Video games: “Exergaming”, which combines on-screen action with physical exercise, shows that gamers need not be couch potatoes
FROM THE ECONOMIST
IN THE heart of Silicon Valley, not far from Google’s headquarters, a new gym aimed at a teenage clientele opened its doors last September. As befits its location, it is an unusually high-tech establishment. As well as the weights and cardiovascular exercise gear, Overtime Fitness has “exergaming” equipment that combines video games with physical exercise. One controller allows ordinary Xbox games to be played using full-body movements: players exert pressure on a padded metal bar, rather than pushing buttons on a plastic controller. With another system, players stand in front of a screen and wear a belt equipped with motion sensors, controlling on-screen action with real-world movements.
Filed under: 14-18, 19-39, 30-45, diagnostic, environmental, gaming, lifestyle, motivation, movement, personal, research, science
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Filed under: 14-18, 19-39, 30-45, 45-60, 5-9, gaming, lifestyle, motivation, movement, play, prevention, research
Video Games: Good for the Body, Good for the Brain
Mon Oct 1, 2007 5:48PM EDT
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Treadmills and stretching are out: Physical therapists are turning to the Nintendo Wii to help the injured and infirm get their grooves back while increasing flexibility and strength. Click on over to see a video of a 70-year-old patient looking awfully spry as he hits a few balls in Nintendo’s Wii Sports tennis game… all part of a medical therapy regimen. (more…)Filed under: 14-18, gaming, motivation, movement, object, play, prevention, research
P.E. Classes Turn to Video Game That Works Legs
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Children don’t often yell in excitement when they are let into class, but as the doors opened to the upper level of the gym at South Middle School here one recent Monday, the assembled students let out a chorus of shrieks.
In they rushed, past the Ping-Pong table, past the balance beams and the wrestling mats stacked unused. They sprinted past the ghosts of Gym Class Past toward two TV sets looming over square plastic mats on the floor. In less than a minute a dozen seventh graders were dancing in furiously kinetic union to the thumps of a techno song called “Speed Over Beethoven.”
Filed under: 14-18, 5-9, barriers, cultural, gender, movement, overcoming, play, research
“COMPLETE FREEDOM OF MOVEMENT”: VIDEO GAMES AS GENDERED PLAY SPACES
by Henry Jenkins
[Download PostScript version for printing] A Tale of Two Childhoods
Sometimes, I feel nostalgic for the spaces of my boyhood, growing up in suburban Atlanta in the 1960s. My big grassy front yard sloped sharply downward into a ditch where we could float boats on a rainy day. Beyond, there was a pine forest where my brother and I could toss pine cones like grenades or snap sticks together like swords. In the backyard, there was a patch of grass where we could wrestle or play kickball and a treehouse, which sometimes bore a pirate flag and at other times, the Stars and Bars of the Confederacy. Out beyond our own yard, there was a bamboo forest where we could play Tarzan, and vacant lots, construction sites, sloping streets, and a neighboring farm (the last vestige of a rural area turned suburban).
Full Body Games, by Jonah Warren (US), is a set of three video games where the player can affect the game’s action by using his or her body, free of wires and controllers.
The user�s silhouette is extracted from a video image and projected in front of him/her. The silhouette can then interact with graphic game objects such as moving colored blocks and balls.
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