Category: primary games

Top 5 Edu games of 2010

Posted on by primaryt

A good educational game isn’t a linear process, a good game engages children to a point where the game itself becomes a consumable and desirable entity away from the influence of teachers & educators.  A lot of game creators miss this point, pupils therefore learn to do and not to think.  This is detrimental to learning in my opinion and it only encourages assessment models that don’t truly reflect a pupils ability to be a good citizen.   We should never forget that no matter how we dress it up, Multiple choice tests are not fun and single choice is the opposite of fun.

In 2010 due to an influx of game creation tools educators began thinking about how they could create games and this is great but it increased the amount of hot air single choice, linear games to a new all time high.   5 games this year really set themselves apart from the hot air that was released, here they are:

Admongo

Admongo is a side scroller designed to teach kids to be aware of marketing and advertisements. Consumerism is a huge driving force in today’s conflicts and I believe we need to be mindful of why we consume certain things.

Jet Ski Addition

This game is great because it encourages competitive learning.

Mystery Island

Mystery Island gives pupils the ability to find their own way through a world and encourages adventuring whilst solving micro problems by delivering packages.  This is probably my personal least favourite yet it is one the most popular games with kids so I thought I’d throw it in!

Geosense

I’m not gonna lie, this game sucks you in, prepare to waste a good 15 minutes increasing your knowledge of locations on the Earth.

Light Bot

Pick your way to solve the control problem. This game teaches the logic behind control and movement. It is actually quite linear but it requires strategic thinking and planning. Light Bot is way more fun than multiple choice and that’s why I like it 🙂

Game teaches kids to be critical of advertising

Posted on by John McLear

Admongo is a game by the US Federal trade commission that “aims to educate tweens (kids ages 8 to 12) about advertising so they can become more discerning consumers of information. The goal of the campaign is to boost advertising literacy by…”

I think this is a great idea because advertising is becoming more and more a part of daily life.

The game is side scrolling and plays pretty nice, it is obviously a linear game with coins thrown in for fun.  It’s a pretty high quality game and good to see good games with what I think is a positive thing to be teaching young people.

Click here to play Admongo on Primary Games Arena

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Blogging Edu Techers we need your help!

Posted on by primaryt

A naughty website is trying to “SEO steal” traffic from Primary Games Arena, this is risky because if they are successful then if your pupil searches for Primary Games they may be shown a link to a website that includes some extremely questionable content.  I noticed this on twitter earlier today..  Obviously bots/spam but Google struggles to tell them apart.

Note how they have used the same font as Primary Games Arena in their headings.  Also look at the ad on the left hand site..  Oh dear…

The only good fix for this is that Primary Games Arena has more links in than this dodgy website so please help by logging into your website/blog and adding a link to Primary Games Arena.  The URL for Primary Games Arena is http://primarygamesarena.com