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Collaboration between CERN, European particle physics researach org, and Angry Birds company for science education apps.

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...

Physical toys can be recognized by the iPad touch screen, utilized by free game app. The interaction (maybe requirement?) of physical toys, that must be purchased, in order to utilize a free app... curious to see if this kind of interaction will gain footing in education

Portal is a fun, innovative 3D first-person game known for its unique physics gameplay and sense of humor. It's over 4 years old now, but still enjoyable and clever. It's been used in education as a way for students to explore physics, and also as a gameworld ripe for student content creation. The game is available as a free download for PC/Mac through 9/20.

Short and sweet video about improving high school physics.

Game Developers recognizing learning opportunities within their games and building a platform that allows students to create their own worlds and test them.

With the global focus on combating digital piracy while protecting people's free speech and rights on the internet (the current controversies over SOPA, for example), here is a thought-provoking idea about what the future of IP, digital piracy, and citizenship will have to deal with: 3D printers- as they become cheaper, better, and more mainstream... will designs for actual physical objects become what is easily pirated online? So now, you can make a physical object (toys, clothing, etc) by downloading the design files on pirate sites, then make the object yourself. Will digital piracy extend into theft (making unauthorized copies) of physical objects?

Online physics game. It's really fun and creative. One must wonder, however, how to really pin down what knowledge/skills they're acquiring and if they're transferrable. Wonderful game nevertheless!

Brings up the interesting issue of physical space in 21st century classrooms. Should schools of the future look like the way they do now (ie. desks and chairs, albeit with iPads/laptops atop desks)? How can we match the shift in pedagogical thinking with what our physical spaces of classrooms look like? On a related note, a colleague at an international school in Mumbai showed me around their new K-12 school recently (K-12 1:1 laptop program, phenomenal tech integration program)... and they no longer have walls to demarcate classrooms across the entire school. Instead of classrooms, they have "learning pods." So, imagine you're a third grade teacher--you have four slidable "walls" that you can open up to collaborate with the adjacent third grade section for social studies. Or perhaps you notice that the fifth grade science experiment seems to align with what you're doing today so you walk over to see if they'd be up for sharing what they're doing. Their idea is that the physical space needs to reflect the same environment of open education and collaborative learning that we're promoting in our classrooms.

<>-- This is a place to share digital designs that can be made into real, physical objects. Let's create a better universe, together! Why be virtual when you can make it real...

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.

Vernier develops some interesting data collection technology for a tough concept. Will capturing info frame by frame and generating a graph help students understand the concept of velocity?

Interesting article in edweek on Bookshare - a non-profit electronic book service that provides free digital copies of books in accessible formats for kids with print disabilities, a term coined by George Kerscher to cover visual, physical and language based disabilities that impact the ability to read a physical book.

Interesting article that shows the next step that Khan Academy wants to take

"He [Sal] added: "If nothing else, I'd like a kid who's gone through the Khan Academy to be able to say, 'I've learned accounting, law, and I can write as well as someone who's graduated from Andover. That's empowering." Could that also be "disrupting the class"? traditional educational institutions bettter take heed of new technologies.

This idea can be seen as an alternative way for teaching methods however we have more sophisticated educatinal tools other than video . Unless this project includes other tools such as 3D and learning by doing , it will be flawed for some sides of teaching ways.

"The ability to tilt along multiple axes distinguishes our display from previous actuatable displays. Such screen versatility opens a range of opportunities for providing an additional integrated information channel to the user. "These opportunities include collaboration, terrain modeling, 3D video that is beyond auto-stereoscopic 3D and tangible gaming. We can imagine many scenarios that would benefit from the physicality offered by Tilt Displays. However, we need to establish whether users can relate to the new experiences and advantages of using such a device."

In a few years, when we all own 3D printers and can download and print any number of objects (including 20,000 year old fossils), what will the implications be for teaching and learning when we can present our students and our teachers with the physical manifestations of things we've traditionally learned and taught about only in the abstract through textbooks or videos?

a school with a curriculum based on videogames

While I applaud the concept of their program, I believe it tips the scale too far in the direction of technology. Unless the students plan to solely work in a digital world the removal of a physical classroom and interaction will greatly affect their social development. For example, physics lab was partially about the smell of the chemicals, the viewing of the wave pools, the teamwork and the mistakes that were real life.

Background on Augmented Reality. Reading for 9/14.