Group items tagged

Technology instead of hand writing? ok.

I think handwriting is already a lost art, but I'm sad to see it go. Perhaps teaching handwriting can go by way of the art teachers, and we'll be able to save it in schools as an art form.

An important perspective on how leadership is needed to connect the worlds of art, technology and design.

This is an online collaborative tool to help people (especially children) create and share stories and/or art. 

From the article: "Music technology in some ways appears to have been on a trajectory in which the end result is that it will destroy and devalue itself. It will succeed completely when it self-destructs. The technology is useful and convenient, but it has, in the end, reduced its own value and increased the value of the things it has never been able to capture or reproduce."

"Gillispie: At one of our instructional team meetings, I said, "I have an idea. This is what I want to do. I want to target at-risk students at the middle school level, focus on leadership, language arts, digital citizenship and lots of other things that tend to get less emphasis in our everyday classroom. And I want to use this game, WoW." At the conclusion of my spiel, they said, "We really don't understand all this stuff that you are talking about, but we know it's a good idea. Go for it." The principal said, "Yes, please come do this at my school."

Very cool embodied learning experience. Checkout the videos

This is really cool. I think there are opportunities in this for math learning, and maybe even connecting physics to math. For example, I could see embedded learning being used for mathematical modeling, but I have not seen it being done yet.

GoGoNews, an online news resource for children, announced that OLPC XO laptops will feature GoGoNews App in the collection of default applications. Through GoGoNews app, children can read filtered headline news, as well as art, cultural science, or fun topics, and play online games.

The future is coming closer :-)

The Lourve in Paris is partnering with Nintendo to use the 3DS portable gaming system as a delivery system for an interactive guide to the museum. Across the blogosphere, people are voicing their thoughts. Lots of people are saying that a Nintendo gaming device is just too casual/childish for the Lourve. Others are asking why the the museum can't jus stick with smartphones & the iPad. Others are asking details of cost, what features will be available on the 3DS device, will visitors be able to bring in their own 3DS and use the guide software on it?

Love this!

The school I am interning at (The Carroll School) is using this in their middle school math classes. Small class sizes typically (4-8 kids /  class), and it's a 1:1 school where every child has a laptop. But - it's working well for designated independent work time in the math classes I've observed- where each kid is asked to play the game for 15 minutes on their own. Kids have their own profiles- and there are several different math mini games they can play, each game focusing on different math skills. Each mini game involves different game mechanics and art styles. But all games involve using arithmetic skills and math concepts to solve problems that progress them in the game. Good performance gives the kids in-game credits/money that they can use to customize their in-gam avatar. 

Best practices and lessons learned for online learning.

MakerBot Replicators are 3-D publishers - feed it a 3-D drawing, and it will build it. Could these tools help re-imagine arts classes (fine and industrial) with a renewed focus on design?

This is a great and easy-to-use site that allows you to create professional looking Photoshop-style effects with little effort. Do you want to see yourself on the cover of Rolling Stone, as a painting in an art gallery, or as a tattoo? Select an effect from the front page, upload a picture, make any necessary adjustments (e.g. zoom in on face), and view the result. Just be aware that all original photos and the resulting images are publicly viewable.

Teens today say that the ability to freely use Facebook and Twitter at work could influence their decision to accept a job

"School of One uses technology to develop a unique learning path for each student and to provide a significant portion of the instruction that is both individualized and differentiated." I liked the definitions of individualized (pacing), differentiated (learning preferences/methods), and personalized (pacing, preferences, and content/objectives).

Microsoft Courier Booklet

The Microsoft Courier is a two screen folding tablet device that allows for user interaction via gestures and/or stylus. The user interface looks to be the Courier's strongest point, but I'm curious to see if the stylus-heavy interaction will provide for any major advantage over a typical laptop and the already existent tablet pc market for anything other than art programs. In an educational setting, this could potentially be used as a library reference device and/or collaborative art device, but just as has been the case with many educational products in the past, may not be novel enough to sway education (or any other market) into preventing the Courier into becoming vaporware. However, this still poses as an excellent example of new devices coming onto the market that focus on new or perfected methods of Human Computer Interaction (HCI).