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The University of Luxembourg just started the process of evaluating/rating the classes and programs that are offered throughout the year. The students are the main actors in this process as their input is requested. The link and article that I propose, relates to a topic related to evaluating the quality of education, focusing on the teachers. The usefulness and validity of self-selected online student ratings of faculty is taken into consideration, as these ratings appear to be increasing in importance, particularly as students utilize them as guides in their choice of instructors. Validity is investigated by analyzing the pattern of relationships of online ratings for 399 randomly selected faculty. Analysis suggests that online ratings in their current form may be useful, even though possible abuses could limit validity in specific instances. The authors of the research believe that this study is timely and important, as Ratemyprofessor.com ratings are growing in usage and popularity with students, their parents, academics and authorities that have the duty of evaluating further the educational programs that are offered throughout universities and colleges. Such ratings affect student decisions about which professors to take and in addition, students are developing expectations of instructors based on peer comments in online ratings websites. If the websites do not provide valid information, then the ratings would not provide accurate information and thus students would probably respond to correct the ratings. On the other hand, to the extent that online ratings can be demonstrated as valid measures of instructors' abilities to inspire learning, online ratings have potential value. Increased transparency of the ratings should have virtuous effects for students to select professors who conform to their learning styles. And instructors should improve their teaching methods in order to improve their ratings.

Simina, this is very interesting. Thanks for sharing it with us. I agree with the article and with you. Evaluating the professors/teachers/instructors and the classes is a great tool to improve the system. It is like when us, the students ask for feedback as an essential step towards our development. Besides that, if the students have access to these evaluations it can be of great value for both for the student and for the professor or teacher. The student can base his/her choices on something and the professor can count only on students to participate in his/her class who are actually interested on class. Like this we avoid these classes we thought would be very interesting but it turns out are not corresponding at all to the description, and the professors/teachers don't need to deal with uninterested students, which sometimes can spoil the class.

I wanted to share a blog entry about using the Nintendo DS in school as a learning tool. I chose this because I have already had experience with this gaming device in an educational setting. At the Lushootseed language camp I was at this summer, the tribe had purchased about a dozen nintendo ds and created and installed a few different programs for learning and practicing Lushootseed. I see the value of the tool for language learning, yet in my experience it was not so successful. The kids of course did not want to do the language learning programs and very quickly figured out how to play other games and play with sounds and things. They were so distracted by the device that rarely did they complete and language learning tasks. Part of this was the rather informal non-classroom context (it might work well in a classroom setting) and it was almost impossible to force each child to use the programs. There was some success when the children were engaged in a collaborative game where the teacher would say a word in Lushootseed and the kids would have to write it on the ds. The first person to write it correctly got a point. They enjoyed this and it worked somewhat ok because everyone was engaged and they were competing, unlike all the other "games" which were individual and the kids had no motivation to do them. What do you think about using an individual gaming device such as this for language learning?

Uaaaa very interesting to see that you can use a game can be transformed and used for another purpose than just entertaining the children. I´ve been always against the dependence of the children or young people toward these kind of games. It´s good to see how someone can integrate the game with education´s aim. Now days, it´s important to find different ways and tools to adapt the education with the new changes happening around us.

Some of you might have already discovered this link, concerning a school which bases it's whole curriculum on videogames, on our multi-LEARN unveil group or through Martin aka. James Kirks' profile - if not: http://video.nytimes.com/video/2010/09/15/magazine/1248069030957/games-theory.html?scp=1&sq=Video+game+school+design&st=cse In contrast to this article, they use the videogames as a holistic and transdisciplinary approach to teach or rather convey all the branches through integrating them in the development - as they play games like Little Big Planet, in which they have to create worlds through basic designing/programming… and in order to achieve the assigned goals, they have to develop specific skills/competences, while making strategic use of their knowledge… learning mathematics, physics, chemistry, languages etc literally, whilst playing! So even though I think it's nice to use a DS during class, like in this rticle - if it's only to train your brain with computation problems or preparing for SAT scores, I think that's sth that would rather be appropriate for the home use, as training or fun homeworks… but in order to take it to the next level, they should rather follow the example of this school in the US and not just use technology just for the sake of using it?!

According to the synopsis, John McCutchan, SCEA's lead for Game Systems and Developer Support, will be on hand to discuss the "Move Server project that will make it possible for academics and hobbyists to develop software using the PlayStation Move controller on their own PCs.

As our project was based on analysing our interaction with the tv through the tool that is Playstation Move, I think the info, that further research might be driven by connecting it to a PC or a Mac is quite interesting! :O)

Media and advertising companies still use the same old demographics to understand audiences, but they're becoming increasingly harder to track online, says media researcher Johanna Blakley. As social media outgrows traditional media, and women users outnumber men, Blakley explains what changes are in store for the future of media.

About TASTE COMMUNITIES - in contrast to "(…) genre categories that assume that certain demographic groups like certain things… that 'hispanics' like certain things, that 'young' people like certain things, … This is far too simplistic!"

This is a really interesting video. Thanks for sharing. I like the very end of Blakley's talk when she mentions that the future development of media and advertisement companies will be based on understanding and working WITH the people's interests and tastes, rather than continuing to work on stereotypes and demographics, which are no longer valid, or maybe they have never actually been?!