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The author creates a great case in favor of digital PLNs. She explains why they are so important and relevant today. The emphasis of the article is on the need to work together, not on best practices, but rather on emerging practices. The author takes the stance that best practices require training with known knowledge for known outcomes. While we should be collaborating and innovating together to tackle the emerging practices.

In this article, the author explains why you should build a PLN, why PLNs are important, how to build a PLN, characteristics of a PLN, and skills needed to build a PLN. We need to stay relevant and connected with our personal development and can do that through PLNs. In the 21st Century, it is essential and key to success to stay informed, updated, and connected. PLNs make it easy to learn at the pace of change.

This article discusses why building personal learning networks is important when information changes constantly. The key to survival is learning how to learn continuously through building Personal Learning Networks. Creating networks where people can collaborate and learn from each other in order to remain on the cutting edge. PLNs allow for continuous learning, exchange of thoughts and ideas, and validate and challenge one's thoughts among a diverse group of individuals. PLNs have to be a sharing process of ideas.

This article discusses how digital games like Minecraft can enhance reading and writing skills. Children enhance reading skills through reading manuals on how to play and create in the game. Games also contribute to writing skills when students post to gaming sites. Students are more motivated when they care about the task like playing the game.

Suggests that understanding how members of a learning community converse is an important component of understanding connectivism. The tone of the interactions in a forum rely on the design and management of the space. Furthermore, learning depends on sharing in conversations and interactions which themselves can be meaningful activities. During communication among learners, there is a balance of what is good for each individual and the ability to move towards a common purpose.

In this article, Andrew Ravenscroft explores a "dialogue rich view of connectivism" and how we can develop learners that can "think, reason and analyse." He takes inspiration from social constructivist theory to focus on dialogue as a vehicle for learning. Ravenscroft begins by detailing Siemens 8 principles of connectivism. He then asks 3 questions: how can we understand the dialogue processes of a networked world, what dialogue features make for quality connections and how do we design to promote quality connections. He starts to explore the questions with Socrates and the Socratic method. This method has applications for 21st century learning. He reviews Hegel's dialectic as well. Ravenscroft maps these positions to connectivism because dialectic helps refine knowledge from a diversity of opinions, supports the capacity to know more, consideration of alternative viewpoints, fosters a constant evolution of knowledge, and promotes critical and collaborative dialogue. Then he discusses dialogic processes and how they map to connectivism. Dialectic and dialogic can work, not in opposition, but together in different aspects. Dialectic focuses on the epistemic and cognitive dimensions of learning, while dialogic focuses more on emotional and interpersonal aspects. The author then details dialogue game interactions and how they can foster learning. To be successful they need to balance orchestration and openness. This article proposes that language and dialogue remain a "most powerful semiotic system."

What a fascinating article. Ravenscroft's discussion of a scaffolded system to build a learner's dialogic skills reminds me of research I did for my EdTech504 class on self-regulated learning. Roger Azevedo is developing and experimenting with a similar game, MetaTutor, which scaffolds student learning as well. I think self-regulation is complex and difficult to teach in the classroom, and am amazed that researchers are creating software to build self-efficacy!

Set up quiz games that students can play using clickers or by texting their answer from a cell phone

This is an example of an instructional game type of software. This is a fun and entertaining educational game that students can play on their mobile device or tablet. Teachers can search for pre-made Kahoot games (in math) or make their own. Students are engaged and points add up to show a leader board and the score of each student to introduce some competition.

Kahoot! is a free game-based learning platform that makes it fun to learn - any subject, in any language, on any device, for all ages!

Play free online games for kids on PrimaryGames. Site features learning games, action games, puzzles, card games, virtual worlds, coloring pages, and more!

The American Pshychology Association reviews the research findings about Game-Based learning. The article also talks about pilot programs that were conducted to explore GBL, links are provided to these studies.

The short article discusses game-based learning and constructivism. It also provides links to scholarly articles about the effectiveness of GBL in education. Several of the articles are available for free from the Boise State Library.

This website has links to many different instructional games for kids. It's broken up into different categories based on content. I tried a few games and kids would like them and, of the ones I tried, there definitely was educational value in them. Though the games are geared toward elementary students, it would be nice if they were also sorted (or sortable) by grade-level.

A website with educational game resources including links to games, links to TED talks about educational games, links to articles about educational games. Kind of a one-stop-shopping for educational games.

This site aggregates information on history games, interactives, and simulations resources. There are currently 126 shared games.

This is a great website to aid with spelling and vocabulary. As a teacher, you can enter word lists for your students. They then can play fun games like HangMouse or word scrambles to practice. They also can take tests on the words.

Teaching spelling and vocabulary is easy with VocabularySpellingCity! Students can study and learn their word lists using vocabulary and spelling learning activities and games. Students can take final or practice spelling and vocabulary tests right on this engaging site. Premium games and automated student record keeping are available to Premium Members.

The author of this article references examples of studies that show educational gaming is on the rise. The article contains characteristics of good educational games and also notes that commercial games can be integrated into the classroom as well.

Fun and free educational games for kids in K-8. Featuring multiplayer learning games, math games, language arts games, and much more!

Here is another site with educational games. This one is organized by content, but it also is broken up by grade-level. There are also some language learning websites listed.

High quality educational online games, categorized according to educational standard, grade level, and academic content. Free to play games cover math, science, problem solving, and cognitive skills.

A LibGuide from the James C. Kirkpatrick Library at the University of Central Missouri. Provides a ton of resources about various aspects of gaming in education, including the important of play, digital learning, game-based learning, gamification, and subject area examples.