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A Video Game To Teach AP Level Immunology
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."
Posting a link to a 500 MB file. That won't be a problem ;)
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
Start a happiness pandemic
God Mode if they want to use it in Louisiana?
...from an early beta.
Blank until
she said phagocytosis!
but seriously, she says her name is something like Neisha Elam and the caption says Jessica. They can't get her name right?
If someone gets some sort of hard to cure disease, just let the internet controlled nano bot pilots fix it manually. All they need to do is fly around and shoot the bad cells.
God spoke to me.
Like the world needs another Captain Novolin.
If each mistake being made is a new one, then progress is being made.
Only a Windows version, is more accurate.
This sounds a lot like the "X-treme" fad of yesteryear. Take a few quizzes and be rewarded with shoot-em-ups between exams. FPS make great teaching tools for, say, military tactics and strategy but I think the field of immunology would be best left to a puzzle game like an adanced version of Dr. Mario. What's next, DOOM: The Calculus? The more pieces you blast something into, There could be a "delta-epsilon" meter for blasting your enemies into smaller and smaller pieces.
Forgive the ignorance but I am not american, what does AP stand for?
Actually the game was "designed to run on Windows operating systems only", so forget about a version for Mac, linux, or anything else for that matter.
To pay money to inflate the living hell out of your GPA so that you can have a 5.0 GPA your senior year(yes, AP classes are one point higher than your standard prole classes). AP calculus is a good idea but classes like AP history are more like tangential trivia that you will soon forget after you pass the exam.
If this is what it takes to teach, so be it.
However, for those with limited time and a real desire to read up on the subject, couldn't the information also be presented in some more traditional formats. The game didn't spring into being without storyboards, outlines and lots of other resource material in traditional format, so where is it?
I would like to learn more about what is being taught, but I have a slow connection and an old computer. I can read quite well, thank you.
And thank you, Marshall McLuhan.
We find MS guilty of antitrust violations, and then fund programs developed exclusively for their platforms.
My government needs to get it's act together.
If they wanted to make it fun for everyone, they should have made it a fun puzzle game or something instead of an FPS.
And more important: no linux version. I'll think I'll Wine it maybe.
By the way, the game is built on DirectX so don't expect any other platform anytime soon. Seriously, why do people still code with DirectX.
As long as there are slaughterhouses, there will be battlefields.
Academic Probation :).
I've gotten into confusing conversations where one person was referring to it as this definition with a semi-apologetic nonchalance and I thought they meant Advanced Placement.
This game does not install on Win XP 64 (de). It says the game needs Windows XP. I assume it will not run under Vista either.
-- Put crudely, the world is an extremely large problem instance. (Russel/Norvig Artificial Intelligence)
I had no idea there was an Advanced Placement test for Immunology.
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?
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Also odd, in the video when the teacher is introduced she says her name is Netia (as do the credits) but the text overlay introduces her as Jessica. Those two are not even close.
Funny enough, a Netia Elam appeared as a contestant on a TV game show called "Love's a Trip" according to IMDB
Wonder if it's the same woman, she's not bad looking :)
and when they accidentally shoot the good ones?
a euphemism for sex education!!
... 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!"
Can you imagine a Beowulf cluster running this?
As usual, science fiction is way ahead of the curve. This concept was covered by Norman Spinrad in his short story "Carcinoma Angels" back in 1967: http://www.scifi.com/scifiction/classics/classics_archive/spinrad/spinrad1.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carcinoma_Angels //
No sigs is good sigs.
and when they accidentally shoot the good ones?
Accidentally?
God spoke to me.
I won't be impressed until they shell out for Dennis Quaid and Martin Short to be voice actors.
The game is free, although not open source
:(
It is odd that as the game is shown under play with about 3:20 to go (as my media player shows it), that only Macs are used for playing the game. This trend continues to the end of the video. I don't get it.
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.
Invalid Checksum. Retrying.
I'm wondering what an AP level high school student is??
International Baccalauriat for dummies.
When you die, can I play?
-Gaz
Organ Trail: Guide your white blood cell from the pancreas through the marrow to reach the brain. Will you successfully ford the lower intestine? Thrill in excitement as you shoot antibodies at far too many bacteria to carry back! Face dread diseases on the way such as cholera and whooping cough.
The game is crashing when i try to start the "campaign" on my computer, does that mean that i'm not worthy of saving human lives?
Not to nitpick, but as someone who studies T cells, I'm kinda upset to see they were left out of the game (along with the rest of adaptive immunity). I haven't played it yet (still downloading), but from what I saw in the walkthrough, it's all innate immunity (monocytes, neutrophils, etc). Since the adaptive immune system is the hallmark of the more "advanced" immune systems and is really fascinating, why was it left out? Where's the adaptive love?
I think it's an awesome idea though. Maybe it was too much work for one game and they'll have "Immune Attack Part II: The Adaptive Response" or even "Immune Attack II: When Things Go Wrong" (autoimmunity?)
T Cell Pride!
"Welcome to the Aperture Science Immunity Research Center. Today we are going to infect you with a cocktail of horrible uncurable diseases. Fortunately, we have developed the new Aperture Science Handheld Immunity Device. It is currently in beta stage. If this device fails, you will die of a horrible combination of ailements. If it is successful, you will then proceed to the next room where cake and emotional conseling will be served."
The Rapture is NOT an exit strategy.
Er, "Immunology" is not an AP subject exam: Take a look at http://www.collegeboard.com/student/testing/ap/subjects.html if you don't believe me.
Just bad.....it would take a week to learn the controls
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.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
Same as in any other video game: They lose points.
I hate printers.
I use a Commodore 64, you insensitive clod!
For all the clueless, this is a very funny invader zim reference... See "-Gaz"
from the next-up-should-be-history dept.
Isn't that what Rome: Total War is for?
"Without curiosity and knowledge, the mind is a vast void. Without the mind, curiosity and knowledge are nonexistent."
this is a very funny invader zim reference
No such thing.
No freakin' way!
Well it's not really even close to accurate, it looks like they aren't figuring in Brownian motion.
Ah, feeling nostalgic for a game of Microbe on my Apple ][e.
HAHA Not for Mac yet! Didn't even need to put that in there as it was already assumed. When I see a working version of Counter Strike on a Mac then I will bow down and throw away my 6-year-virus-free PC. But in all seriousness, I love Mac's, just can't afford one at the moment.
Have any of you actually played it? As an avid gamer and medical student, I found it surpassed all my cynical musings. Apart from the lame intro and outtro It's actually really, really good and needs to be supported heavily.
You play, you learn some, and want to learn more by then going to books after.