Integrating Computer Games

Creating game-based learning environments or experiences using commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) games is becoming an increasingly tenable, valuable, and popular instructional method. COTS games are computer or video games created for entertainment purposes. A few popular examples are SimCity, Age of Empires, ZooTycoon, and Railroad Tycoon.

My good friend Dennis Charsky invited me to co-author Integrating Commercial off-the-Shelf Video Games into School Curriculum. Ten suggestions to help educators effectively integrate COTS games are shared in this research article. Below is an overview along with a few notes from this publication.

New SlideShare Account

I had to setup a new account at SlideShare. I’d had my old account for a couple of years, but I just kept having too many problems with it and their support didn’t didn’t seem interested in helping resolve it. Overall, I’ve been satisfied with SlideShare, so I’ve gone ahead and setup the new account (One advantage of this is that my ID is now clifmims which matches almost all of my other online IDs). I just hate that I’ll loose some of the connections that I previously had with many of you on SlideShare. I’d very much appreciate it if you’d add me as one of your SlideShare contacts (friends), so that I can reestablish my network more quickly. Together we all learn more!

For what it’s worth, I’ve been very satisfied with my account at SlideBoom. It has fewer social tools than SlideShare but SlideBoom has made uploading files easier. I also think the SlideBoom presentations look a bit better.