Came across a link in The Technium: The Game-ified Life to this (somewhat depressing in some ways) video presentation about the future of video/online gaming: DICE 2010: “Design Outside the Box” Presentation Videos – G4tv.com.
But one thing stuck out for me in particular, and that was the example of turning student assessments and classes into environments similar to role-playing games. It comes out of Lee Sheldon’s teaching at Indiana University, and you can see an actual curriculum over here at Terra Nova: Build Your Own Sheldon Syllabus. (The comments there are also worth reading).