HGSET545

math learning management influenced by game design. 

Wearable technology seems to be gaining popularity... Here's a link to the NYTimes profile of Memoto, the new life-logging camera featured at SXSW. The company was founded in 2011 and has raised close to a million dollars in financing through Kickstarter and from European investors. http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/08/meet-memoto-the-lifelogging-camera/?ref=technology

By now, we're used to letting Facebook and Twitter capture our social lives on the web -- building a "social layer" on top of the real world. In his talk, Seth Priebatsch looks at the next layer in progress: the "game layer," a pervasive net of behavior-steering game dynamics that will reshape education and commerce.

Yes, indeed. The ideal is to intrinsically integrate. That's a good idea. Why not? In fact, maybe the alternate reality games qualify as "real world" layer over games because in such games, whatever happens in games impact the reality in certain ways. We could also design games to work the other way around, e.g. a diet game, where only when you do exercise in a gym in the real world, can you advance levels in the game.

Haha yes!! I recall a rowing machine which actually had a game in front of users so that they could compete with 'other rowers'. It was great and definitely made the workout more fun. I stopped though after a friend slipped his disc on the machine...

Two important points that jumped up for me while watching this video: 1) Have you ever seen a baby who's not motivated to learn? 2) Imagine how motivated you'd be if you adopted a 'growth' mindset where every activity is a learning endeavor.

In context of Professor Dede's comment from last class about the "Proteus Effect"...some punchlines from Professor Jeremy Bailenson about the power avatars can exert on their creators.

This article provides a great overview of the new technologies profiled at SXSW and makes the case that it's now cheaper than ever before to bring prototypes to market. The author notes, "The dropping costs of designing and building inventive new hardware products has prompted a wave of creativity and innovation that echoes the software boom a decade or two ago in Silicon Valley." Makes me wonder... what's next?

Have you heard about Ouya? It's the $99 game console that raised over a million dollars in eight hours on Kickstarter. This week Ouya announced that game developers can begin uploading their games for the March 28 release to Kickstarter backers. The masses can buy the Ouya console in June. Here's another link that provides an overview of Ouya. http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/ingame/meet-ouya-99-game-machine-everyone-talking-about-876224

There are some interesting comments regarding who should be happy first, the teacher or the student.

Covers topics we have been discussing for the class lately. Also, provides views on transfer from virtual world to physical world.

Includes practical tips; even though the blog post is written mainly from undergrad perspective, I think many of the tips apply to grads as well. Hope the tips help keep us "engaged" in our readings. :-)

Some questions-driven tips on dissecting an academic article.