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"The new study runs counter to the conventional idea that success in an unfamiliar, changing environment comes from a mixture of innovation and copying others."

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

Sir Ken Robinson speaks on Changing Education Paradigms while his ideas are simultaneously drawn out (literally)

By now, we're used to letting Facebook and Twitter capture our social lives on the web -- building a "social layer" on top of the real world. In his talk, Seth Priebatsch looks at the next layer in progress: the "game layer," a pervasive net of behavior-steering game dynamics that will reshape education and commerce.

Yes, indeed. The ideal is to intrinsically integrate. That's a good idea. Why not? In fact, maybe the alternate reality games qualify as "real world" layer over games because in such games, whatever happens in games impact the reality in certain ways. We could also design games to work the other way around, e.g. a diet game, where only when you do exercise in a gym in the real world, can you advance levels in the game.

Haha yes!! I recall a rowing machine which actually had a game in front of users so that they could compete with 'other rowers'. It was great and definitely made the workout more fun. I stopped though after a friend slipped his disc on the machine...

An interesting talk about how chance favors the connected mind. How do we create such spaces in the classroom, school or perhaps out of formal learning environments?

Interesting idea, I wonder if the children were motivated enough to start programing outside the game too. Thanks for sharing!

A talk about how the RSA Animate series seeks to engage learners in innovative ways and how it draws from new research on cognitive engagement.

Brandon, have you ever used one of their animations

I haven't used it in a formal way. Although I find myself very engaged in the content. I've seen some of the animations that are other talks that they converted to an animation, and it's really incredible how much more engaging it becomes with fairly simple, yet beautiful graphics.

The Parent Engagement Tracker (PET) is a secured information system developed to easily track, measure and link parental involvement to student achievement. The software is available via the Internet and Microsoft Access Principals are able to measure parent attendance of various parent activities, school compact parent requirement hours, and the popularity of the different types of activities on a daily, monthly, quarterly or annual basis. This is really new. I have never seen something that tries to incentivize parenting.Do you think this would be a good initiative for a school.

How did you stumble on this? The copyright date is still listed as 2010 and three of the 5 links, including "About Us" are not working. In addition to the fact that I do not think it would be successful or a good idea and PET is a terrible name, the company simply does not seem to be up and working. Perhaps it is the wireframe for a college project :)

I'm sorry that I didn't see this earlier. I definitely think this may have been a real organization. The Connecticut parents union seemed to be doing something with it and here is a link to their brochure http://ctparentsunion.org/PETBrochureFinal.pdf, IN addition, the Hartford Public Schools piloted the program in 2010. They might have disappeared but there is definitely evidence that they were an actual organization.

This is a fairly old paper (1980), but is a comprehensive look at a lot of ideas we covered in class.

The new "open university" collaboration between Princeton, Stanford, UMich and Penn.

They have some interesting offerings with some impressive people!

I tried taking a course on there, and noticed that 1) offerings are very limited and 2) you have to wait until the course officially "starts", just like an in-person class. I think there are 3 starting April 23rd and all the rest are either this summer, next fall, or "TBA"...I thought the whole idea is that you could take them anytime!

Hey Guys, this is an Atlantic article a friend sent me awhile ago and I thought some of you might think it's interesting. It's about Jonathan Blow a video game designer with a unique taste. He's in the process of creating The Witness a game that is more artistic, contemplative, and zen-like than FPS type games. This is a long article and to be honest I didn't read all of it, but if you're interested there's a video half way down that gives you an idea of what The Witness will look like. He says users will really have to observe, pay attention and think in order to play the game. Seems interesting to me!

Really cool!

I agree! It really makes me want to play Braid and keep an eye out for The Witness (which rings a bell--I wonder where else I heard about it...). This article paints a vivid picture of the game designer and the type of art he makes. Thanks for sharing!

This is an interesting example of a video game targeting mental health. The designers created a 3D fantasy world with different realms in which players learn mental behavioral techniques used to combat depression. The game was found to be effective in reducing symptoms of anxiety and depression in teens with mild to moderate depression.

Such a great idea. In rural areas, the lack of mental health practitioners is a serious problem so we reserve referrals for children who are in dire circumstances. Children with moderate or mild depression almost never get services. This game has great potential!

That's such an excellent point Allison!

Although the idea of an iPad for every student may struggle to come to fruition for a few years, Augmented Reality textbooks are paving the way for a smooth transition. Japanese publishing company Tokyo Shoseki is producing textbooks that support AR apps on smartphones, bringing characters to life for students to listen to.

Here are some interesting ideas on all fronts regarding motivation.

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."

Many adults have little idea of how children use technology in their everyday lives. Out of fear that it will be used to engage with non academic content, we want to keep schools the same good old way - very different from the rest of their lives.Addressing both school culture and issues of inequity would be important in enabling students to learn with tools they are most familiar with.

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.

Roger Travis, Professor of Classics uses games to teach Homeric epics. The 1:1 mapping he used for learning objectives and play objectives led him to coin the term "practomime" from "praxis and mimesis," that is, a doing and representing.

I really liked the building points toward a grade concept and the idea that people were more willing to compose in Latin.