Blog Articles

Exergame Fitness Educates the World at the Exergame Education Workshop 2013

by Ashley Staley on Feb 26, 2013 at 1:02pm

On average, children spend three to seven hours a day parked in front of a television.  Whether it’s watching after school cartoons, the Disney Channel, or playing video games, the rate of child obesity has had a drastic increase throughout the course of the past 20 years.  Let’s Move!  a campaign launched by First Lady Michelle Obama, has an ambitious but important goal: to solve the epidemic of childhood obesity within a generation.  This nationwide...

Case Study on Exergaming for Kids with Behavioral Issues

by Dr. Dan Lawler on Feb 21, 2013 at 5:07pm

In schools today students who engage in antisocial behaviors are a real challenge for teachers and administrators.  Too often these behaviors diminish a student’s ability to learn and often interrupt the education of others.  Many times teachers and schools apply restrictions to privileges, more seat time, anger management strategies, and suspensions as a remedy for these behaviors.  A few months ago I assisted a middle school with initiating an alternative to...

First Care For Then Educate

by By Dan Lawler, Ph.D. and Bev Bachman, M.Ed. on Nov 26, 2012 at 3:50pm

Peter Senge, in his 1990 book entitled The Fifth Discipline, talked specifically about well-intentioned goals and aspirations often leading to unpredicted outcomes that even the best leaders and thinkers could not have anticipated.  Certainly a 1981 government document release called “The Nation at Risk” intended to bring attention to the need for education to improve for all kids.  What evolved over the years was a tightening of curriculum, the development...

Sierra Vista Jr. High Physical Education Demonstration

by George Velarde on Oct 29, 2012 at 2:23pm

As the Physical Education Department Chair at Sierra Vista Jr. High School, our PE program hosts PE Demonstrations for educators, principals, superintendents, and community leaders from all around the country to come and see the “New PE”curriculum in action. The demonstrations are designed to get them excited about the possibilities on how a comprehensive curriculum is implemented on a daily basis and the variety of equipment that is used to increase...

Exergaming in the Modern School

by Jeff Dammann on Oct 16, 2012 at 11:44am

Those of us who were lucky enough to get one of the first video game systems and play the game Pong all remember playing long hours with family and friends in the living room. Video games have come a long way since then, but still require a lot of living room time, most likely on the couch.  This has led to very sedentary lifestyles for children, yet a new form of gaming is beginning to emerge, that being Exergaming. Exergaming combines physical activity with video games,...

Integrating ExerGaming with Instruction: One Model

by By Dan Lawler, Ph.D. on Oct 9, 2012 at 12:12pm

By Dan Lawler, Ph.D. This school year a Title I teacher in Colorado will be integrating into her teaching both effective practices in literacy instruction and current research on how exercise prepares the brain for learning.   She is a strong literacy teacher, long grounded in strategies that have been supported by research in reading instruction.   This year she is excited to add this new dimension to her literacy lessons by having her classes participate in 5...

Active-Play Video Games Show Promise in Promoting Physical Activity

on Apr 26, 2011 at 2:59pm

Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association DALLAS, April 26, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Active-play video games show potential in increasing players' physical activity, according to a new report in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association. However, continued research is needed to investigate the health effects and other potential benefits of active-play video games,  researchers concluded. The review, designed to examine the possible influence...

Exergaming and Physical Activity

on Dec 27, 2010 at 3:24pm

Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans Sanna Ronkainen  B.A. Guest blogger Video games, along with television and computers, are often maligned  as a major culprit in the obesity epidemic in America. Given the coincidence between the obesity epidemic and the onslaught of media (a study from the Kaiser Family Foundation found that one in five 8 to 18 year olds are exposed to at least 16 hours of media a day!), it’s really not a stretch to see that this is the...

Exergaming and the "Turned On" Brain By Dan Lawler, Ph.D.

on Aug 2, 2010 at 11:32am

When I observed the positive effects our Exergaming lab had on our elementary school, I was convinced that every student should have access to this type of lab.  Nothing I had observed before motivated students to exercise with the enthusiasm and spirit that this lab created.  The lab had a remarkable impact on our student body's commitment to exercise and physical activity.  Students couldn't wait for their scheduled time in our Exercise 4 Learning lab. How and Why We Started an...

Exergaming Inspires Kids of All Ages to Get Fit

on Jan 4, 2011 at 5:43pm

Posted in January 4th, 2011 by admin in Kids Fitness Racheal St John, 13, knows how to bust a move, thanks to the video game “Dance Dance Revolution.” She plays at least twice a day – at home in front of her TV and also at the local YMCA teen center. At the slowest speed, St John keeps pace with the dance moves on the monitor. But when teen center coordinator Damien Hunt ratchets up the tempo, the seventh-grader from Fishers, Ind., struggles to keep up. “That’s...

Exergaming New Trend In Parkinson's Treatment

on Dec 19, 2009 at 1:53pm

A combination of exercise and video games is helping some patients with Parkinson's Disease. What was life like before 68-year-old Bob Rohrman started exer-gaming to help his Parkinson's? "My biggest scare when I first was diagnosed with it was that I would trip and fall, but now I don't have that problem," Rohrman said. Rohrman took part in a study that was funded by the National Parkinson's Foundation that combined movement or exercise with the playing of video...

Experts Rate “Exergames” for Consumers

on Sep 6, 2010 at 8:51am

Exergaming (Active Gaming) combines video games and exercise to provide a physically challenging but enjoyable experience. Traditionally, laboratory tests have been used to determine exertion levels and mainstream journalists review and rate a game’s game-play. The Exergame Network (TEN) has created a next generation rating system which is ready for world wide release. TEN’s ratings system evaluates the holistic experience of an exergame in it’s Exergaming Experience Rating...

Get in the game: Exergames encourage physical activity, enhance cognitive thinking

on May 4, 2011 at 2:58pm

Gaming, or the playing of video or computer games, is not often described a healthy activity. Some would argue that sitting in front of a screen all day engaged in games is an unhealthy and socially destructive habit. But not necessarily so, said Barbara Chamberlin, a game researcher at the New Mexico State University Learning Games Lab. "We have such a fear of screen time that we've been trained to think that screen time is the enemy," Chamberlin said, "but screen time isn't the...

Health Fitness Articles: Obesity In Children On Rise

on Jan 28, 2011 at 2:41pm

By admin, on January 28th, 2011 The trend that is being observed is that one child in three is now either overweight or at risk of becoming over weight. This ballooning of obesity in kids has been alarmingly growing simply because with the several cutbacks in physical education and recess at American schools, and children not acquiring the nutritional guidance. The physical exercise that they desperately need is not being available to kids in schools where they invest most of their...

iDance Meets Suny Cortland - by Amy Marks

on Dec 18, 2009 at 1:40pm

The past week SUNY Cortland has been lucky enough to experience excergames fitness. Exergame Fitness USA is a technology based excersising program that combines video games with physical activity. In class we were able to experience the iDANCE (see youtube video below) and on Friday were able to experiment with other systems. Some systems included riding a bike that makes a car drive, running on a stepmaster to move your players on a basketball game and a boxing bag that generates a fighting...

NeuroActive Science Promotes Healthy Body and Mind: The BrainBike

on Jan 20, 2010 at 7:17pm

Brain fitness is one of the fastest growing industries in North America whose value reached $265 million in 2008, according to industry market research leader SharpBrains. Neuroscience research has demonstrated that like your muscles, your brain can grow stronger and more agile through proper training and regular activity. Canadian-based Brain Center International (BCI) is making waves in the field by helping thousands of customers improve their brain performance each year. BCI is the...

New research on gaming design and brain plasticity offers more perspectives on educational gaming

on Dec 28, 2009 at 11:47am

Playing action video games on a regular basis can alter a player's attention skills. As video games continue to permeate our culture, schools and students are increasingly interested in using video games for learning. This interest has prompted universities and neurologists to explore what makes a successful educational game, what the current barriers to adoption are, and how gaming as a whole affects the brain. According to a recent paper by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology...

Study looks at exercise effect on brain

on Jan 6, 2011 at 2:09pm

Wed Jan. 05 2011 15:13:07 ctvcalgary.ca Exercise isn't just good for your butt. A University of Calgary researcher is trying to understand why it's also good for your brain. The study shows that people who are physically active also maintain sharp thinking and memory skills. Georgie Leach's sister had Alzheimer's disease and died from it less than a year ago. That was all the motivation she needed to sign herself up for the study, along with two of her friends. The three...

Study: Wii Can Alleviate Elderly Depression, Too

on Jan 6, 2011 at 12:25pm

Kotaku owen@kotaku.com The benefits of the Wii and exergaming to patients in hospitals and elder-care facilities has been discussed nearly since the console's release. Researchers in San Diego now say that Wii games can combat the onset of depression in elderly persons. A pilot study involving 19 subjects with subsyndromal depression - not full blown depression, but much more common, and more associated with functional disability and long-term hospitaliztion - found that...

Video games rival phys-ed for fitness: Study

on Dec 8, 2010 at 10:56am

Jennifer Gerson, Postmedia News Reports CALGARY — With the flashing lights, blaring music and banks of high definition television screens, kids might think they were wandering into an arcade. Actually, it's gym class. Grade 4 students at the Foundations for the Future Academy in Calgary use video games to stay in shape. While video games have long been considered the foe of gym teachers, new research released Tuesday by the University of Calgary suggests that games may be as...