Group items tagged

I am posting two articles: 1) Apple's recent announcement (here) and 2) the criticism (above) by Hack Education blogger Audrey Watters This article is about Apple's announcement to "reinvent the textbook" around the iPad. "The message: it's going to be a lot easier in the future for publishers and educators to create a new generation of interactive textbooks."

This is a really interesting article about the story of one of the most popular web-based games of last year. The interesting part is that the creator of the game designed it as a joke, trying to poke fun at other wildly popular games like Farmville. He made the game as simple as possible, compelled users to log in regularly to "Click a Cow," and had them earn points when other people clicked their cows. The message was supposed to be, "these types of games are manipulative in their tactics to keep people playing, and they are mindless and painfully stupid." However, his design stumbled on something that people really enjoy, and as a result, people didn't get that the game was meant to be a joke, and it became a huge hit. I think this shows that flow-inducing actitivities, or ones that keep the user engaged and provide quick feedback, are highly desirable for users.

This article talks about how play has become more structured / commercialized and that imagination is one of the components lost.They further state that this leads to diminishing executive function stated to be responsible for decreasing self control.Like the Marshmallow experiment, perhaps there is a need for more evidence ?

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.

This article argues for the benefit of using laptops in university classrooms.

An interesting article that discusses the highlights of the Learning Without Frontiers conference, which took place in London last week. One such highlight--a professor of neuroscience at Bristol University addressing the neuroscience behind engagement with video and computer games.

This article describes how Stanford University Medical Center is using a web-based medical game called "Septris" to train its physicians on sepsis.

An interesting article that explores the question of whether kids will learn more and better on tablets.

Thanks for sharing! I think many of the strongest proponents of "tablets for all" would benefit from this more balanced perspective.

A fun article that highlights Dweck's research on praise, effort, and self-esteem.

This article offers a useful guide for synthesizing some of the ideas from T545 to classrooms.

I can't argue with this article. Good points.

As a former Air Force officer, I completely agree with the title of this article. It is simply amazing to see how simulations, video games and other technological platforms are being used to educate and train our nation's soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen.

This article reminds me that not everyone is convinced that video games and other educational technologies belong in the classroom.

Written with Alan Gershenfeld, Founder and President of E-Line Media The White House recently announced two major initiatives in learning and technology -- these "digital seed capital" efforts are "down-payments" to jumpstart innovation and break a two decade long cycle of snail-like reform.

While this article mostly discusses digital textbooks, there is a section devoted to "The Engagement Challenge" and how quality video games can make education more relevant to children.

Here is an overview of several theories of motivation, with some tables and simple animations and games illustrating concepts. It addresses a mix of articles and ideas that have come up in class and ones we haven't touched on yet.

Wow! Stephanie, what a fantastic resource! Thanks so much for sharing this with us.

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

An interesting article with examples of schools that are "closing the loop"--successfully connecting students, teachers, and technologists to advance the use of technology within the classroom). Also contains a nice visual.

This article breaks down Angry Birds to distill lessons for educators, talking about engagement, mastery, keeping users in the zone of proximal development, and of course, gamification.

An interesting article on game play in the classroom...students take on the role of a video game character and act the part during game performances!

If you look at it as 'play' instead of 'game' I think it opens a whole range of possibilities. Which is not surprising. As young children, we learned through play, often elaborate role-play.

Hi Jackie - this just reminded me to post a link below re: the CUNY (City University of New York) group that reflects on and develops all types of games in teaching. http://games.commons.gc.cuny.edu/

An article about computer games in science education using "active prolonged engagement," as opposed to "planned discovery."

From the abacus to the Apple Mac, technology has constantly changed the way we learn. BBC World Service programme Digital Planet, explored three of the many unique initiatives in education technology in this article.