Group items tagged

This article discusses play in virtual worlds (focusing on World of Warcraft) with an emphasis both on the learning that takes place and the engagement. You'll have to log in with your Harvard ID to get the article, FYI. "Our observation showed that players are motivated by the game's scope, rules, and scenario to create and participate in virtual communities, and share their knowledge with others, while newcomers are encouraged to engage in collective actions, and develop their skill base. We also found that although current MMORPGs have not been designed as instructional tools, they provide an excellent fantasy environment for intrinsically motivating learning, where players can experience the elements of challenge, curiosity, and control [30]." "People engage in pervasive games that use the best of two worlds, the virtual and the physical, in order to offer to its players the sense of maximum enjoyment."

Healthcare facilities are discovering that practicing in the virtual world can have major benefits in real life. Doctors, nurses and students are using online community to learn how to cope with crises, boost clinical skills and make their facilities more efficient.

Virtual world that allows people to learn about ancient history is actually holding a live music festival in the virtual space to motivate new users to interact and to entice would-be users to download the software the game requires

"Identifying promising models for mixing online learning and face-to-face instruction Challenges in e-learning Building partnerships to increase virtual learning collaboration among districts Teaching a "flip model" of instruction with online lectures as homework"

Using open source Virtual World software to intentionally disrupt an education system. A bold vision and I think an opportunity for bold research.

Special section of Education Week focusing on virtual schooling

This article brings us back to an old unanswered question...how will we assess students to truly capture what they are learning? Online platforms tend to rely heavily on multiple choice. Online course developers will need to be more creative than plain old multiple choice in order to prove the rigor of the online environment.

The expansion of virtual education puts companies that provide e-learning services under the microscope As researchers, politicians, and the general public have begun to question the results of fully online virtual schooling, private providers-particularly for-profit companies-that supply curriculum, content, and sometimes instruction and school management for online education are facing the most scrutiny.

This is an interesting article that speaks to the result of over-engagement. I wonder if this problem is specific to Korea and less so in other countries (if so, what is it about that environment that makes video games so addictive) or if it's only been studied in Korea but could be a similar problem in other parts of the world.

An old game learns new tricks

a classroom- facebook. and a school where students 'work virtually' from home one day a week

Part of the American Medical Associations' attempt to increase engagement in medical education.

One point not covered in the article is that there may be something inherently similar about "gamers" (such as a motivational, attentional, or perceptive profile) that makes them different types of learners than others. Yes, it's true that some people deeply enjoy the structured (some more/some less) challenges provided by games, both board and virtual...but others do not. The big question is, does it benefit a majority of learners (or, say, a majority of at-risk learners) to invest in curricula that leverages game-based-learning?

It may stray a bit from the topic of motivation, but here's a neuroscience article (that I found quite interesting) that discusses how a difference in striatal volume appears to affect how one's performance improves in playing a game: Erickson, K. I., Boot, W. R., Basak, C., Neider, M. B., Prakash, R. S., Voss, M. W., Graybiel, A. M., et al. (2010). Striatal volume predicts level of video game skill acquisition. Cerebral Cortex, 20(11), 1-9. doi:10.1093/cercor/bhp293

Grockit is a social networking site with an academic emphasis

Quest Atlantis as a learning game

Students earn virtual currency by completing math "missions" with third party content. This is a start-up incubated by Pearson. To unlock premium content, students would pay real money (this portion is modeled on Zynga's facebook games)

Nice to see the customization revolution well underway. Makes sense to focus on the upper teen segment who might be inspired to try something new to NOT dropout of HS or college. I wonder if their preliminary studies find changes in performance in traditional classes?

Podcast about the need for students to be engaged and motivated in their learning before they can apply higher-order creative thinking skills. They are most engaged when they themselves are part of constructing meaning, not when teachers do it for them. This podcast is about engagement in the real schools but I listened through the virtual learning lens.

EducationUSA just released a virtual simulation on their Facebook page. They state that it is the "World's first game-based adventure for international students to learn about opportunities in the United States of America." A short YouTube video is linked below. I would love to get your thoughts on this application. Can creating an avatar effectively teach (and prepare) international students for the U.S. college experience? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Fj01uSj4L4&feature=youtu.be

What one professor learned from playing World of Warcraft for 2,300 plus hours.

a video game that teachers colonization. it has been developed by the ministry of Culture in Brazil with other collaborators. It is viewed as a tool for distance learning