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What motivates people to share news. What travels faster good or bad news?

First off, I really stopped playing the major video game titles after I beat Super Mario Bros. II. It took me like 4 months to best Bowser, but once I did and the world pretty much remained the same I lost interest. Still, I cannot say all the new games that have come out recently don't peak my interest. The problem, I have been out of the gaming loop for so long now that I am at a serious disadvantage whenever I play. The controllers have become so complkicated and sensative that I spend most of the initial induction just trying to figure out what the hell I am supposed to do, and what combonation of clicks and toggles prompts the desired effect. Nintendo's Wii however seemingly streamined the learning curve as my body was the primary controller. Sony is now prepping to launch an entirely new controller protocol that uses the functions of the handheld even less. It might even eliminate the need for a controler all together...all body, all movement are calibrated and support the players avatar.

"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."

Students at the Center Project Explores How Students Learn Best--Reports on Enhancing Literacy and on Math Instruction for Minorities also Released New educational technologies offer exciting ways to help teachers adapt classrooms to the interests, needs, and strengths of individual students, but they cannot replace the crucial creative and emotional work of teachers, according to a new research paper from the ambitious interdisciplinary project, Students at the Center: Teaching and Learning in the Era of the Common Core.

"This new device actually has more memory and higher screen resolution than an Xbox 360 or Playstation 3," said Mike Capps, CEO of Epic Games. "So, these guys [Apple] are redefining mobile gaming again."

As Safer Internet Day emphasises ways for people to avoid trouble online, BBC News looks at what is behind so-called griefing and cyber bullying.

"It has long been understood that memroy formation is an active and often exhausting process, losing them seems to happen quite passively as time elapses and new information overloads our busy brains. But a new study published February 19 in the journal Cell shows that forgetting is a biochemically active process not unlike memory formation."

I would be interested to see why teens are looking at news online. My skeptical side wonders if teens are going online for news and political information as a result of assignments and homework and if these stats simply reflect their tendency to turn more and more to digital technologies, neglecting print sources.

New apps/New opportunities with Apple's Tablet

Great demonstration of engaging graduate/undergraduates in course materials at MIT

Engagement is a buzz word but who descriptive is it?

Intel announced the launch of its durable 7-inch tablets, called "Intel studybooks."  The tablets will cost less than $200 each, half the price of the new iPads.  Will the affordability of this device beat out the all-popular iPad?

A lengthy but informative New Yorker article for those interested in higher education and technology.

A study out of Stanford looked at how videogames, in particular serious games and games for health, can activate circuits in the brain associated with positive motivation. "The study published today provides new insights into how these effects might have occurred, revealing that active participation in gameplay events is key to activating the brain's positive motivation circuits. Seeing and hearing the same information without active participation in gameplay had no impact on activity in positive motivation circuits."

A brief interview with L. Rafael Reif, MIT's provost, and Anant Agarwal, director of MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory about MITx, a new/developing online certificate program. Interesting how much they can not anticipate how/what this will impact (re: education, jobs, higher ed market).