As Mary Jo said in class today, the lack of collaboration between teachers and developers is a hugely frustrating. The Shared Learning Collaborative is an organization that tries to bring the groups together for "camps" that tap the skills of both around big problems in education. This weekend, there's a Codeathon/Tagathon in Cambridge aimed at increasing the volume of properly meta-tagged content in the Learning Registry. Could be interesting to check out.
This conference addresses a very real gap - I really hope that more opportunities like this one bring people together that share the common goal, but are coming at it from such different perspectives. Thanks, Hannah!
There has been so much buzz around gamification recently that it can be difficult to separate the hype from the reality. With clients asking the first questions about gamification, in this post I'm attempting to draw some lines around gamification in learning. First off, as I understand it, gamification in learning means attempting to apply the principles that make individuals play games for thousands of hours. Gamification is not 'gaming', we needn't create digital games costing thousands of dollars and hours to benefit.
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.
This is a very insightful article on the obstacles to digital learning. It is closely linked to topics we touched on in section this week and next week's reading.
Just came across this interesting Learning site, so sharing it with the group. Please scroll down a little and checkout the comprehensive list of items in the Categories section.
"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."
Some of the city's "turnaround" schools, including the one where this teacher works, are listing knowledge or willingness to learn about using a blended learning instructional models as a criterion for hiring teachers. An interesting and entertaining blig post about implementation & buy-in of blended learning in NYC schools.
Call for research proposals! Connected Learning has very interesting educational, research, and design principles; this study asks from group of participants who are engaged in connected learning environments.
A number of experiments are using new kinds of data - such as how many times a student has clicked on an e-textbook or logged in to a class Web page - to measure and guide learning in new ways. That could improve the student experience, but it could also end up dumbing down college, argues Gardner Campbell, director of professional development and innovative initiatives at Virginia Tech.
We just missed it, but right now we're in the midst of MobiMOOC, a MOOC organized by educators to teach other educators about mobile learning. Kind of a neat concept, I think! But one of the keys is how good is the instruction in helping educators integrate in mobile learning with good pedagogy instead of just showcasing mobile technologies...probably one of the common dangers with these types of initiatives.