Minutes of the September 2008 Explorers Guild

Multi-Player Online Educational Gaming in the Classroom

Thursday, September 25, 2008 • 4:30 - 6:30 pm
250 14th Street – Room 131 • Atlanta, Georgia

Minutes

Presenter:
Jessica Pater, Georgia Tech Research Institute

Educational gaming is not a new trend within the classroom. The depth and variety of some of the newer educational games has exciting possibilities within the current classroom setting. Educational Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs) are being produced by the likes of NASA and IBM in an effort to blend the traditional networked gaming world with the aim of providing a safe context for active student learning. Game worlds can be more concrete, immersive, and open- ended than textbooks, and can be used to represent other places, historical periods, and environments (or systems) that would be impossible to recreate in a classroom, including models for chemistry or other sciences. This session will explore the current state of educational games and MMORPGs as well as demo the IBM MMOPG game PowerUP and several other educational online games.

Workshop Topics

• Introduce online MMORPGs
• Discuss benefits of gaming in the classroom
• Review current applications within the classroom

Links to Resources