The nonprofit started by retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor has launched an online game to teach children about their local government. O'Connor is spending her time in retirement pushing the idea that children and Americans in general need to learn more about their state, local, and federal governments. The game is called Counties Work, and was put together by O'Connor's group iCivics and the National Association of Counties.

Educational Testing Service is now accepting submissions for a contest to create a computer game or mobile app that can give accurate math assessments for children in grades K- 12. The grand prize winner of this contest will receive $7,000 and an all-expense-paid trip for one person to showcase their winning project in a learning and games demo space at ETS in Princeton, N.J.

Veteran Naughty Dog lead developer Richard Lemarchand is leaving the makers of the Uncharted series, according to a Gamasutra report. But Lemarchand isn't moving on to another studio or launching his own company; he has left the development studio to teach. After eight years working for Naughty Dog Lemarchand feels that he can do the most good by teaching at the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California.

Miami-Dade County, Florida public schools are preparing to launch the first-of-its-kind magnate school that focuses on video games this fall, according to the Miami Herald. Dubbed the iTech Academy at Miami Springs Senior High, students will be able to learn how to design and program video games. Educators backing the school believe that this special program will teach students how to better solve problems and also prepare them to work in the technology and gaming industries.

Parents in New Zealand and Australia are embracing the idea that video games can serve as great tools to engage and educate children, according to new research commissioned by the Interactive Games & Entertainment Association (iGEA).

Recently the Brookings Institute hosted a panel on the important role that social networking and gaming can have on education. The panel featured Constance Steinkuehler Squire, senior science and technology policy analyst for President Barack Obama; Janet Kolodner, information and intelligent systems program officer at the National Science Foundation, Maria Ucelli-Kashyap, policy analyst at the American Federation of Teachers; and Holly Sagues, chief policy officer at the Florida Virtual School.

The Florida National Guard has found a novel way of helping its state's unemployed soldiers work in the private sector: a program called Operation KickStart. The program uses gamification techniques to educate and teach participants in a game-like social platform environment. It also provides them with support through mentors and coaches that can teach them the best practices for starting a new career and being successful at it.

With the growing importance of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) in today's digital world, one would think that educational facilities would make programs that teach such skills a priority. Unfortunately for many students and faculty at University of Florida, this is not happening.

Registration is open for the eighth annual Games for Health Conference, set to take place June 12-14 at the Hyatt Harboside Hotel in Boston, Massachusetts. Organizers of the event have scheduled over 80 talks covering various topics related to merging video games and video game technologies with health and healthcare.

Students who enroll in a new video game-based narrative writing course at the University of Iowa beginning in the fall will get a chance to explore worlds, characters and plotlines popularized by video games. They'll also get credits. The course is called "Specialized Reporting & Writing, Video Games & Communication," and is a step by the university to add video games into the curriculum, though video-game education experts say that analyzing off-the-shelf commercial games isn't the typical approach taken by universities.

Epic Games has inked a long-term deal with Virtual Heroes, a division of Applied Research Associates, Inc. (ARA). The Virtual Heroes Division of Applied Research Associates creates collaborative interactive learning solutions for healthcare, federal systems, and corporate training markets. Virtual Heroes will use Unreal Engine technology to create interactive educational and training software to be used by various U.S. government departments and agencies.

Here's a little fact I did not know until I read this Information Week article: Rovio's Angry Birds Space was designed with the help of NASA. Angry Birds Space was developed in collaboration with NASA through a Space Act Agreement. Why would NASA team up with Rovio on an Angry Birds game? Because it saw an opportunity to educate kids about space, science, and the laws of physics.

Sony Online Entertainment sent along a reminder to let anyone interested in applying for the fifth annual Gamers in Real Life (G.I.R.L.) Game Design Competition, that submissions are now being accepted. The G.I.R.L. Game Design Competition is an annual initiative to promote higher education among women and encourage their inclusion and participation in the video game industry.

On May 4 Campus Gamers will launch the 2012 Education and Gaming Symposium at California State University, Bakersfield. Leaders in the game industry will be attending the event to illuminate attendees on how the games they play can be used to improve education. Confirmed speakers include James Portnow (Extra Credits), Leslie Redd (Director of Educational Programming at Valve), and Geoffrey Zatkin (EEDAR).

Wizard101 creators Todd Coleman and Josef Hall of KingsIsle Entertainment will be the keynote speakers at the sixth annual Digital Kids Conference, a two-day event that purports to provide companies with "the critical information they need to reach digital kids and connected youth through online and mobile technologies." Speakers from the NFL, Spin Master, Cartoon Network, Ubisoft, SOE, Cookie Jar, and many others will also deliver talks April 25-26, 2012 in Los Angeles.

The Princeton Review released its third annual list of the best school to pursue an education in video game design. The latest list, the "Top Schools to Study Video Game Design for 2012," recommends a total of 50 schools. The full report on the 2012 list is available at princetonreview.com.

If you were looking to get your hands on a Raspberry Pi on launch day, you are out of luck. Within hours of announcing that the Model B version of the credit card-sized computers was available for pre-order, it sold out. The Raspberry Pi Foundation chose two UK resellers - Premier Farnell and RS Components - who have closed pre-orders in favor of taking your email so it can inform you when more are in stock,

A Paramus, New Jersey history teacher has developed a simple video game to help teach his students about the American Revolutionary War. History teacher David Alloco's game is called Choosing Sides: The American Revolution in Bergen County. In the game players take on the role of Hackensack resident John Van Dunk, during the beginning of the American Revolutionary War.

The Massachusetts Digital Games Institute (MassDiGI) revealed a new program for students looking to jump into the wonderful world of game development called the MassDiGI Summer Innovation Program. The summer program, which will being in May at Becker College (Worcester, Mass), will be preceded by the MassDiGI Game Challenge competition being held April 13-15.

Sony Online Entertainment is accepting applications and submissions today for its 2012 Gamers in Real Life (G.I.R.L.) Game Design Competition. In its fifth year, the G.I.R.L. program grants scholarships to four winners through the Game Design Competition.

The University of Minnesota has developed an online video game called Distraction Dodger, which teaches young drivers about the dangers of doing stupid things while driving. You know, eating, drinking, using your cell phone, texting - those kinds of things. In the game, players drive a virtual pizza delivery truck with the goal of delivering those pizzas while facing a number of distractions like eating and using a cell phone. At the end of the game session, the player is given feedback on how they did.

Former Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences (AIAS) President Joseph Olin has been appointed Executive Director of The International Digital Media & Arts Association (iDMAa). In this new role, Olin is charged with taking the association in a new strategic direction as a "champion for educators and creators in the growing digital media arts arena. Olin previously led the Academy of Interactive Arts as president and during his tenure grew the membership from 3,000 to 20,000.

Phaedra Boinodiris, serious games program manager at IBM, writes a guest editorial on Forbes exploring the way that games can be used to energize and enhance other things besides research projects. The point of her editorial is that researchers have been helped greatly by games created to solve problems that take advantage of "collective intelligence," and global participation.

Add-A-Tudez Entertainment Company and Team KAIZEN won a grant from HASTAC and The MacArthur Foundation to develop educational levels using the PlayStation 3 game LittleBigPlanet 2 (www.littlebigplanet.com). The levels created by the team have since went live among the over five million user created levels that are already free to play in the LittleBigPlanet Community.

Scientists are using a web-based video game to entice gamers to assist them in the study of genetic diseases.

The game, called Phylo and launched in November 2010, allows players to rearrange colored blocks that represent human DNA. Scientists have been studying the results and will release their findings soon. 

Indie game studio Size Five Games has won a BAFTA for controversial sex education game, Privates. The game won the Learning Secondary BAFTA.

"It’s a complete honor and a total shock,” Size Five’s Dan Marshall said about receiving the coveted award that honors the best and brightest entertainment that the United Kingdom has to offer. "I was excited enough about being able to start all my Press Releases from now on with the words ‘BAFTA-nominated’, but winning one is a whole other level."

While those who don't know anything at all about video games are quick to use them as an excuse for many of society’s ills (crime, violence, obesity, attention deficit and a myriad of psychological disorders), now everyone thinks they are bad. In fact a growing number of academics see the value in video games as teaching aids. For example, a Yale professor is trying to use them to teach sex education.

North Carolina State University researchers have received a $1 million grant from the National Science Foundation to develop a video game to improve computer science knowledge retention in middle school students. If the video game proves to be successful, it could be used nationally, according to North Carolina State University researchers.

Kids love Minecraft so it seems only right that they should be able to buy it on the cheap to learn something in school, right? Well Minecraft developer Mojang has teamed up with TeacherGaming, LLC to create MinecraftEdu.

MinecraftEdu is described as a "collaboration of a small team of educators and programmers from the United States and Finland who are working with Mojang to make the game "affordable and accessible to schools everywhere." This team has created a suite of tools that make it easy to unlock the power of Minecraft in the classroom.

Students studying criminal justice at Fox Valley Technical College (Oshkosh, WI.) will use a first-person simulator game next semester to train for various hypothetical policing scenarios - from domestic disputes to lost children and traffic stops.

"It's a first-person perspective on interacting with a virtual crime scene," said FVTC Vice President for Instruction Chris Matheny. "Students will walk through this virtual environment in order to practice these (law enforcement) skills before applying them, ultimately, in the real world."