Welcome
Our group creates learning resources such as interactive digital media and computer games. Among our first projects are the development of games to teach about viral infection and immunity and how medical imaging and radiotherapy are used to treat cancer.
Education Research Group featured in the Wisconsin State Journal
Video games go viral at UW educational research lab
9.17.11 | Wisconsin State Journal | Ron Seely
Upstairs in the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery, scientists toil away in their labs researching everything from stem cells to viruses. Downstairs, you'll find a very different kind of laboratory. In cubicles and makeshift computer labs, a number of people sit behind their screens — playing games. They're not nerds, they're researchers.
Full article
Education Research Group featured on WPR's To the Best of Our Knowledge
Parents worry that their kids spend too much time playing video
games, but according to one new study, if you need surgery, you want the surgeon
who grew up with a game controller in one hand. In this hour of To the Best
of Our Knowledge, why the future belongs to gamers. Imagine a world in which
whatever you want to know you can learn from a game.
The broadcast was on February 12, and can be heard at Wisconsin Public Radio.
Featured Profile
Kurt Squire
An associate professor in UW-Madison’s Educational Communications and Technology division of the department of Curriculum and Instruction, Squire is co-director of the Games, Learning and Society Research Group. A former Montessori and primary school teacher, Squire also has served as research manager of the Games-to-Teach Project at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and co-director of the Education Arcade. He is an internationally recognized leader in games and learning, and the author of more than 50 publications on games and learning.
Project Showcase
About our Research
Virulent
We fight off host and cellular immune responses with armies of our virions, RNA genomes, and viral proteins. We steal energy and manipulate cell resources to spread our infection. We are infectious, we are disease, we are the Raven Virus. We have numbers and speed on our side, use us wisely or recklessly. Partners: John Yin, Collin Timm, Jenny Gumperz
Play Virulent Now
Download the Free App from iTunes!
Learn more about Virulent! and our other current projects>
Our Approach
We make scientific discovery accessible to the public by creating digital games for learning science. Working in close collaboration with institute biologists, medical researchers, computer scientists and engineers, education research staff (learning scientists, game designers, education researchers, artists and programmers) design games that provide authentic windows into the scientific process.
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Our Research
We investigate how to design learning technologies that immerse users in advanced scientific practices. To do so, we experiment with different representations of, and interactions with, scientific phenomena to understand how different designs can support learning and collaboration between the public and scientists.
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Guiding Principles
1. Create a tight marriage among content, game
play and valued ways of thinking and acting.
2. Motivate learning through social engagement.
3. Assess learning through game play.
4. Provide cutting-edge content that integrates
new medical technologies.
Meet Our Team >
