available to teachers, does not help all students. As Wilson (2009) notes, well motivated students as in my third period Earth Science class do well with or without games, whereas students with a negative attitude are not likely to be helped by educational games such as some of the students in the fourth period biology class. The real potential value of Uru is that it allows students to collaborate online to solve problems or engage in competitions with students in other classrooms, schools, or even other countries. John Vehmeier, the Network Engineer for our school system, has told me that we have not had any security or bandwidth issues with using Uru since we have started using it, and he welcomes other schools to join us. Ten teachers in our school, including history and science teachers, have expressed an interest in using Uru in their classes so far. Virginia will also be changing its standards next year to be much more rigorous, and I am currently developing Uru puzzles to help meet the needs of these new standards. I plan to release additional reports as more teachers use Uru. If you have questions about the research that is being done at Franklin County High School with Uru or if you are a teacher and would like a free trial Uru account, please email me at: wschmachtenberg@hotmail.com. All the work that is being done with Uru, is conducted with a FCAL (Fan created age license) issued by Cyan World, Inc. This work is also being done in collaboration with Idoodlesoftware, Inc., which has the legal right to distribute Cyan’s software to schools. For more information, about using Uru in your school, contact Robert Sowah at www.idoodlesoftware.com. REFERENCES Prensky, Marc. 2005. Complexity Matters. http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky-Complexity_Matters.pdf Renaud, C. and B. Wagoner. 2011. The Gamification of Learning. Principal Leadership. Pp. 57 -59. Schmachtenberg. W. F. 2008. Resolution and limitations of faunal similarity indices of biogeographic data for testing predicted paleogeographic reconstructions and estimating intercontinental distances: A test case of modern and Cretaceous bivalves. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology. 265:255-261. Wilson, L. 2009. Best Practices for using games and simulations in the classroom. Guidelines for K12 Educators. Software and Information Industry Association. Education Division. http://www.siia.net/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_view&gid=610&tm pl=component&format=raw&Itemid=59
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