Group items tagged

The American School Counselor Association has released a guide to help school counselors make sense of the Facebook platform and its on-campus impact. In thinking about technology and EMF, we have yet to discuss cyberwellness issues. Presumably, one's engagement would be decreased if one felt unsafe.

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.

e-Readers are making staedy advances, becoming more and more like print books (only better?)

Cute story about a renewed interest in table hockey. One quote: "In videogames, there is no humanity."

To be piloted in New York City schools to get parents more engaged

I would have loved this when I was in the classroom!!! Our principal used to make home visits, but some parents felt this was really intrusive (understandably); this sounds like a great easy & quick to implement intervention.

An article that talks about how to view violence in games from a new angle. Violence in videogames can help kids gain practical skills. The mystique of violent and scary themes draws children's natural curiosity, and dealing with it is a part of normal child development. It's not the violence itself that is attractive to kids. It's the opportunity to develop and master skills and have the freedom to make choices in the game universe. Also, the violent games happen to have the most emotional appeal to kids.

Augmented reality is dazzling when used appropriately. The Science Museum in London's exhibit on the Making of the Modern World looks to be a wonderfully educational experience about how specific technologies have propelled human history forward.

With a bank of 40,000 educational apps that have been cataloged, reviewed, and approved, a Tennessee initiative hopes to make it easier for educators to use apps in the classroom and beyond. Sometimes, finding the right app can feel like searching for a needle in a haystack.

Managing engagement in the classroom;

Detailed examination of the axis that promote/discourage collaborative play (Synchronous vs. Asynchronous player interaction, Symmetrical vs. Asymmetrical relationship formation & Strong Tie vs. Loose Tie relationship evolution). The article provides examples of each axis in practice. Interesting application of SDT's "relatedness" in a gaming context.

I think vocational schools give students the means for making time spent in school relevant and useful to them. They pursue an interest and see it connected to a relevant future. In the current age where interdisciplinary work is the norm, jobs are mutable, and careers are evolutionary, vocational education is no longer preparing students for a job or career; just their first one.

I completely agree! I have a good friend who dropped out of high school, earned his GED the same week, and went on to a technical vocational school to study IT/systems management. Turned out that once he got to the vocational school, he became the top student in most of his classes, and well-known for staying after class to engage instructors in intellectual debate. I find it disappointing that our society tends to devalue vocational schools; it seems to me that we should instead be focusing on what fits each student best.

This article talks about how studios making MMOs for children are providing free usage but capitalizing on its engagement potential to take advantage of children's purchasing power.

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)

A fascinating talk on one aspect of motivation - willpower. Who knew that lower glucose levels decrease willpower, and that performing self-control on one task decreases subsequent control on the next task?

I came across some of Baumeister's articles while researching for my neuroscience project last semester and was fascinated. Thanks for posting this talk; I really look forward to watching it!

A free tool to create and visualize your own tag clouds. Useful to analyze group themes in student writing. Sharing this data and the corpus of students texts, either synchronously or asynchronously, seems to be the key to upping the level of engagement.

Imagine this...

Johnny Mnuemonic is right around the corner! :-) Seriously, I would have a hard time with electronic equipment that close to my head all the time. The warmth from my cell phone bothers me so this product would have to compensate for discomfort with warmth and close viewing. Regardless, it's coming anyway. Interesting how they don't show how it makes work easier, just free time.

I did not give my opinion initially, but the bottom line is: I would go nuts! John Stewart had a great take-off on this based on what "dogs" actually see!

this article reminded me how unengaged I was/am by the idea of diagramming sentences in spite of some people I know who thrill in the memories. It seems to me that the ipad offers some ap capability to reinvent this idea and make it even more visual.

More "ipads in education." There is also a point in her about customization for student needs which relates to UDL.