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Teachers of students with autism say it's the year of the iPad. It provides motivation. It helps with therapy and handwriting practice. It even models appropriate ways to share toys or take turns.

Can 3-D devices help students learn?

BBC's School Report Project Allows Students to learn communication skills through group collaboration, performance and use of technology. Students with different skill levels report being engaged.

Tech-Fueled Differentiated Instruction Engages Elementary School Students At Forest Lake Elementary School, in Columbia, South Carolina, achievement has soared since educators started using new technology to personalize the learning experience for each student.

Interesting read -- I wonder if giving the teachers the ability to modify the game enhances the engagemnent of students as much as allowing the students' modify the game.

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.

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.

This Kickstarter project aims to fund a standards-aligned history board game that engages students. The free companion web application will track students' progress, allowing for differentiated instruction while making the game "fun to play again and again: as players answer question cards, they earn badges and can unlock new careers and powers. The game becomes a story, a competition, and a World History simulation with limitless possibilities."

For the data analysts among us... This article mentions the Stanford University online course where every mouse click of 20,000 students is tracked in real time. "If 5,000 people had the same wrong answer, it's obvious a concept is not getting through, and you have a clear path that shows where students went wrong."

An interesting article with examples of schools that are "closing the loop"--successfully connecting students, teachers, and technologists to advance the use of technology within the classroom). Also contains a nice visual.

community service game developed for college students

"While educators may see students every day, they do not necessarily understand their students' habits, expectations, or learning preferences-this has resulted in a technology cultural divide."

"Parents see the use of mobile technologies in schools as a means of increasing student engagement (43 percent) and preparing students for the working world (41 percent). The most often-cited instructional benefit is mobile devices' ability to extend learning beyond school hours."

a new device that lets schools communicate with students in 20 seconds without relying on multiple networks

Ways to increase student engagement

Back to the basics: "Studies show that positive feelings can enhance students' attention and higher-order thinking skills, as well as encouraging perseverance."

A look at a nascent, controversial program where students bring their own technologies to school… An interesting quote from the article: "And while district administrators worried initially that poorer students would not own devices, they discovered something of 'an inverse relationship' between family income and the sophistication of their devices, particularly smartphones, said Don Boulware, the district's director of technology services."

Coach John Wooden talks about motivating and engaging his students and players. In giving students autonomy and control over their learning, it is sometimes important to focus on small details too. This could be as simple as being punctual, but it goes a long way in building self-discipline.

Article on college students using "serious" video games as part of their instruction.