Group items tagged

The film Waiting for Superman

argues that teachers are at the center of the problem and that the solution is charter schools.

But it’s wrong to blame teachers, who are usually a) underpaid, and b) striving to do the best with the limited resources they are given. Nor does the research show that charter schools achieve better outcomes.  The root of the malaise in our schools is the outmoded model of pedagogy.  Teachers and text books are assumed to be the source of knowledge.  Teachers “teach” – they impart knowledge to their students, who through practice and assignments learn how to perform well on tests.

So, here are some general resources for teachers considering bringing games into the classroom.  In my presentations, I often reference folks I read, bloggers I follow, and resources, so, I’ve tried to compile some of that here.

an article from Newsweek titled “the Creativity Crisis“. It begins with the assertion that for the first time, research shows that American creativity is declining.

The Newsweek article cites a recent IBM poll of 1,500 CEOs identified creativity as the No. 1 “leadership competency” of the future. And yet it is declining (apparently), both in society as a whole, and in our schools in particular. The authors identify two of the possible reasons for the decline…

the impact of television and the number of hours kids now spend in front of the TV and playing videogames rather than engaging in creative activities

The latest issue of Computers in Classrooms is now available, with the following games-related articles:

It’s not about the game! Dawn Hallybone discusses activities surrounding games to maximise the benefits of games-based learning. Red Mist, the prison-based video game. Jude Ower tells us about a game which is won or lost by the state of your emotions! Creating a game – a positive impact on learning? David Luke reports on research he and colleagues undertook to determine, amongst other things, whether games-based learning disadvantages girls. Games-based learning: a personal view. Mother and computing graduate Amanda Wilson gives her opinion of games-based learning. Battling the barriers of games-based learning. John McLear explains how he set about developing a search engine for educational games.

While most of our classrooms were built under the assumption that information is scarce and hard to find, nearly the entire body of human knowledge now flows through and around these rooms in one form or another, ready to be accessed by laptops, cellphones, and iPods. Classrooms built to re-enforce the top-down authoritative knowledge of the teacher are now enveloped by a cloud of ubiquitous digital information where knowledge is made, not found, and authority is continuously negotiated through discussion and participation.

This new media environment can be enormously disruptive to our current teaching methods and philosophies.

Our physical structures were built prior to an age of infinite information, our social structures formed to serve different purposes than those needed now, and the cognitive structures we have developed along the way now struggle to grapple with the emerging possibilities.

People organically develop their PLNs when chosing to participate in social media like Twitter, Facebook , blogs, and through learning networks like Classroom 2.0.