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Some interesting videos with James Paul Gee et al. discussing issues related to video games and learning. Videos are under 5 minutes each.

Some interesting videos with James Paul Gee et al. discussing issues related to video games and learning. Videos are under 5 minutes each. What do you think about what they have to say?

Games as constant assessment, and textbooks as tools for problem-solving

""No one's got the model that's going to work yet," said James Grimmelmann, a New York Law School professor who specializes in computer and Internet law. "I expect all the current ventures to fail, because the expectations are too high. People think something will catch on like wildfire. But more likely, it's maybe a decade later that somebody figures out how to do it and make money." "

What if, instead of seeing school the way we've known it, we saw it for what our children dreamed it might be: a big, delicious video game?

Very sad news.  Not too surprising but I didn't expect this to happen so soon.  Steve has certainly made his mark.  - James  

Fantastic piece on transforming higher education--love his framework.

Good article highlighting the tension created by Idaho's push to incorporate online-learning and computers into state education. 

Great article James! THey show the full range of teachers' reachtion to top down directives. I wonder what their reaction would be if the directive was NOT about technology but rather a requirement to customize instruction. Customization is too hard to do as an individual teacher. You would have to rely on technology to get it done. I love the teacher who insists that she teaches kids "how to think" by using her lecture style. Oh Boy!

This is an RSA I shared with the blog class I teach. I think the event of "shared knowledge" and its effect on groups dynamics is very interesting. The prompt I used is below: Here are the three questions asked by James Surowiecki in the post below. Please consider them and answer one or all three in a comment. What does the blogosphere tell us about what we believe motivates people to do what they do? Do blogs have the possibility of accessing a collective intelligence that has previously remained untapped? What are the potential problems of blogs as we know them?

To what extent should videogames be used in classrooms, and what is the research support for this?

Note the author characterizes the National Educational Technology Plan as a "manifesto." Quoting this article, "... in March, Arne Duncan, the secretary of education, released a draft National Educational Technology Plan that reads a bit like a manifesto for change, proposing among other things that the full force of technology be leveraged to meet "aggressive goals" and "grand" challenges, including increasing the percentage of the population that graduates from college to 60 percent from 39 percent in the next 10 years. What it takes to get there, the report suggests, is a "new kind of R.& D."

A bunch of especially interesting quotes toward the end: "This concept is something that Will Wright, who is best known for designing the Sims game franchise...refers to as 'failure-based learning,' in which failure is brief, surmountable, often exciting and therefore not scary... According to Ntiedo Etuk, the chief executive of Tabula Digita...children who persist in playing a game are demonstrating a valuable educational ideal.... 'They'll fail until they win.' He adds: 'Failure in an academic environment is depressing. Failure in a video game is pleasant. It's completely aspirational.' It is also, says James Paul Gee, antithetical to the governing reality of today's public schools. 'If you think about kids in school - especially in our testing regime - both the teacher and the student think that failure will lead to disaster,' he says. 'That's pretty much a guarantee that you'll never get to truly deep learning.'"

Definitely want to read some of the books mentioned in this Q&A.

To celebrate the importance of books and reading, Scholastic is launching You Are What You Read, a social networking site for readers around the world. Users log on to www.youarewhatyouread.com, list the five books that had the biggest impact on their lives, and connect with readers all over the world through these shared "Bookprints." The site also contains the Bookprints of more than 125 "Names You Know" - notable people from entertainment, academia, business, media, publishing, and more - including Scarlett Johansson, Al Roker, Sir James Dyson, Venus Williams, Jodi Picoult, Malcolm Gladwell, Judy Blume, and President George H.W. Bush... More links: http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/publishing-and-marketing/article/44983-scholastic-launches-social-networking-site.html http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/scholastic-launches-social-networking-site-you-are-what-you-readcom-106024583.html http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2010/10/28/scholastic-launches-social-network-focused-on-reading http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/read-scholastic-launches-social-reading-website/story?id=12000023 http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/publishing-and-marketing/article/44983-scholastic-launches-social-networking-site.html http://www.bookpublishingreport.com/content/scholastic-continues-90th-birthday-bash-social-networking-venture http://www.galleysmith.com/2010/11/01/you-are-what-you-read/ http://www.tigertalesbooks.com/blog http://www.youthradio.org/news/scholastic-launches-facebook-for-readers

Jennifer Dick shared this on the TIE2012 Facebook page.  Looks like a great forum to check out on topics relevant to T-561.   Topical groups included "Badges for LifeLong Learning," "Pedagogy", and "Semantic Web."  check it out.

James- I had a really interesting conversation about badges for lifelong learning yesterday, and as I'm sure you know it's a controversial topic, especially among academics who resent the premise that people need extrinsic motivators like badges as incentives to be lifelong learners. One major advantage to badges, according the the people I was talking with, is that they can be used as a kind of shorthand validation of somebody's credentials. So, for example, if you wanted to hire a freelancer to build you a website, write you some content, or re-tile your kitchen, you would be able to get a quick idea of how good they were by seeing what kinds of badges they had earned. I found this to be an interesting application to the badge system, whereas I was quite against the idea before of incentivizing lifelong learning. What does everyone think of HASTAC badges?

MassCue article about the effectiveness of Student Response Systems by a tech consultant / researcher for vendor Turning Response Systems (who sells the clickers that HGSE uses). I'm interested in comparing these systems with the FREE adhoc web-based system offered by Socrative.com, co-founded by HGSE TIE grad Ben Berté.

James- very interesting article about Student Response Systems. The clickers are a great tool to facilitate student participation in a teacher-centered classroom, and many of us have seen the Turning Point clickers in action. And they really do help with engaging everyone in the audience. Remember that diversity seminar during orientation week? The rich discussion that ensued in a crowd of 650 was really made possible because of the opening survey questions, the clicker interactivity, and the discussions that sprung up at each individual table which then mushroomed out to the rest of the crowd. I never thought a diversity seminar could be that engaging, and the clickers were definitely a key part of that. My only criticism of the article is that it seems to be pushing hardware capabilities over sound pedagogy, which is always a danger in learning about emerging technologies. Question though: is Socrative not entirely free? it seems like a great tool with many interactive capabilities, ideal for many classroom settings and activities.

Steve I agree the article did have a strong sense of hardware pushing. It was written by a research on the the vendor's payroll. I've changed "free" to FREE; I intended the quotes to be for emphasis, not skepticism. Socrative is indeed free.

Isabel, Chris M., Stephen B., and I are at MassCUE today watching Yong Zhao's keynote.  You can find a copy of his presentation here at this website.

I saw Zhao speak yesterday at the MassCUE conference (with James, Chris McEnroe and Isabel Schwartzman). His message was provocative: the United States did not do well on the TIMSS test, but the US has never done well on this type of testing even way back to the 1950s. Therefore, Zhao thinks that these tests are not good indicators of educational quality, but that the things that the US does right are fostering creativity, building in tolerance and forgiveness into the educational system, and stressing problem-solving and collaborative learning.

This relates to part of the discussion in class today. I've seen him speak about the irony that Chinese schools, which are outperforming US schools on PISA and TIMMS, are actually trying to model their systems more on US pedagogy. See his latest book or look for him on TED.

Thanks, James. Thanks for arranging the conference. His presentation was especially illuminating. I loved his manner and audacity.

More than 1500 The Massachusetts teachers and educators gather for 2011 Technology Conference on Wednesday, Oct. 26 and Thursday, Oct. 27, at Gillette. As the author states, "MassCUE and M.A.S.S. are recognized nationally for their efforts to help pre-K through post-secondary educators best use and enhance learning through technology."

I'll email you! :-)

Isabel Chris Stephen and I are at MassCUE 2011 right now in a q&a with keynote speaker Yong Zhao. And next in a session with Justin Reich.