Group items tagged

I've been doing a ton of reading on visitor engagement and learning in museums for work, and I think this framework is a nice lens for beginning to think about the how, the what, and the why. It's a little shallow, but a good initial conversation starter. "Most people believe that digital media can benefit their organisations, but when it comes to using these tools, even the biggest, tech savy museums and galleries can struggle to know where to start. The Digital Engagement Framework was developed by Jasper Visser and myself as a simple to use roadmap to help the sector to approach digital media in a more strategic manner."

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.

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?)