Group items tagged

in response to Jen Lavalle's post about games having to go cross-platform to survive. Adobe, makes of the Flash platform, have announced they are stopping further development of the plugin for mobile devices. They are instead now going to focus on open standards (like HTML5), to allow content to be viewed on all modern devices (mobile and computers) with no plug in required. They will also focus on tools to allow developers to push content speciically to the app stores of today's most popular mobile devices. This is a good & bad sign for app developers who use Flash (lots of them, it's been an industry standard for years. Flash has suffered from terrible performance on mobile devices, so it's good to see Adobe acknowledging the need to do something different for their mobile strategy. But what this means for the tools developers will (need to learn to) use? TBD...

A highly amusing flash game for learning physics concepts. How might a teacher use this in class?

What age group would benefit most from this? What could the teacher do to make sure students learn about physics and not just learn how to manipulate the simulation?

I just played around with it a little bit, and I don't feel that I could use it effectively with grade 9th or grade 7th students that I was teaching last year. It is pretty much just a balancing game, but I don't think it can help learners understand any particular concepts like 'gravity' or the 'principle of moments'. For younger learners, like 6-year olds perhaps, it could help them develop an understanding of weights and balancing forces(?)... I don't know...

This site is an invaluable collection of Web 2.0 Tools for educators. On this Wikispace are links to free sites that provide teachers with some exciting and engaging tools. It is now possible to easily create SMS-based real-time responses to discussion questions, allow students to easily create Flash-based cartoons and Flash-based online posters with a ton of functionality, and even create beats online that they can then record text over (perfect for my "Romeo and Juilet Rap" assignment). Links to all of these tools and more are available from this site.

Consider the possibilities for a performance assessment while playing through this simple "escape the room" game. The validity of the experiment involved in the solution is questionable.

Escape games are very big in the publishing industry right now due mostly to their inquiry based assessment and the low development cost compared to highly immersive first-person games. The biology lab escape is one of the better ones that I've seen out there. Thanks Chris!

I played for about 8 minutes and then grew tired of the game. I am curious how assessors would have graded my performance. I found the easier way to "escape the room" was to close the browser window.

This is a flash game where the player manipulates variables related to a trebuchet to meet various challenges. It involves concepts of momentum, angle of release, gravity, wind, potential energy, etc.

Another fun physics game. Use a trebuchet to hit targets, demolish walls, or just go for distance.

This article discusses the future of gaming and how companies are approaching gaming as platforms develop and evolve. "You have different visions of the future. Some companies think it's primarily browser-based and mobile is kind of an afterthought. Then you have other companies that are more in the social/mobile space and they say mobile is the future. From my point of view, I think Funzio has placed the bet correctly in that they are focusing on a cross-platform approach."

Developers will need to be even more cross-platform after the news today: Adobe has announced they are ending development of the mobile versions of their Flash browser-plugin. They will instead be focusing their resources on tools for developing content for HTML5 (cross-browser compatibility for both computers and mobile devices, no plugins required), or for deploying content as apps designed to be deployed for all the major devices' app stores. http://technolog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/11/09/8717108-adobe-gives-up-on-mobile-flash-focuses-on-open-web-standards

I spent some time poking around BrainPOP's GameUp page (BrainPOP creates educational flash videos and resources to be used in classrooms, in case you didn't know). Some are pretty cool examples of gamifying learning concepts, while others feel a little clunkier. I enjoyed poking around, so I thought I'd share.

Digital tutors is a fairly robust tutorial website that gives members (yeah, ya gotta pay) access to a variety of platforms, based on your interests!

Cool Tool App to create flash cards for more interactive study materials

This is a new interface for taking notes -- what are the implications for studying and for content mastery?

Hey Prof! Funny you tagged this article. I was just searching for advanced note-taking software and was having a difficult time finding anything that would resemble my handwritten notes. Also, I came across a similar device that is described in your article today at my internship at Soup2Nuts. Since all of the animators/artists use Flash to create the cartoons, they have something similar to this "magical pen". However, they need to use a specific type of tracking pad to draw. The idea of applying this same technology to any piece of paper is a useful idea (if you are one of those people who remember to bring paper and pads to class).

My neighbors, who spent the last 2-3 years teaching in Japan, introduced me to this site. They have online tutorials and games based on some 15 years of research into the most efficient ways to acquire knowledge. http://smart.fm/about/learning_science talks about their research; noteworthy is the "Ebbinghaus forgetting curve," which basically shows that the best way to remember something is to remember it just before you're about to forget it. Check out their "BrainSpeed" game. Much more fun than flash cards.

An article describing how AR apps for cellphones could provide users with location-based data using barcode tagging.

Students are using "Smart bracelets" to carry makeup work from school to home.

I'm trying to figure out how this is different or value added from just giving every kid a $10 flash thumbdrive.

A few hidden features in Google Spreadsheets. Useful tools for a teacher who is interested in adding technology without it being disruptive.

The best way to study languages, vocabulary, or almost anything P.S. It's fun, it's free, and you can share with friends!

#HGSET561 A great way to study languages, vocubulary, or almost anything. Attended the founder speak at MIT Bootcamp. http://quizlet.com/

While not an emerging tehnology per se, social networks can serve as indicators of how, why and who is using and CREATING web content. I think the creation part of this exchange is key in that it ishere that the disruptive element of the technology comes into play. In my studies of Podcasts for the wiki assignment I found that many first time podcasters subscribers experimented with recording their own Podcast before becoming regular consumers. How does this relate to the facebook vs. myspace arguement, you ask? SImple, myspace is a more customizable portal/page that allows users to express and communicate their own, often marginalized socio-cultural identity. Facebook on the other hand asks users to define their online persona via 'freinds', shared photos, profile text fields, etc. For many recent immigrant and children, the formation and identification of an imagined community is an attractive thing. Somalian wallpaper, Manga flash videos embedded, Dominican Republic Flag .gifs waving all over..and MUSIC.

Here's a brief article with statistics on online social networking divide. What does your online social networking preference reveal about your social class?

Will online social networking create or perpetuate a "caste system" within online communities?

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