Hello friends, and welcome to another entry of What’s New in Game-Based Learning – your monthly roundup of the 🔥hottest🔥 news from the realms of educational gaming, games for impact, and AR/VR for learning!
(Gif source: Giphy)
Check out our hand-picked selection of stories below, and be sure to sound off on our Facebook or Twitter if we missed any noteworthy news or announcements!
Last month, friend of Filament and iCivics executive director Louise Dubé sat down with Education Week for an in-depth interview about iCivics and digital civic education at large. In her interview, Louise discusses the history of iCivics, the organization’s guiding philosophies, as well as their latest NEH and U.S. Department of Education-funded efforts to help assess and improve the state of teaching American history, civics, and government in U.S. schools. I’d share more, but I don’t want to spoil the contents of the full interview – check it out for yourself on Education Week! [READ MORE]
Multinational professional services firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) recently began adding gamification elements to their staff engagement strategy – and early results are showing great promise. Thanks to the implementation of PowerUp!, a live trivia game show accessible on mobile phones, PwC staff are given the opportunity to participate and prove their knowledge of digital trends in exchange for cash prizes and donations to charities of their choice. And based on the success of this initial program, PwC has further expanded these gamification strategies as a way to better engage their most recent cohort of summer interns – get the full scoop in this report from HR Dive! [READ MORE]
As longtime proponents of the power of VR for learning, we’re thrilled to see more businesses adopting the technology as we transition into a post-COVID world. According to a new report from ARtillery Intelligence, VR spending among businesses is predicted to grow from $829 million in 2018 to $4.26 billion in 2023 – with much of this investment going towards training, remote collaboration, and providing better service to customers. The article also mentions that Facebook has recently established an Oculus for Business platform which seeks to empower organizations who are ready to take the plunge and adopt enterprise VR – lending further evidence to CNBC’s claim that VR is growing rapidly among businesses and similar organizations. [READ MORE]
Gaming’s biggest demographics are changing, and that matters – for players, developers, and academics alike! Last month, video game trade association the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) released their annual U.S. video game industry report, 2020 Essential Facts About the Video Game Industry. And while we’ve already discussed the findings of this report on our blog, folks who attended last month’s Games for Change Festival were lucky enough to receive additional insights directly from ESA President & CEO Stanley Pierre-Louis. If you missed this, you can check out Pierre-Louis’ full remarks on YouTube, or read the highlights in this piece from VentureBeat! [READ MORE]
Amidst the backdrop of the ongoing pandemic, Games for Change decided to host their annual G4C Festival virtually for the first time in history – uniting serious games enthusiasts from around the globe for three days of world-class panels, talks, workshops, demos, and more. As part of the Festival, the organization also unveiled the winners of their annual Games for Change Awards – highlighting outstanding achievements in learning games, XR for impact, student projects, and more. Of note, Media Molecule’s game creation system Dreams was selected as this year’s Game of the Year award winner, while Jo-Mei Games’ Sea of Solitude took home the Best Learning Game prize. For a full rundown of each category and its respective winners, check out Kotaku’s awards ceremony recap! [READ MORE]
Miss out on last month’s roundup of What’s New in Game-Based Learning? Have no fear – check out our July 2020 entry here!