Group items tagged

My boys love Minecraft. This article has a ton of juicy links and makes some important points- particularly around the importance of designing a game that will be engaging- not just visually stunning.

This is a Slashdot article that points to a research paper (unfinished) that analyzes which elements are most important in the success/failure of a game. The abstract and conclusion sections of the article are succinct and accessible. The results are quite telling. One wonders if the results are consistent across game genres/audiences/distribution methods.

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

Online masters program in free software. This seems like a good idea.

Is the online experience important enough to warrant this?

This strikes me as a case where technology is being implemented without enough thought as to how the technology actually furthers the learning goals. "Having an online learning experience" doesn't seem to me like a good enough reason to require students to take a course online, especially for students who do not have easy access to the internet. While I think it's important for students to get experience with an online learning platform, I hope that they are learning more than just how to use the technology -- what is more important is that they learn how to be part of a collaborative Community of Inquiry (I am borrowing the phrase Community of Inquiry from Garrison's "E-learning in the 21st Century"). This requires them to think and write critically and collaborate effectively with their peers.

"Distance learning courses have played an important role in raising awareness for one community-based charity, according to those involved. Online learning provider Virtual College worked with the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) community in Bradford to raise important issues regarding prejudice and discrimination in the workplace."

Internet is certaily playing an incredibly important role in our daily life, no matter in the United States, or China.

I have found Zaid's blog postings to be very appealing visually (with good use of colors) and to the point (with higher signal to noise ratio). Here is an example of a "1, 2, 3" style posting on the important topic of Autism with Dr. Martha Hebert (a prominent Harvard Medical School researcher and clinician).

This article looks at one case study in El Salvador where MOOCs have cracked open the door for university reform. Universities in emerging markets operate on really low budgets compared to U.S. universities, and MOOCs give them access to current content, especially important for high-tech subjects.

Exciting to see how a massive online computer simulation game has enabled a young internet football manager to gain credibility in a real league. This has important implications for other educational simulations.

Just thinking about Professor Dede's experience with the Bush Foundation, I found this interview with Jeb Bush interesting. He talks some about the Bush Foundation's recent Education in Excellence conference and what kinds of issues are at stake for education reform to stick. Obviously a little bit political, but not too much. Building on some of the previous posts, politics does impact change in education so I think it's important for us to keep these things in mind.

Very interesting resource about the importance of trust within implementation of educational initiatives.

for those who is doing research project, could be helpful resources. they are quoting HGSE/Gutman Lib!

This is a great post on the importance of digital citizenship lessons in blended classrooms.

The important thing is not the use of technology, but the new types of content, pedagogy, assessment...

I just logged on to post the same article! The interesting perspective that I got from the article was that the teachers continued to harp on this idea that in order to retain student's attention they needed to constantly "tap-dance" for their class. Instead of learning from this attention shift, teachers are becoming annoyed by it. Use the technology to give the responsibility of engagement to the students and only wear the tap shoes when necessary to facilitate a deeper understanding etc.

"This case study debunks some of the misconceptions around what happened to edutainment in the '90s, and shares lessons learned from one of the most important periods in the history of games and learning."

These top 10 technologies were highlighted at the summit in Abu Dhabi. How accurate were their predictions for 2012?

Thanks for sharing Andrea! The ones that I'm really hoping for are biotechnology, nano tech, wireless power, green tech and of course educational tech. Something from the many comments that other users on that platform shared that stood out for me 1. Importance of a policy framework to make it all happen 2. Importance of separating noise from value. Thanks again!

- as technology become more available everywhere, how to deal with its use among children in informal setting is a topic under discussion - for now, it seems like individual parents are providing their own guidance to their children (or no guidance) with no common understanding of what is best for the children of certain age - the pessimistic view in this article claims for the risk of ''the Nobody Scenario'' and seem to believe that there would be many negative cognitive consequences for the children if heavy-used (the definition of 'children' and 'technology' here is not clearly defined) Understanding and cooperation from children's parents would be very important in the process of implementing emerging technologies in school settings thus this type of controversy is interesting to watch.