This is a game that can be used in the beginning days of school to review number operations and get students minds back in math mode after a long summer.
This is another game that can be used in the beginning of the class to help review order of operations and help students to get to know each other when placed in groups to help develop the class community.
I don't know how to share a book so here is a web site for Jane McGonical that has TED talks and key points about her ideas in the book. I am looking specifically at the 4 key components of any game and the "flow" and "fiero" effect of gaming that I think could be built into learning online.
I was charged with explaining my "innovative approach to open social networks for learning"
Access. In 1996, Sir John Daniel estimated we would need to create a major university every week to educate the 100 million students qualified to enter a university who have no place to go. Fifteen years later, universities have simply not kept pace with the staggering demand for college education
2007 Silent Epidemic study funded by the Gates Foundation, I had what my students would call (pardon their French) a WTF moment. Eighty-eight percent of high school dropouts have passing grades. Huh?
Nearly half say they are bored and classes are not interesting.
Technology doesn't help either. They find video lectures and Powerpoints boring, and they read less with e-textbooks than with traditional textbooks. These kids aren't failing out of school; they are simply disengaging.
What, then, engages this generation? Social media, for one. They spend 10-15 hours a week on Facebook
Open Social Learning. Imagine a Facebook where the point is to study together, not trade pictures and jokes. Imagine a World of Warcraft where students earn levels and points by helping each other learn. Not a video game that teaches physics; instead, let's create an educational experience that is social and game-like.
we built a site called OpenStudy , the first large-scale social network that enables students to connect, get help, study together, and earn social capital through game-like rewards.
It is a vibrant community of students and teachers, teenagers and adults, people from more than 150 countries engaged in a single activity: learning.
OpenStudy is built on three core ideas: open, peer-to-peer, and community of learning.
In late 2004, Stephen Gillett was in the running for a choice job at Yahoo! - a senior management position in engineering. He was a strong contender. Gillett had been responsible for CNET's backend, and he had helped launch a number of successful startups. But he had an additional qualification his prospective employer wasn't aware of, one that gave him a decisive edge: He was one of the top guild masters in the online role-playing game World of Warcraft (Brown).
Great talk by Jane McConigal concerning how developments in the world of gaming could be applied to education to make it both more fulfilling and their for effective.