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June 21, 2011, 8:00 am By Prof. Hacker Lewis Carroll's logic game[This is a guest post by Anastasia Salter, Assistant Professor at the University of Baltimore in the school of Information Arts and Technologies. Her academic work focuses on storytelling in new media; she also writes the Future Fragments column for CinCity. Follow her on Twitter at AnaSalter.--@jbj] "...With that said, perhaps the most important takeaway from LEEF is that it's not all about expensive toys. Learning games don't have to be hi-tech to be effective. There's a lot to be learned from Space Vikings, the conference's ARG-that's alternate reality game, not its augmented reality cousin. Unlike augmented reality, which requires technology to mediate an environment, alternate reality is a playful imposition of story onto a physical space. In Space Vikings, a number of us dedicated conference attendees were drawn into a mission to save our tribes from a "pedagogical wasteland." How did we accomplish this feat? By hunting down "anomalies"-read masking tape clues, QR codes and posters-with answers to questions to submit in a digital educational games theory scavenger hunt. This is just one example of a conference ARG, and designers were at LEEF to report on lessons learned from others like DevLearn's Zombie Apocalypse. (For more ideas on educational uses of Alternate Reality, check out Think Transmedia.) These same ideas can scale and transform to a number of settings. For example, Melissa Peterson's Elmwood Park Zoo ARG is currently a project conducted with paper (though imagined for smartphones), and it's already doubling the engagement time of visitors to the local zoo. And on the other side, games like the Giskin Anomaly in Balboa Park are adding new layers of narrative to a popular and culturally rich tourist destination. And these games don't have to be location dependent. Case studies like the Radford Outdoor ARG Outbreak, a social inquiry game that puts st

Updated : May 31, 2011 Tablet PCs Change Korea's Educational Environment Tablet PCs are taking the world's IT market by storm. Korea is no exception to the trend, with tablet PC users roaming its streets everywhere. Now, tablet PCs are transforming not just the way we live but also the way we learn. We're now at an elementary school in Incheon, where students are taking lessons at a whole new level. On their desks are tablet PCs and electronic pens instead of the usual paper and pencils. This is a classroom of the digital age. This school is currently conducting digital textbook lessons for 4th and 5th graders. [Interview : Han Gyeong-su, Vice Principal Incheon Samsan Elementary School] "The digital textbook is a technology combining reference books, exercise books and other resources into one device. It could totally change our educational paradigm." These lessons are conducted using digital textbooks, which are tablet PCs with a touch screen and keyboard.

"A new national center founded to spur breakthrough technologies that can help transform the way teachers teach and students learn. Educators Empowering you with tools to help you reach every single student. Innovators Making it easier for you to turn a great idea into a product that delivers results for learners of all ages. Researchers Translating cutting-edge research on how we learn into cutting-edge technologies that can help us learn. Citizens Preparing Americans of all races, regions, and backgrounds to succeed in college and a career. ..."

Main site of the Digital Promise initiative

"Uploaded by whitehouse on Sep 16, 2011 Digital Promise is a new national center founded to spur breakthrough technologies that can help transform the way teachers teach and students learn. September 16, 2011." With captions and interactive transcript.

Captions and transcript can be downloaded from http://www.universalsubtitles.org/en/videos/CkPFLh8Tp91i/en/169009/

by Kevin Carey on September 26, 2011 "Under the category of "policy stuff that doesn't involve grand controversy and/or vast sums of new spending, yet might actually make the world a better place," the other day I attended a White House event announcing the launch of Digital Promise, a "new national center founded to spur breakthrough technologies that can help transform the way teachers teach and students learn." The rationale for the initiative is contained in a Council of Economic Advisers memo ..."

Council of Economic Advisers memo: http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/unleashing_the_potential_of_educational_technology.pdf