According to this press release, sent out by the University of California, Los Angeles, the university will be launching a new technology research center, which will focus, at least initially, on the relationship between gaming and students’ math skills.
As someone who has written a number of stories about gaming in education, I’ve heard quite a bit of anecdotal evidence about how including video and computer games in classroom lessons can boost motivation and achievement levels, but hard-hitting research on whether that’s actually true is pretty thin, although new organizations designed to provide just that seem to be cropping up more and more often.
I’ll definitely be keeping my eye on this center to see what it finds.