Welcome to What’s New in Game-Based Learning – our monthly series where we highlight what’s 🔥HOT🔥 in the world of educational, serious, and AR/VR games for learning!
Check out our hand-picked roundup of news features and articles below, then stay tuned on the Filament Games blog for next month’s featured stories! ⤵
Imbellus is on a mission to disrupt the world of standardized testing via their game-based assessment platform, which they claim is capable of accurately measuring key cognitive skills such as decision-making, adaptability, and critical thinking. Already adopted by leading organizations like McKinsey as a way to screen the abilities of potential hires, Imbellus’ digital assessment platform presents users with a set of tasks, actively measuring their decision-making processes while ensuring that each user receives a personalized – and in turn, cheat-proof – test-taking experience. READ MORE.
Did you hear? We’ve been awarded SBIR funding from the NSF to build a hybrid VR/desktop robotics sandbox game titled RoboCo! Inspired by the rise of makerspace programs and robotics organizations, our hope is that RoboCo will help ignite player interest in STEM fields by offering users the tools to unleash their problem solving skills and creative potential. Learn all about the exciting in-development project in this exclusive feature in the Wisconsin State Journal! READ MORE.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that more than 795,000 people in the United States suffer from a stroke each year. For many, this condition proves fatal – while survival often results in a loss of control over one’s muscles. This has inspired researchers from Northwestern Medicine to design a game to help promote muscle control and increased mobility among stroke survivors. Early training sessions using the digital game, which simply requires users to move their cursor to a specific on-screen location, has shown to help stroke victims demonstrate increased arm mobility – though further research must be completed in order to determine the long-term effects of the game-based treatment. READ MORE.
Readers of the Filament Games blog are likely quite familiar with the concept of serious games- but for those unfamiliar with our niche, the concept of games being used to teach, inspire, or drive social impact (among many other things) is often a novel concept! In this article from Variety, several contemporary serious games efforts are highlighted including CTRL-labs’ efforts to create games controlled by the human neurosystem, and University of Santa Cruz’s impending launch of the nation’s first graduate program in serious games. READ MORE.
Developed by TeachAids, a public health education nonprofit backed by Stanford University research, CrashCourse is an impressive, VR-enhanced program designed to teach students both the science behind concussions as well as how to identify common symptoms. According to a letter published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, approximately 1 in 5 teens report having been diagnosed with a concussion– making programs like CrashCourse incredibly relevant, especially among student athletes participating in contact sports like football, lacrosse, soccer, and more. READ MORE.
Miss last month’s edition of What’s New in Game-Based Learning? Check it out here!