Learning Games Network

Certainly, 2010 was the year of the app. With the proliferation of mobile platforms and online application stores, the field of games exploded: downloads of Angry Birds, Farmville, and Cityville numbered in the millions. The impact of games in educational settings is a hotly debated topic that we have been exploring as part of our OER Innovation portfolio. Early unpublished results from an evaluation of the language games that the Learning Games Network designed for Coastline Community College for Chinese students indicate statistically significant improvement in the test scores of at-risk learners, a positive shift in students' motivation to learn English, and greater motivation for teachers to modify their instructional strategies to incorporate games. This grant would enable Learning Games Network to expand its language learning platform, engage additional partners, and enhance existing tools to develop a larger group of game producers, emulating the Apple and Droid application developer community.