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I'm a fan of pretty much anything Dean Groom is involved in. If I don't always agree it at least encourages critical thinking.

"The Internet might not be the place to send young people quite as easily as a few years ago. I realise this conflicts with the whole 'get a personal learning network/connected teacher' rhetoric - but I'm pretty sure those things are more concerned with creating advertising funnels for particular products and services than actually re-imagining how learning could work for millions of people. So apart from the fact you want to stay open-minded and allowed to think for yourself as a teacher - why else it is now more valid than ever to to think twice about 'getting onboarded'. The late adopter might just be the smart ones after all."

"There is a myth, perpetuated for little more reason than it's sellable-fallacy, that kids are gravitating to Twitter and Facebook. From this point, numerous arguments have been made in the sub-culture Alan Lavine brilliantly described as "Edlandia" - a sharp and humurous hat-tip to Portlandia the TV show (relates to MOOCS). There is pervasive notion that the issues today are the same as those even three years ago. They might continue to sell this obsolete rhetoric to Edlandians, but kids are using very different networks - and here's why."

There is something in games based learning that seems to get missed out of much of the discussion. While it's common to think of using game-like approaches or video-games I find much of what is said revolves about how games work in terms of mechanics. Level ups, XP (experience) and badges seem to dominate the gamification dialogue. I wonder how you can gamify the workplace or the classroom without also exploring the more important aspects of why people play - how it feels to be immersed in a story that you feel a part of. Players are given badges and tokens all the time, except these don't provide that intrinsic motivation that people often associate with gamification. For the love of it. How do you get people to play for that reward?

"Using games in the classroom - This is a presentation to pre-service teachers about the affordability and importance of game-play. Low-end."