Gaming Library
There has been lots happening on the education-video games front for quite some time now (James Paul Gee, Marc Prensky, AECT Virtual Educators, Educause Virtual Worlds). While all this research is helpful towards connecting the practice to relevant theory(ies), sometimes, teachers just want to dive in and explore what these games are all about. What are they like from an experiential perspective? Or very simply, what is it like to play the darn things?
Well, one option is Penn State University’s Gaming library that offers quite a few. For example, in the Environmental Science category, there is Operation Climate Control; moving more towards the Humanities end of the spectrum, there is The Playhouse which centers on Shakespeare. The game titles I saw were developed in Flash, so you can experiment with them directly in the browser. They’ve also got a page with additional resources on gaming (e.g., development tools, showcase), plus plenty more if you have the time.