Video Game Helps Math Students Vanquish an Archfiend - Algebra - NYTimes.com

Interesting article about a new game designed to teach algebra. I think this was what I was trying to get at when we did the activity about "violent" games and teaching. I think this approach is better :)

Video Game Helps Math Students Vanquish an Archfiend - Algebra - NYTimes.com: "This fall, New York City is rolling out Dimension M — M stands for math — in 109 middle schools across the five boroughs after trying the game out in two dozen schools, including I.S. 30, last year. Like a modern twist on “Jeopardy!,” the fast-paced video game quizzes students on prealgebra and algebra topics ranging from prime numbers to fractions and complex equations. A correct answer brings 500 or more points, a wrong one as few as 25; the player with the most points wins. (No prizes, just glory.)

Whether such educational video games are effective teaching tools is among the key questions behind the new Games for Learning Institute, a $3 million research effort at New York University that was publicly unveiled on Tuesday. The institute, a partnership between the Microsoft Corporation and six universities (N.Y.U., Columbia, the City University of New York, Dartmouth, Parsons the New School for Design, and the Rochester Institute of Technology) will study games used in middle school classrooms and then create prototypes for new ones."