Group items tagged

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.

I took a module course from , Charles Fadel , the founder of the organization this semester, and I am very interested in the work he is doing. The Center for Curriculum Redesign (CCR) is a non-profit organization dedicated to improving Education via answering the question: "What should students learn in the 21st century?"

I was reading about using tech in elections and I ran across Hackpad. I had never heard of Hackpad, and this is a question for the teaching staff: Might this be a good option to have more of our class conversations in one place? I'd be curious to know how you think it compares as a discussion platform.

Great post about the ways that books and video games are actually quite similar. My favorites: "1. Books are a powerful technology. They can lead to aggression and violence (witness the Bible, the Koran, and the Turner Diaries in the wrong hands). Nazi Germany was a highly literate society. Games, so far, do not have this much power, but some day they may. 4. Books can make you stupid by not questioning what they say. 8. Just giving people books does not make them smarter; it all depends on what they do with them and who they do it with. For young people, it depends, too, on how much and how well they get mentored. Mentoring is, in fact, crucial."

Thanks for tagging this- definitely thought provoking. I might argue that both books and games can, in fact, make people 'smarter' in and of themselves, but that both are far better when used socially with mentor support and quality teaching.

issues of evaluating online schools - moving beyond fads

I found this to be an Interesting approach/take on video based learning/lecturing , anyone has any information on where the MIT blossoms project is headed or its potential impact?

Hi Komal, I work for the PI of Blossoms, Prof Richard Larson (but not on Blossoms). Send me an e-mail if you have some specific questions and I can put you two in contact, or we can chat sometime about it. I know you are working on video-distribution for your research synthesis, sorry it never occured to me that Blossoms might be on your radar screen!

Hi Komal, sorry for the late response--the Diigo notification went to my Spam box so I didn't see that you had responded. Let me ask Prof. Larson those things and get back to you.

Thought it was April Fool's for a minute

Wow, so online education is a political issue? How could Minnesota government think an arcane law to pay fees is going to deter anyone?

Update: apparently this article went viral and the MN state government was so embarrassed by the outcry that they have backed off and said that they will introduce legislation to amend the 20-year-old law in question, noting that it "clearly didn't envision free online classes from accredited universities." Read more about it here: http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2012/10/19/minnesota_coursera_ban_state_won_t_crack_down_on_free_online_courses_after.html

The issue

HGSET561

This is a really interesting article, and coupled with the edX / Anant Agarwal article below from Douglas, I think it brings up additional questions. Even with all the features that Anant says will be added to edX, I feel like they are all just part of the "convenience" factor and in many cases (like grading, discussion forum), more convenience for the teaching staff than the students. It is convenient for the students to do online labwork instead of going to a physical lab, for example. So I wonder if that type of convenience is enough to convince more students to sign up to MOOCs, or if they have to fundamentally change to add more types of value?

Interesting article about teaching ESL that brings up the question "is learning another language based largely on interpersonal relationships?" Language is essentially about communicating with other people, whether in spoken or written form, so computers may actually not be that helpful in this process.

The author has updated his list that he made a yr ago. Comparing to that, he has kept the below 4 from last year's list. (apple ipad&other tablet devices, gamification of education (although last year he used the phrase ''gradually taking hold'' for this), student response systems and other synchronous tools, open educational resources).  He seems to be  an advocate of 'flipped classroom' but as mentioned within the article 'Educators Evaluate ''Flipped Classrooms'' posted by Prof Dede on Aug 29th, whether all of these 10 are 'transformative' is a different question. They are 'emerging' though. Some of the new entrants for this year include those everyone else here has been sharing such as free online courses with potential for credentials, BYOD move within classroom and effective data usage in learning settings. To me it seems like he is closely paying attention to the emergence of the last category. 

The technologies that can have the best impact on education are evolving quickly from year to year, and the pace seems to be quickening.

Interesting article. I am still trying to figure out what Prof Dede said on the first day of class about top down vs bottom up and the characteristics of education in this country. (I am not from the states and I haven't worked at schools either so still struggling to understand the overall context of this article). From Japanese standard, this thing happening in NY (I am suspecting it is happening else where too like IL?) is pretty progressive. One thing I didn't really get here .... what kind of 'school information' will be texted going forward??

Found http://www.oecd.org/edu/eag2012%20(eng)--Ebook%20(FINAL%2011%2009%202012).pdf Chart D6.1. Percentage of decisions taken at each level of government in public lower secondary education (2011) in P500 to be somewhat helpful to answer my own question. (the first one)

From the Chronicle of Higher Education, 3 questions to guide the development of a MOOC program. How does EdX rate?

3D classroom created for learning would be helpful where cost cutting measures are required without compromising on the quality of instruction, it would also help in giving confidence to students who are shy to interact in real life to collaborate in the virtual world, speak their minds and raise questions without fear or hesitancy

In recent years there has been a major push to equip classrooms with technology, including laptops, overhead projectors, interactive white boards and tablets. It has become big business. But there are questions about whether the investment is paying off. This series explores the push to digitize the American classroom and whether the promises are being fulfilled.

This comment from a reader on one of the articles (Inflating the Software Report Card) sums it up rather nicely: "Data-driven, individualized instruction aimed at identifying a student's strengths and weaknesses, is not perfect, nor can it replace great teachers. But it can and does allow gifted students to zoom ahead, average students to keep up, and struggling students to catch up. If we really want math education to become part of the fabric of our kids' lives, not just raising their scores on a standardized test, but helping them become more competent and effective adults, we need to take advantage of all of the technology available".

Digital only textbook. Students pay for permanent Internet access.

Interesting -- and I like the direction, of course -- but one quote is a bit concerning: "but if the best way to learn is to see something moving" . . . that's a fairly big "if" and one that is not necessarily accurate

Right! But he is saying that they if the best way is to see something moving they do it that way and if quiz is the best way to do it, they use a quiz. And I suppose, audio can be used when it is appropriate. The question though is 'who decides what is the best way?' and on what basis. And it will be great if there is also a simulation component, so the user can do some 'what-if' scenarios.

RIT hosts a school within a school- the National Technical Institute for the Deaf makes it a unique environment to study this question. I wonder though if this passes Prof. Dede's predictable outcome test.

Good question - "What can I do with these devices that would be impossible to do without them?".

This is an RSA I shared with the blog class I teach. I think the event of "shared knowledge" and its effect on groups dynamics is very interesting. The prompt I used is below: Here are the three questions asked by James Surowiecki in the post below. Please consider them and answer one or all three in a comment. What does the blogosphere tell us about what we believe motivates people to do what they do? Do blogs have the possibility of accessing a collective intelligence that has previously remained untapped? What are the potential problems of blogs as we know them?

The Education Program for Gifted Youth is now Stanford Online High School. Raises some interesting questions about online education, access and cost, and scalability.