I responded to Scott McLeod’s call to teachers who use video games in their classrooms. Here’s what I’ve been using lately with my students:
I use the customizable quiz games on ClassTools.net to make test prep fun and engaging. Students compete in small groups in one of the arcade-style games to qualify for a tournament of champions. And they study for Science tests.
To give the tournament more of an arcade feel, I use Wiimote Smoothboard from Boon Jin . I can connect a wiimote to my PC wirelessly and map custom keystrokes to the buttons to use the wiimote as a point-and-click input or a traditional video game control pad.
I also teach students to create their own games and animations with MIT’s free programming environment Scratch . The holy grail of student engagement is a marriage of Scratch with Wiimote Smoothboard to give students a taste of video game development. Coming soon…
