Welcome, dear reader, to What’s New in Game-Based Learning – a monthly series where we highlight what’s 🔥HOT🔥 in the world of educational, serious, and AR/VR games for learning!
Check out our curated selection of news features and articles below, then stay tuned on the Filament Games blog for next month’s roundup! ⤵
Launched last week, Age of Learning’s Adventure Academy is an online multiplayer learning game designed to teach elementary- and middle-school age learners key lessons in a variety of subjects including reading, math, and science. The culmination of three years of development time, hundreds of employees, and a hefty 100 million budget, Adventure Academy is a highly ambitious game-based learning project unlike any we’ve seen before it – hear from its creators and learn more about the game’s features in this exclusive article from EdSurge. READ MORE.
A collaborative effort from Germany’s Deutsche Telekom, game studio Glitchers, and several universities throughout Europe, Sea Hero Quest is a VR game designed to identify folks who may be at risk of Alzheimer’s Disease but have yet to develop major symptoms. Drawing on a research study published in the journal PNAS, Kotaku reports that high genetic risk individuals who played the game performed worse on spatial navigation tasks than their peers, suggesting that the game could be used as a way to help identify folks exhibiting early and mild symptoms of dementia. READ MORE.
Ready for a heartwarming story? Meet Samaira Mehta, the 10-year-old CEO, founder, and inventor of CoderBunnyz, a popular educational board game designed to teach fundamental coding concepts to young learners. CoderBunnyz is so neat that we featured it in our last roundup of high-quality computer science learning games – and now, Mehta’s work has garnered praise from high-profile figures like Michelle Obama and Stacy Sullivan, chief cultural officer at Google. Learn more about Samaira’s story and her future plans for CoderBunnyz (and beyond) in her CNBC news feature. READ MORE.
Virtual reality therapy has arrived – and according to doctors at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles and VR researchers at the University of Washington, the tech-infused treatment has shown to be effective in helping patients better process pain during uncomfortable medical procedures. While VR therapy is certainly not a “silver bullet” replacement for medication, studies are continuing to explore the potential of using VR to effectively distract the human brain from pain, helping patients learn to more effectively manage unpleasant sensations ranging from the insertion of an IV all the way to debilitating chronic pain. READ MORE.
Curious what’s in store for VR and education in 2019? Here’s an interesting story – Labster, the Denmark-based company that has created a popular series of virtual reality science lab experiences, has just successfully raised $21 million in Series B funding, bringing the total raised by the company to date to $35 million. In an article from TechCrunch, Labster co-founder Michael Bodekaer details how the company will use the new funds to expand their content catalog and scale their U.S.-based sales and customer support operations. READ MORE.
Miss last month’s roundup? Find our April iteration of What’s New in Game-Based Learning here!