Who says learning can’t be as fun or as addictive as playing games? Board games for children are incredibly effective learning tools as they promote teamwork and boost self-confidence, while ensuring fast-paced learning inspired by healthy competition. Today there are many games available to educate the young; here we have selected the top ten award winning educational games for children.

1. Blokus Board Game

   Fun for both kids and adults, Blokus is a strategy board game that challenges spatial thinking. Bright colors and simple rules make it ideal for ages five and up, but adults will certainly be engrossed by this unique and challenging game. Winner of over 20 prestigious awards.

   Blokus encourages creative thinking and has received a Mensa award for promoting healthy brain activity. It is simple to understand, but the game’s complexity is revealed shortly after everyone begins to play. It can be addictive, even for those not normally into abstract games. Blokus is a catalyst for spatial thinking, as players form images in their mind before placing the pieces on the board. Children and adults can play together for hours of competitive family fun.

   
   Blokus Board Game

2. Set Game

   SET is a card game of quick recognition and deduction. It is for one or more players, for ages six and above. Winner of many awards and featured on the New York Times bestselling games page.The object of the game is to identify “sets” of three cards. Each card is unique in its four features; color – red, green or purple, symbol – diamond, squiggle or oval, shading – solid, striped or open, and number – 1, 2 or 3. A “set” consists of three cards on which each feature is either the same on all of the cards, or different on all of the cards. This game contains complete instructions for play, 81 cards, and a durable plastic carrying case.

   
   Set Game

3. Passport to Culture – The World Culture Game

   This is a unique, exciting board game where players circle the globe, uncovering the mysteries of our amazing world. A game that’s an international education unto itself, Passport to Culture™ is part quiz, part cultural exchange, and all fun.

   Designed for ages 10 and up, with fascinating, fun-filled questions about people and places, food & drink, world treasures, greetings and gestures, or customs and traditions for all of the world’s countries and encounter surprising scenarios while traveling the globe. A Cultural IQ™ score measures each player’s global smarts, and no one ever really loses because everyone always learns something new. Passport To Culture™ is the Winner of Museum Tour Product of the Year award and Winner of National Parenting Center Seal of Approval.

   

   
   Passport to Culture – The World Culture Game

4. Totally Gross Game

   Winner of iParenting Media Award, this unique game engages kids to learn and understand all the major scientific disciplines. From biology to chemistry to zoology, there are over 220 science questions and activities.

   A dose of gross helps science make sense! Did you know snot keeps your lungs clean? Or that some bullfrogs are cannibals? Learn this and more as you travel around the game board answering queasy questions. Land on a Gross-Out space, and you may have to check another player for toe jam or describe the last time you threw up! Every time you answer a question or complete a Gross-Out, stretch your slime on the score line. Stretch it to 10 and complete a Lab Experiment to win the game! Full of action and information, it’s an educational game they’ll actually enjoy. Designed for ages 8 and up.

   Totally Gross Game

5. Mars 2020 Board Game

   Learn tons of facts with over 500 multiple-choice questions related to space science and technology. Choose a spaceship and a crew member and try to land on Mars first. Along the orbital path, players must answer questions to fix malfunctions that occur. Kids love the “cool” spaceship playing pieces and becoming a crew member. Mars 2020 captures the excitement, the challenge and the science involved in reaching the red planet. Mars even continues to orbit throughout the game, which provides an added challenge. Unexpected messages from Mission Control add excitement to the play. Ages 8 and Up, 2-6 Players.

   

   
   Mars 2020 Game
   

6. The Play’s the Thing Board Game

   This is a game to play and preform. Kids will learn about Shakespeare in a way that captures the spirit of his work and the pure fun and excitement of the theater. So besides learning the characters, plots and quotations from Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet and Julius Caesar, players will experience the stage mishaps and the much anticipated reviews! No knowledge of Shakespeare is required. Ages 8 and Up, 2 – 6 Players.
   

   The Play’s the Thing Board Game

7. Where in the World Game

   Where in the World was introduced 16 years ago it launched the trend in geography games. Today, this game remains the most comprehensive world geography games that families and classrooms love. The game has been updated to include the latest facts about every country in the world including capitals, major imports and exports, languages and religions. With 6 games in one, it’s possible for players of all abilities to play together providing challenge and a world of fun for everyone. Ages 8 and up, 2 – 6 players.

   Six games on six levels of play offer players of all ages a complete up-to-date tour of world geography. Learn the names, locations and vital facts of all 196 countries! Players will learn facts about every country in the world including; country name, continent, flag, capital, population, rank in size, literacy rate, monetary unit, languages, religions, imports, exports and seacoasts.Game includes 6 region maps (Africa, Asia, Europe, North American, South America and Oceania), 196 country cards, 6 wild cards, 1 spinner, 1 bodies of water reference board, 120 playing pieces and instructions.

   Where in the World Game

8. The Whole Brain Game

   This fun, fast paced interactive game challenges the mind, creates outbursts of creativity and causes the players to “Think out of the Box”. The concept is simple: It’s not what you think, but how you think it. Players are challenged to take unlike words or situations and create similarities, as one playing example. It causes the players to spontaneously think and shout out responses to the questions rapidly to beat the clock.

   A mentally and intellectually stimulating, educational and fun game all at the same time! “Right brain” activity is stimulated as players generate ideas, use their imaginations and work out patterns and relationships. At the same time the “left brain” quickly structures responses using language, logic, sequences and details. Great for families, parties, schools, and anyone that dares to think differently.

   

   The Whole Brain Game

9. Level Minded

   Level Minded is an exciting, educational, competitive family game designed to promote social and moral development. This balancing contest of principles, values and beliefs is an educational tool, winner of many awards: Dr. Toy 100 Best Children Products Award, Child Magazine’s Preferred Choice Award, iParenting Media’s Best Products Award. Ages: eight and up. Number of players: 2 to 8.

   Players score points by navigating a ball on a unique three dimensional labyrinth path and writing the most “level minded” responses to questions about ones personal principles, values and beliefs. The questions asked can be quite challenging, but since the players written responses are submitted anonymously, the answers can be clever, insightful or just plain silly. Level Minded includes the Junior Principles, values and beliefs deck, of questions but maybe played with multiple card decks.

   Level Minded

10. Stare!

    Winner of the National Parenting Center Seal and the Teacher’s Choice Award for the Family, this is a fun game for kids that develops memory, concentration and imagination. For 2 to 6 players (up to 18 players with teams). Ages 6-12.

    Kids can test and train their visual memory skills and have a blast doing it. In Stare! Junior – the game – players have 30 seconds to stare at an image on a card. Images are varied and fun for kids to look at. It might be a movie poster, funny photo, comic, work of art and more. When time is up, an opponent will flip over the card and ask the player a series of questions about the image to see how much they can recall. What was the clown holding in his left hand? What color was the girl’s hat? Guess right and advance on the game board. Kids can play individually or on teams. The revised Second Edition includes larger image cards containing all new images and questions! Includes 960 questions on 160 image cards, game board, sand timer, playing pieces, die, and instruction sheet.

    Stare!

Technorati Tags: educational, games, children, board games, learning

The making of this top list was a slow and gradual process that gave me a lot of pleasure. The ten websites listed here differ greatly in theme and structure, but one thing they do have in common is that they stand out with their amazing concept and design, stretching the limits of digital culture and internet art.

Having stumbled upon them while surfing the net, and being the obsessive label-er that I am, the only tag I could think of was “fascinating”. And that is big coming from someone who doesn’t get fascinated easily. So naturally, I made a new folder in my Favorites, titled “Fascinating”, and decided I was going to publish this list the moment it gets 10 entries. That moment, dear friends, has arrived. I hope you’ll enjoy it.

Oh, and by the way, most of these websites are built with rich flash animation, so make sure you have fast internet connection when you check them out.

1. 88 Constellations for Wittgenstein

   Designed by David Clark, this website is an interactive collage of philosophy and art, a poetic film based on the life and work of Ludwig Wittgenstein, an influential Austrian philosopher. Based on 88 interactive flash animations that correspond to 88 constellations of the sky, this is a map of coincidence and relativity through which you can navigate and explore the poetic narratives that play with free associations. It is a story of Wittgenstein’s life told in fragments, and brought to life in contemporary digital culture.

   

   88 Constellations

2. A is for Apple

   This is another creation of internet artist David Clark, and similar in that it is also a collage of interactive fragments, a mind map of clues that signal a mystery that may or may not be there. All I know is that the search itself is worth the time.

   

   A is for Apple

3. CONCEPD

   Concepd is much more than a website. It is meant to be a “websight”, providing the user with a totally visual experience, a journey for the mind and the eye, spread between digital and physical worlds.

   

   Concepd

4. We Choose the Moon

   If you were ever curious about space travel, here is your chance to experience it in real time. This is an ambitious online project backed by the Space Program of John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. The website is divided into 11 stages containing animation, archival photos, video and mission audio that bring Apollo 11 to life.

   

   Click here to view the video on YouTube.

   We Choose the Moon

5. The Turn

   Designed by Fredo Viola, New York based multimedia artist, this is an extensive interactive collection of his music and video art work.  It is a blending of 21st-century electronics and the human voice presented via multimedia visuals. For a quick preview of Fredo Viola’s work, see this clip.

   The Turn

6. 99 Rooms

   99Rooms is a unique internet art project that interweaves wall painting, photography, animation and sound, made by Kim Koester, Richard Schumann, Stephan Schulz and Johannes Buenemann. It will take you on a journey through 99 hauntingly beautiful rooms, all set on vacated premises of East Berlin’s industrial zone.

   

   99 Rooms

7. Kubrick 2001: The Space Odyssey Explained

   Kubrick’s Space Odyssey 2001 is a cult movie, probably one of the highest regarded films ever made. If you are one of its many fans, you will love this website. It is an interactive multimedia presentation that aims to explain the meanings of the four parts of the film. Available in many languages.

   

   Kubrick 2001: The Space Odyssey Explained

8. OnProduction Melody Sphere

   Music lovers will love this fun website. It is a retro futuristic project for the OnProduction company in Russia. In essence, it is an innovative, interactive  flash game that lets you play and create music online.

   
   OnProduction Melody Sphere

9. 31fps

   31fps is the digital playground of award winning interaction designer and artist Andreas Rothaug. Explore the links, they offer a selection of rich, captivating and truly unique experiences.

   31fps

10. Superpositions

    Superpositions is an interactive audio-visual collage made with night tripping, urban explorations, cycle machines… Created by Remy Rivoire, Renaud Vercey, and Bruno Voillot, it is a virtual journey based on random games and  clues. The interaction can be very dynamic or contemplative, both attitudes generating a distinct perception, a new sound, a new picture.

    
    Superpositions

If anyone’s got more gems to add to this collection, please feel free to post the links in the comments. Thanks.

Technorati Tags: web-art, web design, internet art, digital art, flash, web 2.0, fascinating, interactive, amazing

Listed here are the top ten interactive websites that are bound to suck you in with their addictive content. They are unique examples of contemporary internet art based on user interaction, and distinct from games in that there is no goal or win conditioning. One could contextually refer to them as “time-wasters”, but that would be an insult to digital art. I don’t know… Time-wasters or art, you be the judge.

1. Medijate

   Organic green spirit digital work by Larry Carlson, an American multimedia artist. Whichever way you click, you’ll be taken on a mesmerizing, psychedelic ride through the universe of Virtual Om. Enjoy it.

   
   Medijate

2. Feed the Head

   Feed the Head, created by Vector Park, has been around for some time, and it stands for a piece of interactive entertainment of a type we don’t often see. It is more a digital interactive art installation than a game.  It’s just plain fun to play. A piece of interactive art to be explored at your own pace. Spend a couple minutes or an hour. Lose yourself. Feed your head. Escape. Click.

   
   Feed the Head

3. Flow

   Created by Han Hoogerbrugge, a Dutch digital artist known for his unique and eye-catching animation style so representative of MTV media era. Flow is an interactive tale of a contemporary man and his travels trough the landscapes of our time. Sometimes he goes up, sometimes he goes down. By the guidance of the frantic music from Gil Kay, we see the man struggle with faith and religion, sport and health care, stress, the power of medicine, gambling, death, identity, free floating and an eye-ball. It’s an interactive extravaganza.

   
   Flow

4. Spin

   Another creation by Han Hoogerbrugge, designed for Sony/Playstation. The concept centers on the idea that PlayStation 2 is a gateway to another world – the Third Place. This is a mental or spiritual place, which can’t be defined as it’s different for everyone. No one can tell you about your Third Place, you have to discover it for yourself. It is about exploration, discovery and adrenaline. Neither inside nor outside, not waking nor sleeping, here nor there – it is what you make it. The presentation undergoes constant mutation through use/play, and the impossible becomes possible.

   
   Spin

5. Yenz

   This site, created by German designer Jens Schmidt, was born from a ‘wish to create a webpage which allows things which are not usual for the Web, such as full-screen animations and big images, without the problem of bad Web resolution’. As you enter you will find there are many ways to explore and play.

   
   Yenz

6. This Sand

   Designed by Johanna Lundberg and Jenna Sutela in collaboration with the Flash programmer Timo Koro, this website is a playground of colours and sound for people to play with. It is a sandbox – within the computer screen. With a simple click of the mouse, you can change the pixels on the screen into digital sand that can be used as building material for cosmic landscapes, Clemens-style sand paintings, mandalas and so on. Sometimes the resulting pieces are expressive, sometimes they become more abstract. And just as a real world sandbox, the digital one can be smoothed out and re-sculpted again time after time.

   Just like the actual sand gets its colour from its origins, the sand used on thisissand.com covers the RGB palette natural to digital environments. Also the sounds of the falling sand on thisissand.com resemble a real life phenomenon: singing sand is discovered in about 35 desert locations around the world where the wind triggers a low-pitch sound in the natural sand. Instead of nature’s frequencies the digital sand generates white noise, which is a random signal with a flat power density. It is considered analogous to white light which contains all frequencies – like the RGB sand on thisissand.com.

   The specialities of the digital sand lie in the possibility of saving the original pieces of sand art in the gallery or printing them out.

   
   ThisSand

7. Kaleidoscope

   A great online time-waster, virtual kaleidoscope was created by Ze Frank, an American web designer who likes to combine technology and art in his work. Remember the awe you felt the first time you looked through the kaleidoscope lens? The virtual version is more addictive and it works without holding it up and pointing it towards the light. Just drag the shapes and colors onto the rotating wedge and you’ll see the kaleidoscopic patterns appear in color.

   
   Kaleidoscope

8. Glitch Scape

   This is a very interesting experimental web musical instrument designed and programmed by Tomasz Slawnikowski. It is an interactive sound-vision generator that allows the user to create music with a simple click of the mouse marking the pixels to make visual patterns on screen.

   
   Glitch Scape

9. Dream Lines

   Dreamlines is a non-linear, interactive visual experience, a project by Leonardo Solaas. The user enters one or more words that define the subject of a dream he would like to dream. The system looks in the Web for images related to those words, and takes them as input to generate an ambiguous painting, in perpetual change, where elements fuse into one another, in a process analogous to memory and free association. The pictures are never actually shown. The drawing itself is produced by 1500 autonomous particles in perpetual movement. The last image loaded serves as a sort of virtual terrain for them. The direction and speed of each particle is given, at each step, by the color values of the pixel they are stepping on. Different sets of formulas translate the hue, saturation and brightness of the pixel in angle and velocity values for the particle. The path of each particle is traced to the screen, and this forms the output seen by the user.

   Thus, the work is at the same time a study on population dynamics, or on the emergent behavior of a multitude of very simple autonomous agents. Who is dreaming? The user, or the Internet itself? In a certain way, both. The program generates a personal moving picture, unique, unpredictable, and forever gone when it is finished, just like dreams. But that dream is made out of pieces taken form the subconscious of the whole net, gathered by some words of the user and the obscure logic of searching algorithms.

   The subject of this work is, many times, multiplicity. That of the particles in endless movement, that of the vast contents of the Internet, that of the users and the dreams they wish to dream. All this multiplicities get together on the verge of chaos, on a process that mixes randomness and strict but complex logics, very much alike the processes that take place in our heads. Even when we rest.

   
   Dream Lines

10. Celestia

    Celestia is an amazing free space simulation that lets you see the universe in three dimensions. The exponential zoom feature allows the user to explore space across a huge range of scales seamlessly. A ‘point-and-go-to’ interface makes it simple to navigate through the universe to the object you want to visit. You can travel throughout the solar system, to any of over 100,000 stars, or even beyond the galaxy. Celestia comes with a large catalog of stars, galaxies, planets, moons, asteroids, comets, and spacecraft. It runs on Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X.

    

    Click here to view the video on YouTube.

    Celestia

Technorati Tags: time-wasters, internet art, web design, digital art, games, online games, interactive, virtual, web 2.0