- The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced last year that it would invest $20 million in new tools and technologies to change classrooms, and Gates said last week that video games can inform how education evolves.
- “We’re not saying the whole curriculum turns into this big game. We’re saying it’s an adjunct to a serious curriculum,” Gates told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
- His foundation is now working with the Center for Game Science at the University of Washington on a free online game titled "Refraction," which would allow teachers to track students' progress and understanding of curriculum concepts.
From the article:
Check out the classroom of the future, Bill Gates’ style: Students are grouped according to skill set. One cluster huddles around a computer terminal, playing an educational game or working on a simulator. Another works with a human teacher getting direct instruction, while another gets a digital lesson delivered from their teacher’s avatar.
This kind of “game-based” learning is one of the priorities of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, a nonprofit founded by the Microsoft creator. ...