Catholic Training Offered For Educational Game

Catholic publisher Silver Burdett Ginn Religion and Third Day Games announced that the companies will hold national training sessions to introduce Catholic educators to the The Gospel Champions series of educational computer games that use action adventure gameplay to educate children by recreating the Gospel stories they hear in Mass. The free training sessions will show Catholic educators how to take advantage of the unlimited distribution of the games to all their K-8 children, as well as how to use the games in intergenerational teaching and for special needs children. All attendees will receive a free evaluation copy of Gospel Champions. The first training session for the Gospel Champions series is scheduled for June 13 in Diocese of San Bernardino and for June 14 in the Diocese of Orange and Archdiocese of Los Angeles. Additional sessions will be held in dioceses across the nation. Gospel Champions unlocks a new Gospel story each month to link Sunday Mass readings to students. The game series features three skill settings for children grades K-8 and utilizes a family leaderboard to encourage kids to play repetitively with their parents, siblings, and friends. The software also enables parishes and schools to send personalized messages to kids each time they play the game. “Video games are one of the most popular media forms for elementary age children,” said Brian Mitchell, president of Third Day Games and a catechist himself. “These training sessions are designed to show catechists how they can use this specially designed video game series to extend their teaching of the Catholic faith into families’ homes and children’s video game playtime.” For a complete listing of time and dates for training, as well as information on how to obtain a software license, visit the Gospel Champions series official website.