Several companies are set
to release school curricula designed entirely on digital platforms for
tablets, replacing all printed materials. Education companies such
as Amplify, McGraw Hill and Scholastic are among the first
to heavily invest in an all-digital English Language Arts (ELA) curriculum for
middle school.
Amplify’s entry into the
Serious Game Market was announced mid last year, as a “groundbreaking line-up
of Educational Games focused on English Language Arts (ELA) and STEM, developed
in collaboration with leading independent game designers from across the globe
and designed to help students achieve core educational goals.”
The games, which have
been piloted in schools across the country, are playable on iPad, Chromebook or
Amplify tablet. School districts may purchase the games this year, either
bundled with Amplify’s Digital Curriculum or separately, for classroom
deployment at the start of the 2014-15 school year.
Lexica,
Amplify’s premier English Language Arts product brings together more than 14
embedded Serious Games.
Developed by Schell Games, Lexica is a
tablet based adventure game designed to inspire kids to pursue reading on their
own and simultaneously to get them familiar with characters from classical
literature.
The World of Lexica is an immersive environment packed with characters from literature and nonfiction. The center of this world is a library stocked with more than 300 classic and contemporary books catering to a broad cross section of reading interests.
The World of Lexica is an immersive environment packed with characters from literature and nonfiction. The center of this world is a library stocked with more than 300 classic and contemporary books catering to a broad cross section of reading interests.
Players have the ability
to seamlessly transition from reading books to game play. The games help build
key reading and writing skills and reinforce language and themes from the books
a player has read. Reading books from the library enables players to better understand
the characters and puzzles they encounter in the game world and provides a way
to unlock customized capabilities.
The 14 games that are
housed within the larger multi-player game World of Lexica include:
- Mukashi Mukashi (English translation of "MUKASHI MUKASHI" is "LONG, LONG AGO") by Schell Games: A syntax and storytelling game based on Japanese folklore. The game mechanics “make failure fun” while driving students to engage in sustained exploration of the impact of word choices within longer narratives.
- Tomes: A choose-your-own-adventure series with a focus on vocabulary, offers word definitions that are based on context.
- Venture!: A bundle of quick-play games focusing on spelling, conjugation of irregular verbs and overcoming homonym confusion.
- Story Cards, by Preloaded: A collectible card game featuring authors and characters from classic and modern literature.
About Amplify
Amplify is the education division of the
media conglomerate News Corp. Headquartered in New York
City and with more than 1,000 employees across the country, Amplify is led by a
team of digital education experts and has provided industry-leading
instructional tools, data analytics and assessment solutions to the K-12 market
for more than a decade as Wireless Generation.