Game Design and Homemade Powerpoint Games: An Examination of the Justifications and a Review of the Research

Research on educational games often focuses on the benefits that playing games has on student achievement. however, there is a growing body of research examining the benefits of having students design games rather than play them. Problems with game design as an instructional tool include the additional instruction on the programming language itself as well as the potential costs associated with new software. One way to mitigate these problems is to use Microsoft PowerPoint as game design software. While not intended for this purpose, MS PowerPoint is ubiquitous in schools and requires little additional instruction before students can design games. In this literature review, we introduce homemade PowerPoint games, examine the three pedagogical justifications for their use (i.e., constructionism, narrative writing, and question writing), and review research studies involving homemade PowerPoint games. When we compared the recommendations from the literature for the justifications with how the homemade PowerPoint games were implemented, we found that the recommendations were not followed. Future research examining the use of homemade PowerPoint games should look to better align the implementation of a game design project with recommendations based on the research examining the individual justifications

Game Design as Authentic Science: Creating Low-Tech Games that Do Science

Many students love everything about video games, so teaching them to use technology to design their own games around content is an assignment that can offer built-in engagement. The problem, however, is that teachers often don’t have the time or expertise to teach computer programming, let alone content and process skills. On top of that, installing game design software can create friction between the teaching staff and technology department. That’s where Microsoft PowerPoint comes in. Did you know you can help your students create—from scratch or from a template—a video game using PowerPoint

Design Research Using Game Design as an Instructional Strategy

Game design as an instructional tool can be expensive and time-consuming, as new software requires not only capital outlay but also training for teachers and students. Therefore, researchers have looked at low-tech design platforms to accomplish the same educational goals. One such way is to use Microsoft PowerPoint as a game design tool. In the second iteration of a design study, we have changed the way a homemade PowerPoint game project is implemented in an environmental chemistry classroom by providing more structure and more opportunities for instruction and feedback on the elements of the game design. We compared the performance of between groups who created games and groups who did not on tests for two separate units. Both test results showed statistically significant differences: in favor of the control group on the first unit and in favor of the group creating games for the second unit. Further research needs to examine which factors led to the significant findings in both instances

Mentoring Student Teachers from a Distance: An Action Research Project

At a large public university in the south eastern United States, prospective middle and high school social studies teachers complete a four semester undergraduate program that prepares them for the classrooms of America. Like many programs, this one begins with an introductory course that provides students an opportunity to explore questions about the nature, purpose, and practices of social studies in the modern school curriculum. As a part of this course, students also develop a rationale for teaching social studies which is used as a part of admission into the Social Studies Education program. Once they have been admitted to the program, students typically complete one or more semesters of discipline specific courses prior to their final two semesters at the institution. During their second to last semester in the program, students complete social studies methods and curriculum courses along with an initial field experience that is designed to provide them with some experience designing and delivering lessons. For their final semester in the program, the students complete a student teaching experience, along with a bi- weekly seminar. This twelve week field experience is conducted under the supervision of a co-operating teacher, as well as a field instructor from the university who is tasked with observing the student while they are engaged in the teaching experience. The purpose of these observation visits by the field instructor is to help the student teachers structure their reflection about these specific lessons, as a way of modeling an effective process for the m to become reflective practitioners. At the conclusion of their twelve weeks of student teaching, the students return for twice weekly seminar meetings for the final three weeks of the semester with the goal of finalizing their teaching rationale as a part of a larger electronic portfolio that is based upon the state\u27s teaching standards. This e-portfolio contains their overarching rationale along with reflection papers on each of the state standards, and artifacts that illustrate the student teacher\u27s competence in those particular areas. One of the difficulties with the arrangement between the student teacher and their field instructor is that there are only four scheduled opportunities for field instructors to interact and provide meaningful guidance and mentoring to their student teachers. With this in mind, two field instructors within this program undertook a project to provide additional opportunities for mentoring student teachers through a computer- mediated process

Pictures from an Exhibition… of Online Learning: A Creative Representation of Qualitative Data

K-12 online learning at the K-12 level has been around for approximately two decades and is continuing to grow. While researchers have researched a variety of issues related to K-12 online learning, there has been little published on the student experience in web-based learning environments. In this article, two doctoral students were tasked with analyzing existing data, then representing and situating their findings in a format other than the traditional results and discussion sections found in a typical six-section journal manuscript. One student created an image that focused upon the tools used by the K-12 student in her online learning. The other student created a slideshow to illustrate the challenges faced by a second K-12 student in her online learning. While more research into the K-12 student experience in online learning is required, this article represents one creative attempt to address this need

Turning up the volume on mutational pressure: Is more of a good thing always better? (A case study of HIV-1 Vif and APOBEC3)

APOBEC3G and APOBEC3F are human cytidine deaminases that serve as innate antiviral defense mechanisms primarily by introducing C-to-U changes in the minus strand DNA of retroviruses during replication (resulting in G-to-A mutations in the genomic sense strand sequence). The HIV-1 Vif protein counteracts this defense by promoting the proteolytic degradation of APOBEC3G and APOBEC3F in the host cell. In the absence of Vif expression, APOBEC3 is incorporated into HIV-1 virions and the viral genome undergoes extensive G-to-A mutation, or "hypermutation", typically rendering it non-viable within a single replicative cycle. Consequently, Vif is emerging as an attractive target for pharmacological intervention and therapeutic vaccination. Although a highly effective Vif inhibitor may result in mutational meltdown of the viral quasispecies, a partially effective Vif inhibitor may accelerate the evolution of drug resistance and immune escape due to the codon structure and recombinogenic nature of HIV-1. This hypothesis rests on two principal assumptions which are supported by experimental evidence: a) there is a dose response between intracellular APOBEC concentration and degree of viral hypermutation, and, b) HIV-1 can tolerate an elevated mutation rate, and a true error or extinction threshold is as yet undetermined. Rigorous testing of this hypothesis will have timely and critical implications for the therapeutic management of HIV/AIDS, and delve into the complexities underlying the induction of lethal mutagenesis in a viral pathogen

Narratives from the Online Frontier: A K-12 Student’s Experience in an Online Learning Environment

Despite a large increase in the number of students enrolled in online courses, published research on student experiences in these environments is minimal. This article reports the narrative analysis of a series of interviews conducted with a female student at a brick-and-mortar school enrolled in a single virtual school course. Her narratives describe a student who often struggled with the content in her online course and was reluctant to interact with her online teacher. When she interacted with people online, it was using text, because she was shy and the hardware often did not work. Darlene’s experiences, likely typical of many K-12 online students, highlight a system in need of better strategies for the design and delivery of its educational opportunities

Hiv-1 tat and morphine differentially disrupt pyramidal cell structure and function and spatial learning in hippocampal area ca1: Continuous versus interrupted morphine exposure

About half the people infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) have neurocognitive deficits that often include memory impairment and hippocampal deficits, which can be exacerbated by opioid abuse. To explore the effects of opioids and HIV on hippocampal CA1 pyramidal neuron structure and function, we induced HIV-1 transactivator of transcription (Tat) expression in transgenic mice for 14 d and co-administered time-release morphine or vehicle subcutaneous implants during the final 5 d (days 9–14) to establish steady-state morphine levels. Morphine was withheld from some ex vivo slices during recordings to begin to assess the initial pharmacokinetic consequences of opioid withdrawal. Tat expression reduced hippocampal CA1 pyramidal neuronal excitability at lower stimulating currents. Pyramidal cell firing rates were unaffected by continuous morphine exposure. Behaviorally, exposure to Tat or high dosages of morphine impaired spatial memory. Exposure to Tat and steady-state levels of morphine appeared to have largely independent effects on pyramidal neuron structure and function, a response that is distinct from other vulnerable brain regions such as the striatum. By contrast, acutely withholding morphine (from morphine-tolerant ex vivo slices) revealed unique and selective neuroadaptive shifts in CA1 pyramidal neuronal excitability and dendritic plasticity, including some interactions with Tat. Collectively, the results show that opioid-HIV interactions in hippocampal area CA1 are more nuanced than previously assumed, and appear to vary depending on the outcome assessed and on the pharmacokinetics of morphine exposure

Size Only Matters If You Have Vision: An Exploration of an Urban e-Learning Cluster

Historically, primary and secondary distance education in New Zealand was focused on providing opportunities for rural students. With the advent of Tomorrow’s Schools, the need for rural schools to compete with urban schools in terms of their curricular offerings were one of the reasons for the creation of e-learning clusters that would eventually become the Virtual Learning Network (VLN). After 25 years of practice, there is a growing body of research into these rural e-learning clusters. However, in 2011 the HarbourNet cluster bucked that trend, and became the first active urban-based VLN program. This study begins to address this research gap by exploring the challenges HarbourNet was able to overcome in order to become a successful member of the VLN