Join Jeff Kuhns through Twitch to explore games for language learning. The Twitchstreams will introduce the games, cover the gameplay basics, and discuss them using the Games2Teach framework (Reinhardt and Sykes) for games in learning. Other and any other relevant research will also be explored.

About the Event

Considering teachers may be interested in games as a whole, or a specific game for the classroom but not know where to begin Jeff Kihns has decided to start streaming games via Twitch. Twitch is a broadcast platform where gamers can live stream while they play.

Twitch has some great potential for teachers as they can see a game in action without the need to purchase or setup the game. He will be doing his first Twitchstream Sunday 3/22 at 14:00 GMT (10:00 am EST) and will broadcast Minecraft. Minecraft is a great place to begin as it has become quite the trend in general K-12 education and does have a place in language learning. 

Past the first Twitchstream he hasn’t decided which games to cover so let him know if there is a particular game you’d like to see by posting in the comments below. 

You can find Jeff’s Twitch channel here:

http://www.twitch.tv/jkuhn72

Here’s a link to a talk I gave recently that’s a good introduction to why we should consider using digital games in foreign language education: Learning to Play: Re-thinking Computer Games in Foreign Language Teaching and Learning. The script for the talk is also provided.

Blizzard has modified some of its trial edition features, making it much more user-friendly for those wishing to work with WoW in learning contexts and we wanted to let you know. The features of Blizzard’s Starter Edition include (from Blizzard’s marketing message):

More information can be found here.  We haven’t tried it yet, but thought some of you interested in these issues would want the update.