Can educational video games be the next generation of assessment tools? A lot of people working in the field of educational video games think so. As Filament's Director of Research I've been thinking a lot about this issue lately! 

I know that well-designed learning games -- interactive, individual, and wired for easy data retrieval -- can provide both oodles of motivation for students and oodles of data on their performance. Indeed, video games and their cousins, digital simulation tools, may be our best hope for assessing the 21st Century Skills (e.g., argumentation) and Content (civics literacy). In the first of a series of white papers on the issue, I argue that gameplay data metrics have potential that go way beyond "assessment." In addition to offering rich data on student performance on key learning objectives, well-designed reports can offer “windows into gameplay” that teachers need to supercharge their use of learning games for their students.  Check out the full paper, "Gameplay Data: Beyond Assessment," on our Learning Games 101 page.