Group items tagged

Interjecting "Hollywood" into online courses to make them more engaging.

An interesting post on games in education that links to many examples for learning to code and mentions some other online educational environments that use gamification.

Hi Stephanie - This article also seems to highlight the extrinsic rewards of points and badges -- calling it "gamification." And given our last conversation in class, I wonder if all the points and badges will kill the intrinsic desire to play the games. Interestingly, there was a comment with a link to another article http://www.hideandseek.net/2010/10/06/cant-play-wont-play/ where the writer notes that some games just use "pointification," and that the best games are the ones that have rich cognitive, emotional and social aspects, with choice and skill... but not dependent on points/badges. In light of our "motivation" conversations, it will be interesting to watch how gaming in the classroom plays out if they are largely point/badges driven.

Undergrads use "free range learning," exploring the web for material about subjects of study and do not rely on the texts and assigned readings.

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.

This talks about the practices at some programs that are known for educating innovators:  "The culture of learning in programs that excel at educating for innovation emphasize what I call the three P's-play, passion and purpose. The play is discovery-based learning that leads young people to find and pursue a passion, which evolves, over time, into a deeper sense of purpose."

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.

With a new $3 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the MIT Education Arcade is about to design, build, and research a massively multiplayer online game (MMOG) to help high school students learn math and biology.

business education for high school students via online simulation games

This is a webinar chat that I sat in on today (A few questions I posed are featured in the Q&A at the end.) With the new SimCity release, they have also partnered with a company called GlassLab that has designed a teacher resource hub and also modified game that enables teachers to easily use the game in classrooms. There will be specific inquiry based challenges that allow students to interact in the game environment to investigate community issues (ranging from water shortages, power outages, labor disputes, earthquakes, budget concerns, etc.) and work with citizens and government to solve the issues. There is also an exciting multiplayer format where neighboring cities are controlled by other students and they must work together to solve problems. Glass Lab is partnering with EA Games, Gates Foundation, and ETS to build the teacher hub where educators can design and share best practices, lesson plans, etc. In addition, they will be doing a long term study to measure educational outcomes. It appears as though they are using this game as a pilot opportunity to build the framework for larger commercial game integration into the classroom.

Not available online - link to Journal of Technology and Teacher Education/SITE; 7 articles, I have copy if someone is interested. Franklin, T. & Annetta, L. (2011). PREFACE Special Issue: Digital Games and Simulations in Teacher Preparation. Journal of Technology and Teacher Education, 19(3), 239-242. Chesapeake, VA: AACE.Retrieved from http://www.editlib.org/p/38515.

Students learn how to make educational web games. Globaloria is sponsoring some of the events for the Digital Learning Day (posted below) and are "opening their Globaloria game design classes to parents, friends, educators, administrators, policy makers and media. Visitors will get to experience first-hand the innovative, hands-on "game design studio" that these classes engage in daily. They will see students developing original STEM learning games, collaborating with peers and their teacher, using a digital curriculum, and receiving support through an online learning network."

"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"

Interesting approach to the MOOC concept

As schools mix online instruction and face-to-face learning, educators are identifying promising hybrid approaches As blended learning models, which mix face-to-face and online instruction, become more common in schools, classroom educators and administrators alike are navigating the changing role of teachers-and how schools can best support them in that new role.

The second part of Project Tomorrow's Speak Up 2011 report (based on a national survey of teachers, librarians and administrators), was just released. This part focuses on how "today's educators are personalizing the learning process for students," and how they are personalizing the classroom experience with online, socially-networked media and digital content.

A brief interview with L. Rafael Reif, MIT's provost, and Anant Agarwal, director of MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory about MITx, a new/developing online certificate program. Interesting how much they can not anticipate how/what this will impact (re: education, jobs, higher ed market).