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"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."

This is a webinar chat that I sat in on today (A few questions I posed are featured in the Q&A at the end.) With the new SimCity release, they have also partnered with a company called GlassLab that has designed a teacher resource hub and also modified game that enables teachers to easily use the game in classrooms. There will be specific inquiry based challenges that allow students to interact in the game environment to investigate community issues (ranging from water shortages, power outages, labor disputes, earthquakes, budget concerns, etc.) and work with citizens and government to solve the issues. There is also an exciting multiplayer format where neighboring cities are controlled by other students and they must work together to solve problems. Glass Lab is partnering with EA Games, Gates Foundation, and ETS to build the teacher hub where educators can design and share best practices, lesson plans, etc. In addition, they will be doing a long term study to measure educational outcomes. It appears as though they are using this game as a pilot opportunity to build the framework for larger commercial game integration into the classroom.

I came across this great question posted in Quora. One of the responders, Anne Halsall listed structured narratives, diverse hand- drawn animation, more difficult puzzles (less hints), and a single-player experience as hallmarks of 90s adventures games. The highlights of these adventure games are a stark contrast to the conditions, at least according to Gee, that make video games useful learning tools (e.g.,open-ended, immediate feedback, opportunities for socialization). This lead me to wonder, are the trends in contemporary game design driving engagement theory, or is the research driving game design?

One point not covered in the article is that there may be something inherently similar about "gamers" (such as a motivational, attentional, or perceptive profile) that makes them different types of learners than others. Yes, it's true that some people deeply enjoy the structured (some more/some less) challenges provided by games, both board and virtual...but others do not. The big question is, does it benefit a majority of learners (or, say, a majority of at-risk learners) to invest in curricula that leverages game-based-learning?

It may stray a bit from the topic of motivation, but here's a neuroscience article (that I found quite interesting) that discusses how a difference in striatal volume appears to affect how one's performance improves in playing a game: Erickson, K. I., Boot, W. R., Basak, C., Neider, M. B., Prakash, R. S., Voss, M. W., Graybiel, A. M., et al. (2010). Striatal volume predicts level of video game skill acquisition. Cerebral Cortex, 20(11), 1-9. doi:10.1093/cercor/bhp293

Lack of opportunity for involvement and engagement (among other factors) dooms large schools.

New apps/New opportunities with Apple's Tablet

facebook is considering using a location feature that will tell others where people are. it is an interesting use of technology for social purposes and with it comes the opportunity for robberies while people are away from home, stalking, etc.

If anyone is interested in using games for education and learning in the Middle East, this short article provides a some information on the current state of the Arab video game market - challenges/opportunities/history.

Animal-assisted activities (AAA) provide opportunities for motivational, educational and/or recreational benefits to enhance a person's quality of life.

internet facilitates exposure, opportunities for collaboration and informal mentoring for  young photographers

http://www.thersa.org/events/rsaanimate/animate/rsa-animate-drive This RSA animate featuring Daniel Pink focuses on motivation. Although not Pink's thesis, to me it provides the explanation for why bonus pay to teachers (or students) for student achievement, particularly on tests is wrong-headed and damaging to educators and schools as professional environments in the long run. You can't pay people to care but you can organize school environments in which meaningful learning can be achieved. Teachers generally want to succeed and simply need a well-managed opportunity.

Thanks Uche for sharing this talk. I found Dan's insights interesting especially when he said that management is a technology that cannot lead to engagement. It struck me that it was a delicate balance between managing from the outside and developing self-management from inside.

A familiar voice on Khan, digital learning, literacy, and opportunities and challenges in education.

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.

This article examines k-8 schools vs gr6-8 middle schools. Middle schoolers possibly struggle with the relatedness aspect of motivation when they lack leadership roles for younger students. ". We do, however, find suggestive evidence that the overall climate for student learning is worse in middle schools than in schools that serve students from elementary school through the 8th grade. This suggests a final potential interpretation of our results that is directly related to the choice of grade configuration: students may benefit from being among the oldest students in a school setting that includes very young students, perhaps because they have greater opportunity to take on leadership roles."

Using open source Virtual World software to intentionally disrupt an education system. A bold vision and I think an opportunity for bold research.

Children with autism spectrum disorders enjoy screen time, underscoring an opportunity to use interactive devices to encourage social learning. Despite how much children who have autism enjoy the stimulation of a computer or mobile device, few engage in social media pursuits, such as emailing or chatting, researchers found.

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 ?

I have found it useful to compare and contrast the links below ( shared by Stephanie and Bharat) Trial ST Math ( mindresearch.net/ ) Reflex math ( http://www.reflexmath.com/)