HGSET545

Interesting study on rewards and motivation: Some excerpts - Rewards worked much better if they were given to students before the test, not after. Researchers found students worked significantly harder to keep what they had than they did to win something new. But none of the incentives worked at any age if students knew they wouldn't get the reward for a month. "All motivating power of the incentives vanishes when rewards are handed out with a delay," the researchers concluded. "Especially among children, the difference between right now and tomorrow is a big difference," Ms. Sadoff said. "For all students it's important that the reward be immediate." That impatience creates a massive problem for incentive programs based on state test results, which can often take months to turn around.

Thanks for this Kasthuri! This gives additional strength to the immediacy of digital rewards and students having access to their own "stats" (both potentially available in games and simulations). The thought of actual green-back monetary rewards for study/learning gives me the heebie-jeebies. I appreciated Alexandra M. Usher's comment, that "it's really important to reward inputs, not outputs [and] to reward behavior that kids can control, rather than just telling them to get better grades."

This organization has recently be approved by Congress and the Dept. of Education to provide grants for the research and development of technology related to education.

Commentary on a new report showing how extensively kids use media

Avatar stuff...mentioned in class

Thanks so much for finding and posting this!

Kubbu is a new site that allows teachers to create activities to aid the learning process. Teachers enter the data and deploy it via several different activity types. They can then track the usage and results from these activities. In this sense, Kubbu is very similar to Quia.

Google left China seems to be an error

I have heard about these type of devices before, but I think this is the first time I have seen them available for use by the public. Not exactly sure why they chose lights as the reactant, but I suspect it has something to do with the unique alpha/beta waves created by the brain in response ot lighting. Question is, which comes first the thought or the light bulb?

Do 3-D interfaces cause headaches? Potential trouble for immersive visuals as 3-D interfaces require unnatural eye movements which may result in visually induced motion sickness. More popcorn please.

I didn't end up with any ill effects, but I noticed that your inability to focus on objects on different levels of the 3D plane is unnerving. Often there would be interesting flora in the foreground, and because it's in 3D, you want to look at it but you can't focus your eyes on it.

Very interesting opinions on why current educational institutions fail to both engage and teach students.

Comments in class sparked me to look this up...it's pretty good, though not the same as what was described. You can also get a different version of the test as an iPhone app...

"Over the past 20 years educators have fought over the best way to teach numbers to kids. Advocates of traditional math tout the practice of algorithms and teacher-centered learning, whereas reform-math proponents focus on underlying concepts and student inquiry."

I enjoy a certain closeness with my roomba, while I love my espresso machine and other gadgets just fine, Roomba and I are pals. My fiance and I even plan to name our first dog after our vacuum.

"Only a small fraction of students may count as true digital natives, in other words. The rest are no better or worse at using technology than the rest of the population."

This is very, very sad. The irony of this tragedy should not be overlooked however. Obsession with virtual dependant leads to starvation of real child.

The study, published in the March issue of the journal <Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine showed that, for both periods, adolescents who spend more time watching TV or playing video games were more likely to report lower quality relationships compared with those who logged less screen time.

nintendo, future of learning, handheld

iPad could be the coming hit for schools and colleges!

A Singapore history game will resemble World of Warcraft