Group items tagged

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?!

The authors of this book provide concrete examples of activities for using constructivism and technology to allow students to construct knowledge, to think and to learn. Constructivist learning emphasizes the five different attributes of meaningful learning which are (i) intentional learning, (ii) active learning, (iii) constructive learning, (iv) cooperative learning, and (v) authentic learning. Real learning requires combining the different elements of meaningful learning. The authors describe six ways to use technology and constructivist learning to allow students to construct understanding and learn. The authors describe the types of technology in very basic terms and the specific hardware and software that are required for the classroom in order to partake in the activities described in the book. For each technology, the authors describe activities and projects that can be used to facilitate learning. They also describe the learning process, the role of the student, the role of the teacher, and ways to assess the learning process. The goal of this book is to advocate educational reform and change through constructivist methodologies by demonstrating specific examples of how the tools of technology can be employed to empower students to construct knowledge and meaning. What I found interesting (and possibly useful for us) is that at the end of each chapter, the authors pose "things to think about" and list numerous questions for further discussion.

More and more universities around the world provide online, e-learning programs that enable the long distance education to interested individuals. The website that I propose is one of my favorite options in terms of creative education related to arts, performing, liberal, media and communication arts. The SCAD eLearning environment encompasses an online global community, where students learn from SCAD faculty and one another, participating in critiques, meetings and collaborative projects. Students complete undergraduate and graduate degree requirements completely online or in combination with on-site courses. SCAD eLearning provides comprehensive university services including career coaching, research workshops, counseling services, SCAD libraries, and resources such as the Virtual Lecture Hall, SCAD.tv, and the Visual Resources Center. Recipient of numerous awards, SCAD eLearning has been recognized for its outstanding and comprehensive online learning curriculum. Vigorous, well-designed coursework, combined with exceptional instruction, ensures a world-class online education. Enjoy!

I would like to share with you this new project that gives light a new dimension to education using the social media as tool to increase the interaction between teacher and students. The Flat Classroom Project is an innovative approach where educators have built social-networking sites specifically for use in class and home assignments. This project allows communication for students in the classroom, but for them to interact with students in far away classrooms all around the world can reach and learn from each other. A recent survey (http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2010/Social-Media-and-Young-Adults.aspx) from the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that 73 percent of online teens use social-networking sites. Updating their Facebook or MySpace page has become a regular activity for teens as is using these services to catch up on what their peers are doing. Using similar tools will encourage students to interact with each other, using many of the same techniques they do when away from school but focused on their educational goals. Hope for someone will be useful

Its is very interesting to see that new technologies are more and more taking part of the class as being a tool like any other ones. It is very important to let them get in the class and not leave them out as new media and new technologies are used on a everyday basis by most of the students. One of the most important point of this article to make sure that the use of tools should be customized depending on the students. It is also in my opinion that the more customized the process of learning is, the better will be the learning. Customizing a class lead to a better motivation for the students and so lead to a better learning and more important remembering of what is done during the class. Moreover, I agree with the authors when saying that new technologies should be used and learned from the very beginning of school. As I said, new technologies should not be let outside of the school as it takes a great part of our lifes nowadays. And the earliest it is learnt, the better the students will know how to use them to make them as most efficient in their lifes (private ones, during their studies, careers...) as possible. It is said in the article that this project is used in different countries. However, besides Spain, the rest of them are english speaking countries. How could this project be developed in order to touch more and more countries? Or could it be used during english classes in other countries than the one mentionned?

LLT is an international journal (published exclusiveley on the web) with an editorial board of international scholars in the fields of second language acquisition and computer-assisted language learning. LLT publishes articles that report on original research or present an original framework that links second language acquisition theory, previous research, and language learning, teaching, and testing practices that utilize technology. It aims at reaching a broad audience in a timely manner, providing a multimedia format which can more fully illustrate the technologies under discussion, as well as providing hypermedia links to related background information. It is published three times per year and it was ranked in the top 20 Education Journals. Important: Besides the very interesting articles, it also contains a section of general guidelines for both quantitative and qualitative research!

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.

"As part of its Transforming Undergraduate Education Program, the University of Texas SYSTEM has initiated a statewide virtual learning community of students, faculty, researchers and administrators, that offers a creative approach to undergraduate instruction through the innovative use of a 21st century low-cost online virtual world technology."

I find it interesting to think of how we function in the traditional school system, where we are taught to learn things or concepts by heart (like for example mathematics) without really needing to reason or understand what we are actually doing. This article shows how children, thanks to this technological tool, "[d]eepen[...] mathematical understanding and higher-order thinking skills (HOTS)[, meaning] communicating about mathematics (Analyzing), [d]etermining values of shapes (Evaluating), [c]reating equations to explain relationships between shape values (Creating)". (Polly, 2011)

This article retraces the use of new media and new technologies in a class of Oral History. It shows that by using those new tools, it enhanced learning through a more interactive, participative and collaborative way. During the Oral History Class, the students were engaged in a collaborative project aimed at giving the "opportunity to play an action-research and community service role". The use of new media and technologies were used in class (using computers) as well as outside the classroom. For this project a "Class folder" was created where students and teacher could put their work as well as knowing about the assignment or the advancement of the project. This "Class folder" developed a conceptualization of "centralization" of the work: the access was free, any time and it was for the student a good way to share their ideas, comments and work. It also enhanced the "decentralization of knowledge": the students were more autonomous and the teacher became a "facilitator rather than a singular authority in the classroom".

Singing Bob Marley or The Ramones... It does not matter! Karaoke can help students developing their capacities. :) This article brings up a very interesting issue: using karaoke as a learning tool for Special Education Students and English Language Learners. A short quotation to increase your curiosity about the article: "SSHH! YOU CAN'T SING IN THE LIBRARY I first had the idea of introducing karaoke into my middle school library program after going to a local club on karaoke Night. People got up and seemed to become someone else-more confident-regardless of their ability to sing. I got up my courage to try it and the same thing happened to me. I chose Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive," and not only did I survive, I felt on top of the world!" It is very interesting, however not new to us (us, the ones who couldn't participate in the symposium in Munich...) because Gudrun had a similar idea for our session... :)

This article shows how the language learning process is integrated with the technology. Different social media tools create different interactive possibilities to improve the language skills of the students. This article emphasises the use of voicethread as a tool of Web 2.0 that combine different methods in itself that allows students to use their creativity and skills. I have already use voice thread the last year during the class of Telecolloboration. It´s very interesting for the ones that didn´t take this class and also for others that want to integrate different social media tools into education.

I found this interesting article that look at divers types of technologies apply in multicultural education context.. I hope someone find it useful! I copied here the abstract: The purpose of this paper is to discuss several technology applications that are being used to address current problems or opportunities related to multicultural education. Five technology applications or technology-related projects are discussed, including a teacher education literacy tool, social networking communities, massive multiplayer online role playing games (MMORPGs), virtual patients, and an International Leadership in Educational Technology (ILET) consortium. Research and practical implications of this paper include the introduction of new technologies for improving multicultural education, research findings on the use of these tools, and potential opportunities or pitfalls as such tools are implemented and evaluated. The paper concludes with a call for new research in the area of technologies for multicultural education.

Current methods for controlling one's avatar in a virtual environment interacting with intelligent virtual agents (IVAs) are unnatural, typically requiring a complex set of keyboard commands for controlling your avatar, and dialog menus for interacting with IVAs. Recent advances in markerless body and motion tracking, speech and gesture recognition technologies, coupled with intelligent agent/behavior modeling and speech synthesis technologies, now make it possible to naturally control one's avatar through the movement of one's body and to interact with IVAs through speech and gesture. These capabilities are now just beginning to emerge in the arena of computer gaming, and offer great promise for military training. In this paper we describe our recent work integrating motion capture, gesture recognition, speech recognition, natural language understanding, and intelligent agent/behavior modeling technologies to produce more natural mechanisms for avatar control as well as IVAs that are able to understand relatively unconstrained speech and recognize human movement and gesture. We illustrate these capabilities within the domain of roadside security checkpoint training, where trainees are able to gesture (e.g., wave forward, stop, point to a location) and speak to IVAs (drivers and passengers) in the scene.

This shall be one of our main inspiration within the framework of our experiment for LEARNING WITH MEDIA, during which we performed a session of "Start the Party" for "Playstation Move" on the Playstation 3, in comparison to our previous experiment with "Wii Sports"…

This is the article that we just presented during our last class, Just to refresh your mind, the author present the interaction of children with media tools. Understanding the concept of "Embodiment means how the nature of a living entity's cognition is shaped by the form of its physical manifestation in the world" As we saw the theory is basis in the believe that the nature of the human mind is largely determined by the form of the human body. Then, Dividing the cognition then in Spatial, Physical and finally Metaphorical. Moreover the Embodied Child were analysed by the interaction with the computer, categorizing in Input design, interface design and interaction design.

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)

I just discover that From 1888 to 1890, the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg was literally overwhelmed by a transatlantic migration wave, the so-called Argentinienfieber - an expression which could be translated into English by Argentine fever. In less than two years, more than one thousand Luxembourgers - representing 0.5 per cent of the entire population - decided to emigrate to Argentina.

HI Myriam can you explain me how this post is related to the "interacting with media and technology" topic of the entire folder

Sorry, wrong folder. It still interested! :)

With social media networks ubiquitous in American life, it's time to shift the debate from whether it's a good idea for educators to use this new medium to how to use it wisely and well. Here are 10 tips to help get you started in social media for school communications.