HGSET545

Many adults have little idea of how children use technology in their everyday lives. Out of fear that it will be used to engage with non academic content, we want to keep schools the same good old way - very different from the rest of their lives.Addressing both school culture and issues of inequity would be important in enabling students to learn with tools they are most familiar with.

Here is the latest volley from NYC in its maneuvering with the teachers' union. No particular relevance to technology, except that I guess this loan repayment offer would attract young teachers with loans hanging over them.

Kony 2012 is an online campaign created by "invisible children" to call for a stop to the atrocities by the Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony. That so many children were engaged in this activity, wherein they used technology to create and spread a socially good message is worth reading about.....

Is the content intrinsically integrated ? How do they use rewards ? Do share your thoughts if you watch this webinar.

Managing engagement in the classroom;

Where should ATT place its bets? Is engagement the key to stemming dropouts? Can VI be used to design richly affective environments that promote social efficacy (a spoon full of sugar) while succeeding at skill development and knowledge transfer (the medicine)?

Close to home here at the Ed School...sounds like Moneyball for the education set.

A new Facebook game aims to motivate low-income high school students to apply to college and provide them with the necessary tools to gain admission.

Good overview of mental imagery as a supplement to Gee.

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."

Rather interesting (and humorous) blog post on the "rockstar" motivation to create Apps. According to the author, "Back then peoples heroes were the likes of Jimmy Page, Robert Plant or Bob Dylan. Today it's Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, or Reid Hoffman. An entirely different breed." Maybe he's right?

This guide includes world of warcraft in school and other games like The World Peace Game..

An article for those of us interested in technology in higher education. According to the article, "The question is, what should leaders of today's colleges and universities know about technology in order to manage the inevitable change that disruptive technology will bring?"

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.

An interesting lecture this Tuesday, March 27, 2012 at 6:15 p.m! Malkin Penthouse, 4th floor, Littauer Building, 79 John F. Kennedy Street, Eric Gordon explores whether Community PlanIt-a web-based social network developed by Gordon's Engagement Game Lab-help improve public schools in Boston. - Eric Gordon, Associate Professor, Department of Visual and Media Arts, Emerson College and Lead Designer, Community PlanIt - Commentary by Nigel Jacob, Co-Director, Office of New Urban Mechanics, City of Boston

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 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.)

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 look at the commercial kids game space. The article indicates the development of kids games is moving to tablets because of the gesture format, low cost of titles and ability to play short games. Disadvantage with tablets highlighted is the lack co-play features (unlike consoles where it's easy for several people to play simultaneously). Games cited in article: Once Upon a Monster, Where's My Water, Niko, Habbo Hotel.

With bluetooth and WiFi features available, I wonder why there is not much thought about incorporating co-play in mobile games? I think using the gyroscopic features in iPhones and iPads can lead to creative multi-player games.