October 9, 2012 - 5:19pm green-dot

New Publications for Fall 2012

This Fall we’re offering 5 new publications. If you’d like a free copy of any of them, you can make a request through our publications page.

a set of materials by J. Zhao for teaching Mandarin Chinese to intermediate learners with Happy Harvest III, a farm management social networking game. The game is available through Facebook in Chinese.
an evaluation by K. Scholz of Geheimakte Tunguske (Secret Files Tunguske), a point-and-click adventure mystery game for the PC or Nintendo available in German and English
an evaluation by T. Villa of iMots Caches, a casual handheld word find game available in French
an evaluation by F. Amaral and I. Teixeira of Jogo da Gloria, a browser-based game designed for learning European Portuguese
a working paper by project co-director J. Reinhardt entitled: Digital game-mediated foreign language teaching and learning: Myths, realities, and opportunities

September 4, 2012 - 4:37pm green-dot

G2T back for the Fall

After a semester of finishing our book: Language at Play: Digital Games in Second and Foreign Language Teaching and Learning, which should be published by the end of the year, we are back to G2T. We have several projects in the works this year, including new working and white papers, materials for teaching Chinese, German, Spanish, and Russian with games, and reviews of over 20 different games that are available in multiple languages. Stay tuned.

December 24, 2011 - 9:18am green-dot

Learning to play

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.

October 5, 2011 - 9:23am green-dot

Blizzard, WoW, and Starter Edition Access

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):

You’ll now have access to new features that weren’t available in the old, time-limited trial including:

• FREE, unlimited play, up to level 20
• Ability to create blood elf or draenei characters
• Access to blood elf and draenei starting zones
• Gold limit increased to 10 gold, so you can purchase a mount once you reach level 20

If you already have World of Warcraft installed, simply launch the game and log in with your Battle.net® account to continue your adventures.To download World of Warcraft click here.If you forgot your Battle.net log in information, you can reset it here.

We hope you give the new World of Warcraft Starter Edition a try, and we look forward to seeing you back in Azeroth.

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.

Developing Digital Game-Mediated Foreign Language Literacies