A GAME OF TELEPHONE: This week, the Joan Ganz Cooney Center has the answers in "Teachers Surveyed on Using Games in Class,” a survey of 513 educators. Respondents reported selecting games primarily based on their own previous experiences (42%) and those of other educators (48%), emphasizing the importance of teacher-to-teacher recommendations. Teachers also focused on low-performing students: 55% ranked motivating struggling students as the most valuable quality when evaluating games, and 47% said low-performing students benefit most from effective tools. Unfortunately, 44% of the educators surveyed still reported cost as one of the primary barriers to using digital games in the classroom, only a slight decrease from 50% of educators in the Cooney Center’s 2012 survey. More results will be released later this summer.
