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A Video Game To Teach AP Level Immunology
Posted by
timothy
on Sun Jun 29, 2008 03:27 PM
from the next-up-should-be-history dept.
from the next-up-should-be-history dept.
kilrathu writes "Longtime proponents of using video games as sources of learning, the Federation of American Scientists put its money where its mouth is. FAS released Immune Attack, an educational video game designed to teach immunology to AP level high school students and combines the most current research on teaching methodologies with a 3D first-person shooter game. 'The key to the game was making sure it was fun while also covering accurate and complex immunology topics,' said Dr. Michelle Lucey-Roper, director of the FAS Learning Technologies Program. The game is free, although not open source, and can be downloaded here. Sorry, no Mac version yet."
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Way to go (Score:5, Funny)
Posting a link to a 500 MB file. That won't be a problem ;)
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Insert standard replies here... (Score:5, Funny)
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AP? Never heard the term..what does it mean?
Re:Insert standard replies here... (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
You forgot the other reason (Score:3, Informative)
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Interesting...they didn't have anything like that when I was in high school. I took advance classes as a senior IN high school....my chemistry was pretty much the same thing I took first year in
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Most major universities "deflate" the GPA when determining admissions.
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Depending on where you apply to college, you may get no credits for your AP courses, as the program has been diluted by schools' efforts to get more students enrolled in them.
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Too bad they can't use this for remedial immunology... those students are way too slow to play a game.
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Consider yourself lucky it wasn't the other way around. I had really easy AP classes (except for maybe AP Spanish) which led to the development of some bad habits.
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It's a program where high school students can take a test in a certain subject and gain college credit for it (if they score well and they go to a college that accepts it). Many high schools have classes which teach specifically to these tests.
It's a pretty good program, if the courses are taught well. The tests I took seemed pretty well-written to test actual ability in a subject (much better than most standardized tests). I was able to enroll in college with 30 credit-hours off the ba
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Huh, this is the only one I don't know the origin on. Anyone mind filling me in?
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So will it have... (Score:5, Funny)
God Mode if they want to use it in Louisiana?
Screenshot (Score:5, Funny)
...from an early beta. [wikimedia.org]
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Wow, they changed it quite a bit for the release version [gamepro.com]!
Imagine a million highschooled controlled nanobots (Score:4, Interesting)
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When you die, can I play?
-Gaz
That is a very, very scary picture (Score:4, Funny)
1) Please don't teamkill the brainstem. Its sort of important, at least among those members of the species who have one.
2) I don't care that you just scored a +10,000 Helper-T bonus, that does not mean you can release dilatory hormones to make the patient's scrotum turn red.
3) Yes, yes, we understand -- its a breast cancer. You're in her breast. Get over it.
Parent
Re:Imagine a million highschooled controlled nanob (Score:4, Funny)
Accidentally?
Parent
"Sorry, no Mac version yet." (Score:4, Insightful)
Only a Windows version, is more accurate.
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And http://www.skolelinux.org/ [skolelinux.org] is a Linux distribution developed in Norway primarily for the use at schools. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skolelinux [wikipedia.org] With the continued move towards open
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Well, no duh. (Score:5, Funny)
Only a Windows version, is more accurate.
How would you create a game about fighting off viruses without an environment that's hospitable to them?
Parent
Re:"Sorry, no Mac version yet." (Score:5, Informative)
The reality is we made this with a very limited budget and for that reason we have not not yet implemented a mac/*nix version yet. This is primarily a research project to show that students can learn from video games. The goal is to prove to policy makers that technology can be used to improve education. FAS is open to any feedback you can give them about the game or if you can help get it into the classroom.
If you really need a different version consider donating or joining FAS [http://fas.org/member/index.html] so that we can continue development.
Parent
Wha? (Score:2)
Re:Wha? (Score:4, Informative)
Did you actually read/view anything beyond the summary? This looks nothing like those. Absolutely nothing. It IS more of a first-person puzzle game than a first-person "shooter." In fact, if you look at the controls, [fas.org] there's not even anything to "shoot." You go through and find the necessary chemicals to activate the various parts of the immune system.
Parent
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Damn. The one time that I didn't RTFA and I get called on it. Thank you, sir, for bruising my fragile ego!
Apparently you didn't read her signature either. ;-)
What does AP mean? (Score:3, Insightful)
Forgive the ignorance but I am not american, what does AP stand for?
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It stands for "Advanced Placement," which is typically the highest level of a course offered by a high school. High scores on AP tests (standardized tests given by College Board, the same group that does SAT testing) normally translate to credit for introductory level classes at most universities in the US.
Re:What does AP mean? (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
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Thanks =)
Love the Firefly reference too.
Fun? (Score:3, Insightful)
If they wanted to make it fun for everyone, they should have made it a fun puzzle game or something instead of an FPS.
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It *IS* a puzzle game. There's nothing to shoot, hell there isn't even a shoot command! Had you bothered to download the thing you'd know that.
I thought that was.. (Score:2)
a euphemism for sex education!!
Glad to see this... (Score:2)
... even if their first attempt isn't great, I've often wondered if one couldn't make a puzzle game out of teaching basic electricity and electronics. I was playing bioshock with the little 'hacking' tubes game and thought "wouldn't it be cool if this was about electronics, in 3D, and you could make stuff!"
Putting their money where their mouth is eh? (Score:2)
Bugs and Drugs in Orange Plasma (Score:5, Interesting)
PLATO had a game/training program called "Bugs and Drugs". It was a 2D dungeon game where you ran into various organisms and had to prescribe the correct medicine to kill them. The best group to be a member of was the Bedpan Commandos.
It was written back in 1978 by Mike Gorback, Dave Tanaka and Paul Alfille.
Not an AP exam? (Score:3, Informative)
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Because its quite a decent bit easier, if for nothing else that DirectX covers everything from image to sound to input. The alternative is to combine multiple librairy... so that raise the barrier of entry right there. Also (I don't know if its what they did), but for simpler games, you can use Managed Direct X in .NET with performance more than good enough to make a game like this one (and then some), with 1/10th the effort.
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Isn't SDL not even object oriented? That would make the barrier for entry pretty high. Also, its really lacking in the feature department. Fine for a small game like this one though, I'll give you that. Total joke for most real applications though (there are exceptions).
And for all of the modules that are discontinued in DX, there are replacements.
Re:The medium is the message. . . (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent