Now that summer is in full swing check out these great activities to do with your family or send the information along to your students. Educational summer activities are a great way to help students learn while they are having fun as well as giving teachers beneficial professional development.

The Smithsonian is hosting a variety of programs every day this summer! The Mystery of the Megatherium Club: Mustaches and Mayhem is going on every day at the Smithsonian Castle, sometimes twice a day! This scavenger hunt will excite the whole family! Also, on select days there are films after 5 p.m. at the Anacostia Community Museum! Check out their events to see which museum is hosting something that will entertain and enrich your child’s summer. If the events are not your thing and you love just to check out their exhibits, hurry some of these programs leave this fall!

Looking for some professional development to do from the comfort of your home? Twitter is your place to be this summer. With a variety of edchats being conducted on various days and new porch PD, it is safe to say that an educator could enjoy gaining new information, tools, techniques, and resources from other educators around the world from the comfort of their home! There are many chats to participate in, and I guarantee the schedule will keep you busy! Some notable chats to participate in are #edchat, #satchatWC (West Coast Leadership Chat), #satchatOC (Oceania Coast Leadership Chat), #mschat (Middle School Chat),  #sschat (Social Studies Chat),#ntchat (Ed Tech Chat), #engchat (English Chat), #mathchat (Math Chat) and #games4ed (GBL Chat).

Summer is also a great time to learn at summer camps, workshops, and conferences and most events on Eventbrite are free!

Going on right now is the Modern Robotics LocoSummer Camp Series by LocoRobo Innovations Inc. This camp is from Mon. July 10th – Fri, July 14th.

The Urban Institute is inviting educators to a forum on Wed. July 12, 3:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m. on The Impact of Early Childhood Education on Health and Well-Being: The Latest Research on Policies for Action.

Also on July 12th is the Microsoft Inspire IAMCP Women in Technology Charity Luncheon from 11:30 a.m.-1:00 p.m.

Excited about Legos? Send your kids to a 1-Day Lego Summer Camp on Sat. July 15th from 1:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m hosted by e2 Young Engineers.

Make the trip to Norfolk, VA on July 21st from 8:00 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. for the Inspiring Teacher Conference from YAV and Old Dominion University College.

Women in Tech Demo Day Presented by Capital One is a two-day event from Fri. July 21 – Sat. July 22. This program is by the Women Who Code and AngelHack.

Lastly, on Sat. Aug. 12 send your daughters to the Product Designer (World Fair Event) hosted by the DAR from 11:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.

Have fun this summer and don’t forget that there are a lot of free, fun, and educational events going on all over the states. Check out museum sites, Eventbrite, and Twitter for great ideas!

Dig-It Games had a blast last week at ISTE. The Conference was ideal for new technological experiences, ideas, learning, and networking. Our Education team presented on GBL and participated in the 3rd annual Game Night! For 4 days San Antonio became a magical, techy wonderland for all ISTE participants.

While at ISTE, our education team felt exhilarated by the big trends in technology for education! In education, we know that a lot of innovative ideas come out of conferences and they drive the education community to move toward new ideas and techniques that better prepare our students for the future. Some trends our team noticed were makerspaces, coding, mixed reality, and game-based learning.

If you are not familiar with makerspaces, it is time to get your students creating! At the conference, presenters urged teachers to not only allow their students to create but to give students opportunities to publish their works. (Check out this blog for ideas to help build a makerspace – http://ideas.demco.com/blog/lean-startup-approach-starting-your-makerspace/)

Coding is here to stay. Many companies are adding coding activities for students on their sites. There is a push to have students as young as kindergarten play and learn the concepts of coding. Robots are also becoming more accessible for classrooms and are allowing students to apply their coding skills into action! (Check out this article for ideas on coding – https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/250323)

Some new ideas on the rise in technology for education are virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and mixed reality (MR). Pokemon Go has created a whole world of learning through augmented reality that has now evolved into many new companies that are providing workable reality platforms that are allowing students to experiment with their understanding of virtual, augmented and the new mixed reality, which is a combination of both. (Check out this website for more information on mixed reality – http://www.cnbc.com/2016/06/01/bored-of-virtual-reality-microsofts-betting-on-mixed-reality-now.html)

Dig-It! Games was among many friends in the GBL community as games for education is still a staple at the technology conference. With new advancements in VR, AR, and MR, Dig-It! Games is looking forward to incorporating new technology into our games that will heighten the player’s experience. Get excited for new things coming from Dig-It! Games!

By Chris Magnuson

The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) is a nonprofit organization that supports and trains educators to integrate technology into the classroom and inspires educators to become leaders in educational technology (EdTech).  The ISTE Conference and Expo is an amazing event that welcomes close to 18,000 educators, administrators, EdTech visionaries, and industry leaders to share and learn from each other. This year the conference will be held in San Antonio, Texas from June 25^th – 28^th.

We are proud to be among the select few individuals and organizations who will be presenting at this year’s conference.  Our session kicks off the conference early Monday morning with a hands-on workshop entitled Become a Game-Based Learning Guru.  We will share important information to justify using games in the classroom, a useful Game-Based Learning (GBL) rubric, and an opportunity to design a game that fits the curriculum that you currently teach. The rubric helps to evaluate the effectiveness of educational games. We will be using games from the Dig-It! Games library to illustrate our points as well as educating attendees on trends in GBL. It will prove to be a fun and engaging workshop.  Register today!

As we prepare for our own workshop, we also need to keep an eye on the many social events and sessions that we would like to attend.  Time is tight so a good plan will help us make the most of the conference and expo.  Here are the sessions that we have earmarked for attending:

Social Events:

Start networking a little early on Sunday night and learn about implementing ISTE standards in your products and classroom at the  ISTE Standards-Aligned Resources Networking Mixer.

Monday night join Dig-It! Games at the ISTE Game Night to play games!  We will be hosting a table with our games and offering game giveaways.  This will be a great opportunity to meet the GBL community attending ISTE as well as play some fun games!

Tuesday night will be an opportunity to see how students and teachers are using games in the classroom by watching creatively narrated video game sequences in the EduMachinima Fest 2017.

Keep an eye out for impromptu breakfasts, coffee meet-ups and some late evening talks at local bars and hotels.  Be sure to sign up for all relevant ISTE communications when you register to learn about the myriad social opportunities while at ISTE.

GBL Sessions:

There are so many great GBL sessions at ISTE this year but here are a few that we think are definitely worth attending:

Put Augmented Reality in your STEM – Learn about augmented reality and how it can be used to engage learners.

Simple, Curricular-Aligned Games in the Wild  Legends of Learning presents a published controlled study showing that building games off of the curriculum teachers use and offering a variety of games for each learning objective increases lesson retention and student engagement.

Certified BrainPOP Educator Showcase – Certified BrainPOP Educators will share the ways they’re putting GBL content and features to use. You’ll hear real-life anecdotes about everything from assessment to PD to game-based learning, from a diverse range of educators.

Invite Students to be Players in the Game of Learning – Collaborate and experience gamified learning. Find out how gamification can create students who are persistent problem-solvers. You’ll leave with tools to gamify your own curriculum.

Helping Teachers Use Game Play Data for Formative Assessment and Differentiation:

Findings from a pilot study with six middle school science teachers who used a video game about argumentation for 1-2 weeks in class will be presented. The discussion will focus on how teachers interpreted game play data to make inferences about student learning and make changes to instruction.

Beyond Pokemon: Virtual and Augmentative Reality for STEM

Virtual or augmentative reality is here to stay! Now, how do we use it for meaningful instruction? This session will focus on VR and AR to develop social competence in the STEM classroom. Yes, skills to problem solve, learn cooperatively and work in teams.

Virtual Environments and Games & Simulations Networks Playground: Escape the Ordinary

The Games & Simulations and Virtual Environments networks will provide a scaffolded experience using augmented reality, virtual reality, games and simulations. This will take a project-, problem- and challenge-based focus allowing participants to play along with an escape room challenge theme.

Game Design as a Catalyst for Learning

Find out how to use game design to let students explore their interests, passions and curiosities as they become creative and innovative and practice thinking outside of the box. Learn to create transdisciplinary learning opportunities that give students voice.

iDigFossils: STEAM Integration through 3D Scanning, 3D Printing, and Paleontology

So you have a 3D printer…now what do you do with it? iDigFossils is a collaborative project between educators and the University of Florida that provides open-sourced, NGSS-aligned K-12 curriculum using 3D printed fossils. By leveraging 3D technology, these lessons allow students to become scientists.

Game On: Breakout EDU and the Changing Landscape of Learning

This session starts with a look back at where we have come from in games – especially through the lens of educational technology – and then looks at Breakout EDU as a path forward to a more intrinsic and student-focused education.

Digital Content and Games: Where the Rubber Meets the Road

This panel unpacks customer needs and industry innovation surrounding digital content and education games through dialogue anchored by publications by the Center for Digital Education. This engaging conversation includes voices from district leaders in the field as well as thought leaders and content providers.

It’s hard to believe that the list above is not comprehensive!  There are many other GBL posters, panels, workshops and connections happening and we hope you will be able to make it!

If you are coming to ISTE, please let us know and we would love to connect with you and share what Dig-It! Games is developing for SY 2017-2018.  We are looking forward to building partnerships with schools and teachers for input on our games as well as opportunities to share our GBL learning practices and playtest some of our games!

Jes and I are looking forward to presenting at ISTE and preparing for a very successful conference filled with new connections, insightful EdTech conversations and strengthening existing partnerships.

Drop us a line and we will see you in San Antonio!

Chris Magnuson – chrism@dig-itgames.com  – Twitter = @cromagnuson , @DigItGames

Jes Mylniec – jesm@dig-itgames.com – Twitter = @jmlyie

Could you save the world this summer?  Discover a new civilization? Or even explore the universe first hand?

We know you can!

Summer is here and it is time to keep the learning going! Summer reading lists are being circulated now with carefully chosen books to support reading gains over the concluding school year and a stepping stone for opening discussions at the beginning of school in the fall.  There can be a significant amount of down time in the summer for children which is the main reason why summer reading lists have become a part of our summers today.  We encourage students to read all summer long but also, don’t neglect to curate your own summer gaming list too!

Picture this: A child seated by himself reading a book under a tree’s shade on a hot summer day.  A hundred feet away, under the shade of another tree, is another child seated by herself playing a video game on a tablet.  In Everything Bad is Good for You, Steven Johnson argues that there is an inherent bias in promoting the reader’s activity as enrichment while deriding the gamer’s activity as wasting time.

They are both seated by themselves engrossed in other worlds.  But one is more acceptable than the other.  Johnson argues that we need to be open to changing the bias against video games.

A good reader will be actively reading by predicting what comes next, recognizing foreshadowing, but they will always be responding to a fixed narrative.  Whereas the video game player is making decisions that impact the outcome of the game, accomplishing short term and long term goals, and depending on the game, may very well be interacting with other players in creating and reimagining the world in which they inhabit.  Johnson argues that this may potentially be more intellectually rigorous…but it all depends on the content and the structure of the game.

This summer, read through that reading list, enjoy those summer evenings of staying up late and reading by flashlight and exploring new worlds.  We also encourage you to grab a video game that is educational and enriching and one that will engage your mind on multiple levels.  Who knows you very well may discover a new home for humanity, discover a new civilization or explore planets you never knew existed!

We here at Dig-It Games are proud of our library of educational games that we encourage you to add some or our games to your summer gaming list! Looking for more games?  Check out the library of games hosted by Games for Change.

Finally, if you are looking for another book to add to your reading this summer, why not pick up Everything Bad Is Good for You: How Today’s Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter.  We bet it will start some interesting conversations as well!

As a former teacher, I know very well the excitement that June brings for most educators out there. Some of you are already done (Congratulations!) and some are so close you can taste it (hang in there)! I still have that sense of anticipation even though this will be my first non-teacher summer ever! While I hope most of you can sit back and relax a bit, I also know that a lot of you will be working at some point this summer. The summer was a great time for me to reflect on the past year as a whole and start formulating my approach for the fall on my own time. I am no expert by any means, but I wanted to offer some of my advice for getting the most out of your summer planning:

• If you kept a journal throughout the year, go back and read it. If not, think through your year. Make a list of your greatest lessons and also the ones that completely failed (we all have those). Analyze these to see what you can keep, get rid of, or change. I always had student feedback that I referenced while doing this too.

• Keep up with your peers on Twitter. It’s the best free PD you can find! Use the hashtag for your content area and find chats that interest you – full schedule can be found here. It worked wonders for me for the past 5 years to just keep up with trends in schools and what teachers from all over the world were doing.

• Do you use Kahoot, ClassDojo, or Dig-iT! Games? Check out my blog post about connecting with EdTech companies. They (we) want to hear from you! Do you have questions or concerns about something? Do you have a feature you’d like to see added? Don’t be afraid to reach out.

• Learn something new! This is the perfect time to learn about technology tools, game based learning, or anything that will make your life easier in the fall. Check out these programs from the Institute of Play. Then put your new knowledge into practice by using one of our games! You can see them all here.

• Lastly, relax and enjoy yourself as much as possible. If you have kids or  extra summer jobs, try to carve out some time for yourself to recharge. It’s just as important!

We are just as excited about summer here at the studio. We have our education team heading to ISTE in San Antonio. If you’ll be there, reach out and meet up! You can find the blog post here to explain more. We are also working on curriculum and lesson plans to make implementing our games in the classroom much easier!

On Fridays our incredibly talented artists show off their skills live on Twitch and will answer any questions you may have about how they create characters and objects for our games. Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter and Facebook and sign up for our newsletter! You’ll get first access to our new games and the news coming out of the studio.  We’d love to hear from you! Enjoy your summer!

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By Chris Magnuson (@cromagnuson)

Tuesday, May 9^th is National Teacher Appreciation Day and we here at Dig-It! Games have a host of teachers to thank!  We not only have to thank teachers who use our games in their classes but also every teacher who has taken the time to fill out one of our surveys, has play-tested our games individually or with students and every teacher who now stays up to date on game-based learning by following us on social media.  We are an educational video game company and we would not exist without you!

We recognize that there are many things piled on the proverbial plate of teachers from the state, the district, parents, students and your own personal drive to ignite learning in your students.  That is why we also recognize that the teachers who are seeking out video games to incorporate into the daily routine deserve recognition and appreciation.

Here is why we say thank you to all game-based learning teachers:

• We know that the choice to seek out a game that fits your class is motivated by seeking to facilitate an engaging experience for your students. You want to ignite a spark of creativity, wonder, excitement or even an emotional experience.  In short you want to create a class that impacts your students.  We say thank you for your drive to make your class the best it can be.
• Choosing a game takes time. You must find a game that connects to your curriculum and play it long enough to determine if it hits the learning objectives you have mapped out for your class.  We know that time is in short supply and we thank you for playing our games!
• Once you have chosen a game that fits your class, there will need to be some customization of your lessons to connect it to your curriculum. We offer curriculum materials for many of our games but we also know that you will always customize them to fit your students’ needs.  We thank you for building the bridge between our games and your students.
• Teaching is all about logistics! We know that choosing the game and scaffolding the lesson is only a part of a successful incorporation of a game into a course.  You may also have to secure the laptop cart, reserve the computer lab or at a minimum make sure all your devices are fully charged and student accounts established.  These steps can sometimes be time-consuming and tedious but absolutely necessary.  We thank you for making sure that students can access our games in your class!
• During game playing you may also have to troubleshoot. Thank you!
• When the laptops are closed and students have left your classroom, your work is not done. You will look at data reports on how students did while playing the games or devise assessments that incorporate game-play to show what students have learned and also to help justify your decision to use games in the classroom.  We thank you for taking this extra step!

These steps demonstrate that incorporating games into the classroom is not a simple process but we know that you do it because you want to create an experience for students they will never forget.  We say thank you!

Now for the free stuff!

In the spirit of Teacher Appreciation Day, we would also like to say thank you by offering you one of our games of your choosing for free and a chance at becoming a character in a video game!

1. Use code TEACH2017 at our game store.
2. Fill out this form and we will randomly pick 3 entries to have our amazing art team draw you (or a friend) as a video game character that you can use to put on social media, letterhead, posters around your room, you name it!
3. Don’t forget about our free materials on TeachersPayTeachers!
4. Reach out to us on Twitter @dig-itgames!

Take a moment now to fill out an entry form today!  If you are chosen to become a video game character we will contact you for a personal photo for reference.  Good Luck!

By Chris Magnuson

On Monday, April 24, Dig-It! Games launched the 5^th Grade Challenge App to commemorate the Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) Educational Foundation’s 5^th annual production of an innovative fundraiser. But more importantly, we were joined in the lobby of the AFI Silver Theater by a host of 8^th graders who were showcasing their versions of the app and websites.

“Are You Up to the 5^th Grade Challenge?” is an engaging game show that welcomes community leaders to test their wits against the challenging 5^th grade curriculum of MCPS in order to raise money for programing in the district’s elementary schools.  The unique spin of this format is that there are about twenty 5^th graders representing a number of MCPS elementary schools on stage to help steer the contestant to the right answer. Yolanda Pruitt, Executive Director of the MCPSEF, wanted to commemorate the 5^th year of this unique event and she had a vision for students and families to take this game-show home via a mobile app.

Pruitt secured the funding from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute but her next step was to find a local game developer to make it happen.  That is where Dig-It! Games came in!  But she had one additional request and which was to include students in the building of the game.  We were up to the challenge!

Dig-It! Games teamed up with Argyle Middle School for Digital Design and Development to engage 8^th graders in this project.  We have always interfaced with students through studio visits, playtesting and career day conversations but this was the first opportunity our studio has had in making a game with students! Argyle is a unique magnet program that was the perfect fit.  Eighth graders study Game Design, Web Design, Digital Coding, Digital Art and Video Production and we have managed to incorporate each class in the creation of this project!

Our education team took the lead in coordinating the project but everyone in the studio has been involved.   Our developers visited with Game Design classes to engage students with the design specifications and run through a paper prototypes.  Our artists visited Digital Art classes to coach students through the design and production of art for the many of the questions in the app.  Video Production students filmed every time Dig-It! visited classes and they are producing a recap video of the whole project.  Finally, Web Design students made websites to host the app and tell the story of how the app was made.  We have engaged students in all aspects of the mobile game’s development but the most fun has been sitting down with students to actually play the game and see their eyes light up when they see their own artwork and ideas present in the game-play!

Building this mobile game was a challenge but with some help of innovative 8^th graders at Argyle we were up to it!

Download the app today! http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/schools/argylems/5thGradeChallenge/