Group items tagged

"In his book, What Video Games Have to Teach Us about Learning and Literacy, James Paul Gee derives a set of learning principles from his study of the complex, self-directed learning each game player undertakes as s/he encounters and masters a new game. He suggests that adherence to these principles could transform learning in schools, colleges and universities, both for teachers and faculty and, most importantly, for students."

Disney's Connected Learning program has been developing games for 6 years now, the most popular title being Club Penguin. They are currently planning to roll out several pre-school titles and are also capturing data on the games effects on learning outcomes. Interesting to see Disney attracting top talent from the gaming industry to help develop games and also not shying away from doing the research to investigate educational outcomes.

"Identifying promising models for mixing online learning and face-to-face instruction Challenges in e-learning Building partnerships to increase virtual learning collaboration among districts Teaching a "flip model" of instruction with online lectures as homework"

This article suggests lessons that other teachers can learn from jazz teachers in motivating students and talks about the social, constructivist, and personal aspects of jazz that make it a passion for students who may otherwise be uninterested in school. "Students need to be doing something every day to demonstrate their learning."

This article talks about a study on the positive and negative effects of "challenge stress" and "hindrance stress" on motivation to learn and learning performance. I linked the citation here; to access the full text, I recommend using Harvard's E-Research site to search for the Journal of Applied Psychology and then getting to the article via the EBSCO link in the catalog record. (Or else find J Appl Psuchol through EBSCO and log in with Harvard LibX.)

Los Angeles, CA (PRWEB) January 24, 2012 SMALLab Learning LLC has launched a new embodied learning environment and multiple lessons for the learning environment called Flow. Flow brings embodied learning to any existing Interactive Whiteboard or projection surface using a single motion-capture camera, similar to the Xbox Kinect™.

This article proposes that one of the reasons to integrate technology into the curriculum is to support active engagement in learning.  

mobile technologies, handhelds, e-learning, m-learning, professional development, PD

The 2012 Digital Learning Report Card, funded by Jeb Bush's Digital Learning Now organization, was profiled in this week's EdSurge e-newsletter. The Digital Learning Report Card grades significant policy decisions (on a state-by-state basis) which "are advancing student-centric reforms, reducing barriers to blended learning, and encouraging the use of technology to offer a more personalized college- and career-ready education."

Thanks for sharing Sandra, this was an interesting article about injecting passion into our lessons. There were two questions I was thinking about though: 1) If we're not already passionate about something, why and how should we get passionate about it? 2) Excitement and passion do not equate to learning whereas solving problems or inquiry-based learning focuses the lessons on learning. Is that better? Cheers!

This blurb announces a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to develop software tools that detect student engagement while using educational software--and use the data to improve learning. "To study engagement, robust learning, and emotion in real classrooms, [Ryan S.J.d. Baker's] research combines quantitative field observations of student behavior while using educational software with data mining to detect patterns in the ways students tackle the tasks that [his educational] software presents."

This data base from the edWeb site (Games for learning) that Stephanie shared is a crowd sourced collection of learning games. Has the learning been intrinsically integrated into these games ?. How wise has the crowd been in collating this learning resource ?

At the Learning and the Brain Conference last week, Dr. Gee listed 10 (research-validated) reasons why video games are good for learning.

This article discusses play in virtual worlds (focusing on World of Warcraft) with an emphasis both on the learning that takes place and the engagement. You'll have to log in with your Harvard ID to get the article, FYI. "Our observation showed that players are motivated by the game's scope, rules, and scenario to create and participate in virtual communities, and share their knowledge with others, while newcomers are encouraged to engage in collective actions, and develop their skill base. We also found that although current MMORPGs have not been designed as instructional tools, they provide an excellent fantasy environment for intrinsically motivating learning, where players can experience the elements of challenge, curiosity, and control [30]." "People engage in pervasive games that use the best of two worlds, the virtual and the physical, in order to offer to its players the sense of maximum enjoyment."

The growing badge-based-learning movement, which provides students with digital credentials that challenge traditional measures of achievement like college degrees, got a boost yesterday. Winners of the Badges for Lifelong Learning Competition, which began in September, were announced at the Digital Media and Learning Conference, in San Francisco.

Research paper on "recreational learning objects" in this case a math-based computer game, which was shown to increase motivation in Mexican high schoolers.

autonomy as a motivational force

relates to our tweeting as part of the blended learning community

I agree that some students may be more musically inclined but will integrating music into all aspects of the curriculum, as the article suggests, really help students learn?

Thanks for sharing Sandra. I think it depends on how well the teacher designs the activity. It also depends on how the music is used. For example, music in a game is really important, but it's in the background. So the player doesn't really pay attention to it, until it's turned off. I think music can really help us learn, but it depends on the context in which it's used.

Thanks for this link, Matthew, and for the comment on it, Sandra! I think that music is a great avenue for learning. From personal experience, I seem to study better and with more focus and future recollection when music is playing in the background. It would be great to see if music truly does have a connection with the acquisition and recollection of knowledge.