We wrote a post about some new features at FunnelBrain.com. Today I want to take a few minutes and share some thoughts/ start a conversation about gaming in education. It’s interesting to me that people tend to be very polarized on one side or the other on this issue, because to me education is about engaging students and getting them to want to learn. Again, this is just my opinion and I would encourage you to leave comments if you disagree with me but I think education can and should be fun. I’m not suggesting we should all be playing Halo 3 in the classroom, but if we are creative we could and in my opinion should be using games like Halo 3 to help students learn important concepts like Physics, problem solving, teamwork, and strategy. I’m always happy to see teachers trying to teach kids in a way that will engage students. A few days ago I posted over on our Facebook Fan Page a link to a project called Wow in School that is using tools like Moodle and World of Warcraft to teach a 7th grade language arts course. Is this the way we all learned in school? No… Does it make it bad? I do not believe it does.

As responsible educators, we need to put a focus on making quality research based decisions, and the fact is there is a great deal of evidence that education based games like those on FunnelBrain, Starfall, and KidsSpell are valuable tools that can increase engagement and help to foster students who are life long learners.

For conversation:

Teachers do you currently use games in the classroom? Why or why not? Are there ways you could be using technology to improve engagement?

Students, would you like to see teachers using games or other interactive technologies in the classroom?

Daniel Berdichevsky, a member of FunnelBrain’s Advisory Board and co-author of The Psychology of Facebook , recently spoke to a group of business leaders in Chile about the marketing and educational opportunities with social media.  Speaking to over 1,000 business executives, Daniel described how Facebook and social media offer a significant opportunity to transform marketing for business and education in the region.

You can read more about his talk in The Santiago Times or for the spanish version, check out an interview with Daniel on Emol.com.