of-education-it-looks-a-lot-like-this?c=ufb1

The More educational Side of Learning

So far in most of my posts, I have been approaching gamification from the idea that it only happens online or in videogames. This video is the complete opposite of that. Its using physical game pieces to teach historical events to kids. This video is short and sweet, but gets the point across quite well. Many kids now days aren't able to fully understand the magnitude of the events they learn in their history or social studies classes. Brenda Brathwaite, a game designer, has found a way to make those events come to life for kids, getting them involved in the stories and events that children are normally so disconnected from.

http://www.ted.com/talks/brenda_brathwaite_gaming_for_understanding.html

Video games culture

Video game culture is a form of new media culture that has been influence by video games. As computer and video games have increased exponentially in popularity over time, they have caused a significant influence upon popular culture.
Video game culture allows us to see the power dynamics involved in attributing certain characteristics to it, as well as naming it "video game culture" as such. This has implications for how video games are studied and is connected with how culture is studied more broadly.
This article is explain what video game culture is.

http://www.themuse.ca/articles/51759

Army uses video games to train soldiers

Video games influencing the way the military operates many seem surprising, but the US military has been utilizing this rather unique skill set for years. Military flight simulators have long born a resemblance to their video game counterparts, and have taken more than a few pointers over the years.
And here is a video from YouTube that is talking about how the UK army uses the video games to train.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyZtTkVY4rY

Video games have changed and influenced OUR LIVES

          Video games are changing people's life style, and this article is telling you that how video games have changed and influenced our lives. In fact, games are increasingly social, with stereotypical loner hanging out in his room day in day being increasingly wrong. The advent of the PC games such as Everquest, World of Warcraft and so on show us a social community gathering together regardless of race, colour or creed. Geographical location is irrelevant in these games as they occupy a space of their own and, as such, because a different world.

http://evvy09.hubpages.com/hub/Video-Games-Have-Changed-the-World

Playing video game improve Brain Function

Playing video games are good for elderly, because playing video games can keep people's brain running.
The beneficial effects of brain training games are expected to to transfer to other cognitive functions.
This article is reporting that how the brain functions of elderly people can improve after playing video games.
For this article, the research demonstrated that the effects of playing video games actually improved executive functions and processing speed.

http://voices.yahoo.com/video-game-playing-improves-brain-function-elderly-10831245.html

Smart Gamification

Gamification 2.0 is about creating game-like digital services that shape real-world behavior and deliver deep value to players, -- using a blend of intrinsic and extrinsic motivations. In this talk, we'll do a teardown of the biggest and most influential social gaming services. 

Video Games Impact the Economy More Than You Think

It’s hardly a secret that video games are a growing force in the entertainment industry, but they might be bigger than many people think.

A new study from Economists Incorporated reports that the video game industry added $4.95 billion to the U.S. Gross Domestic Product last year—and the entertainment side of the software world is growing considerably faster than other segments of the economy. 

http://www.cnbc.com/id/38644484/Video_Games_Impact_the_Economy_More_Than_You_Think

China Joy

China joy is a digital entertainment expo. It is the largest gaming and digital entertainment exhibition held every year in Asia. China joy is designed to be the top event in global game industry.   It's purpose is to strengthen domestic game supervision, regulate the markets of electronics and Internet publishers, fight against piracy in order to encourage and support legal game products, and establish a platform for the comprehensive developments of Chinese electronic products. China joy has successes over past 9 years, stirring a Chinese games industry storm in the worlds game circle every year. Its authoritativeness have been acknowledged by the industrial professionals across the world

http://en.chinajoy.net/

Free online Education

Another Ted Talk that i found. It's about offering the best of the best of university courses online for free. On the one hand, this is pretty cool because it is offering the opportunities of a post secondary education. But, if they are able to offer these great courses for free, what is the motivation to then go to a school where you end up in thousands of dollars of debt.

This kind of goes with what our prof said last week, about the education revolution. Could this be the first step?


http://www.ted.com/talks/daphne_koller_what_we_re_learning_from_online_education.html

Video games are good for Medical school

Medical school around the country are creating video games with the expressed goal of improving medical. The idea of using video games for educational purpose began in the aviation and military sectors. In fact, videos games have been used for decades now as teaching tools, said Bryan Bergeron, M.D., who has created several health care-related games and is a research affiliate with the Health Sciences and Technology Division at Harvard Medical School and MIT and author of the book "Developing Serious Games."

http://psychcentral.com/news/2010/08/11/medical-school-education-from-video-games/16680.html

The Positive and Negative Effects of Video Games

This article is talking about that video games have some positive and negative effects of video games. In fact, It is explaining in detail how video games good or bad for kids.
Here are some of the mental skills trained by video games:
1. Following instructions
2. problem solving and logic
3. Hand-eye coordination, fine motor and spatial skills
4. Resource management and logistics
5. Multitasking, simultaneous tracking of many shifting variables and managing multiple objectives
6. Quick thinking, making fast analysis and decisions
7. Strategy and anticipation
8. Developing reading and math skills
9. Perseverance
10. Pattern recognition
11. Estimation skills 
12. Inductive reasoning and hypothesis testing
13. Mapping
14. Memory
15. Reasoned judgments
16. Improved ability to rapidly and accurately recognize visual information
17. Talking risks
18. How to respond to challenges
19. How to respond frustrations
20. How to explore and rethink goals
21. Teamwork and cooperation when played with others
22. Simulation, real world skills     


http://www.raisesmartkid.com/3-to-6-years-old/4-articles/34-the-good-and-bad-effects-of-video-games

Games: A Way of Life

Even before the well known publication of White & Le Coru’s: “Visitors and Residents: A new typology for online engagement” (White & Le Coru, 2011) was released, Robin Linden, developer of the successful MMORPG “SecondLife” had this to say of the players of the MMORPG genre:

"When it came to what to call the people in the world, we knew we didn't want to call them 'users', although that would be the most typical thing for software. However, the word 'users' doesn't do a very good job of describing the two-way nature of Second Life, where the people involved are providing content and contributing to the experience.

We also thought about 'members' (boring!), 'citizens' (too political!), and 'players' (too game-y). 

'Residents', however, seems most descriptive of people who have a stake in the world and how it grows (Linden, 2006)."

http://www.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/viewArti  cle/3171/3049

http://forums- archive.secondlife.com/139/e9/125712/1.html#post1190127

Events in MMORPG

Aside from personal friend groups, MMORPGs often have structured groups, guilds, clans, and races. Strong bonds are created through residents, and when the offline death of a player occurs, online friends mourn the passing of the resident through an online funeral. Events such as funerals, weddings, birthday parties, and anything else a guild can think of, are being created and hosted online.

 

Check out this video: Serenity Now bombs a World of Warcraft funeral

10 benefits of playing video games

      This article is telling people that play video games can provide 10 benefits for player. In fact, video games are not negative; they can also make people to know and proof what good things are. Here is a list of 10 benefits of playing video games:

1. Empathy 

2. Better Cognitive Health

3. Better than TV

4. Better Mood and Post-traumatic Gaming

5. Improves Hand-Eye Coordination

6. A Remedy for Intense Pain

7. Sharper Image

8. Distraction from Snacking or Overeating 

9. A New Way of Teaching

10. Imagination Boost

How video games can change the world

Video games are good for society. Games can deal with some tough problems; indeed, this video is telling people that people can make people’s life better through games. The games will give people hope when people are faced with a challenge. Dr. JaneMcGonigal is a game designer and she think that video games can change the world.

http://learningames.wordpress.com/2011/01/24/are-video-games-good-for-society/