Group items tagged

"Activity oriented toward intrinsic goals, almost by definition, is play." - Peter Gray I was struck by this quote because I've thinking a lot about motivation and engagement in terms of games, but haven't really been thinking about EMF in terms of play.

"Every young person will continue to need basic knowledge, of course," he said. "But they will need skills and motivation even more. Of these three education goals, motivation is the most critical. Young people who are intrinsically motivated - curious, persistent, and willing to take risks - will learn new knowledge and skills continuously. They will be able to find new opportunities or create their own - a disposition that will be increasingly important as many traditional careers disappear."

A must see. DIY = kids + creativity + kids online community. This blog post explains a little about history and goals... "We're a community of kids who make."

I wonder if the instant feedback and scoring feature helps these kids go into a state of flow more easily while learning an instrument. The experience provides the beginner with all the requirements for flow: clear goals, right level of challenge, and instant feedback

Seth Godin is giving away a book online, encouraging it to be spread among teachers and getting hundreds of thousands of readers. He usually writes about marketing and the spread of ideas, but he takes on education in this series of blog-post-provocative-conversation-starting writing. He states, "School was invented to create a constant stream of compliant factory workers to the growing businesses of the 1900s. It continues to do an excellent job at achieving this goal, but it's not a goal we need to achieve any longer."

States use simulations to assess science skills and students seemed to "enjoy playing with the computers and took quickly to the assessment." A costly option, but goals to have all students complete computer-based tasks as part of Common Core assessments by 2014. NOTE: This article just scratches the surface of actual results, but for more commentary about this year's results take a look at: "NAEP Reveals Shallow Grasp of Science" http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2012/06/19/36naep.h31.html?tkn=VLPFYOoO%2Fh6K0gBMoWRnkBNKB%2B3NDBvfmvWl&cmp=ENL-EU-NEWS1 It will be important to watch if/how computer simulations help students explain or justify their responses and apply concrete knowledge to real-life scientific scenarios.

This article emphasizes that the appeal of technology is not enough to motivate children to learn. Stresses that self-efficacy and the ability to set reasonable and attainable goals on their own is essential to fully engage students.

Perhaps this is also the answer to make sure technology doesn't turn into a distraction instead of a learning tool? I think many kids would benefit from learning strategies for using technology efficiently/avoiding distractions.

Thanks for this article! It captures some of the self-efficacy conversations that have been helpful in designing my project. I think as the role of the teacher evolves, we will rely on students having choices for modes of learning and and as the article states, "we [will] rely more on children's independent initiative and motivation."

A clock that helps visualize daily goals, and 'pushes' back on ones that aren't completed on time.

Some very interesting deliberation on the meaning of the Khan phenomenon. I found some resonance with Prof. Dede's comments on the radio.

This article describes Virginia State Univ Business School new partnership with GoingOn Network to increase engagement at the school. Do you believe they will accomplish their goal?

Pixar director Andrew Stanton's talk on what guides him as a storyteller parallels what we strive to do as educators: to inspire our audience's sense of wonder, challenge, and relatedness. "The audience," says Stanton, "actually wants to work for their meal. They just don't want to know that they're doing that." I'm not sure if storytelling is an apt metaphor for all learning situations, but I personally am inspired to look to storytellers for tips on how to connect with my learners.

Andrew Stanton is also the brilliance behind "Finding Nemo" one of the better Pixar films. "Working for their meal" and the "2+2" notion relates to honoring people's intelligence and not making the story or lesson or video game too simple or the goal too obvious. Dr. Dede has said in the past that to engage students who struggle, we should give them more dificult conepts and make them accessible. Similar ideas.

This article talks about experiential gaming and making the construct of flow operational for educational games. The study used a business simulation and questionnaire to measure videogame "flow antecedents" like clear goals and challenge-skill balance, flow state indicators like concentration and time distortion, and the "flow consequences" of learning and exploratory behavior for about 100 students attending a school of economics. "This study is part of an ongoing attempt to develop a usable and valid scale for assessing flow experience in educational games." (Log in with Harvard access)

Although the goals are different from the Oneville research, folks may be interested in Planned Parenthood's recent demonstration of one of the most successful uses of texting (providing age-appropriate, medically accurate answers to questions). [http://www.plannedparenthoodchat.org/]

The URL just takes you to wikipedia... but anyone interested in joining a listserv about teaching/learning with wikipedia should read on. I just received this email and share it with all of you: Greetings, You're invited to join a new listserv that's been created to discuss teaching with Wikipedia. Dr. Robert Cummings of the University of Mississippi is leading this email group. This is a list for teachers of higher education who are interested in teaching with Wikipedia or researching teaching with Wikipedia. The goal is that list members will find support with pedagogy issues and find potential collaborators for scholarly research around teaching with Wikipedia. It's a list for teachers, by teachers. At the moment, there is no web interface, so the best method of joining the list is to send an e-mail to: md@listserv.olemiss.edu with the body of the message being: subscribe teaching-with-wikipedia You don't need a subject line or to include your signature or anything else. If you're interested in Wikipedia pedagogy, we highly encourage you to join the list and collaborate with others who share similar interests. The Wikipedia Education Program Team

research shows that people prefer equity in situations. fairness affects one's emotions about a situation

One school using video game design to engage students.