Group items tagged

The Partnership for 21st Century Skills is the U.S. version of the site I mentioned below (atc21s)

Digital Media - New Learners Of The 21st Century

New report from the Connected Learning Research Network (funded by MacArthur) on a new model. Much of what we've seen before, but it purports to actually address issues of inequity, which is something I don't see talked about very much in these kinds of reports other than to share interactions between effects and variables like race & SES if found. Also interesting: includes Clusters of 21st Century Cognitive Competencies, a mashup of workplace readiness skills, 21st Century Skills, and Habits of Mind. (Is that enough buzzword for ya?)

How can we make learning easier and more likable with the help of technology? Speakers at Skillshare's first ever Penny Conference discuss ways we can redefine education, from the way we think about learning to distributing and accessing education.

Chronicle of Higher Education Q&A with researchers from Georgia Tech's Center for 21st Century Universities. Highlighted are many of the more recent technologies, as well as their effects on higher education's future.

This guide includes world of warcraft in school and other games like The World Peace Game..

An excellent site featuring white papers and resources. The initiative is championed by Intel, Cisco, Microsoft, and involves the governments of Australia, Singapore, Finland and the States.

"Quest supports a dynamic curriculum that uses the underlying design principles of games to create academically challenging, immersive, game-like learning experiences for students. Games and other forms of digital media also model the complexity and promise of "systems." Understanding and accounting for this complexity is a fundamental literacy of the 21st century."

A good collection of digital teaching tools.

also mentions the sandbox summit and learning styles of young people

"These digital natives expect to share information on social media, collaborate, and create their own content." This sentence reminds me of the apparent contradiction of digital natives vs. digital divide. What happens to a student who doesn't have access to these types of tools and then is expected to collaborate and create at the same level? One more piece of evidence that schools need to be committed to 21st century skill development for all children.

This ~3min video is a description of how a school integrates the use of games (eg. guitar hero) into their curriculum. It utilizes this game as a starting point for multiple explorations in music. I am very unsure of the value of incorporating the game. Any thoughts ?

I'm not sure how I feel about the commercial aspect of this... it feels a bit like a marketing tool for Guitar Hero. But, I do think that it sounds like they're doing interesting things with the surrounding curriculum. When I was in grade school I remember participating in a special unit on the Oregon Trail where we did related activities in every subject: managing our money and supplies in math class, learning about atmospheric conditions/obstacles in science class, and negotiating through historically-situated group decisions in social studies. I found this particular unit so much more engaging than everyday coursework, as I was able to both employ my imagination and see real-world application for skills that I was building. The Microsoft program stuck me as a 21st century adaptation of this (albeit grounded in a commercial product), where students were building various skill sets across subjects that were all tied together by a common narrative.

not gaming, per se, but what ideas are worth teaching?