Gaming & Learning

“90,000 new pages of work connected with Darwin have gone online for the first time. Guardian science correspondent James Randerson gives you a tour through the Darwin treasure trove.

It is a treasure trove of photographs, manuscripts, field notes and sketches that up to now has mostly been the preserve of Darwin scholars. But now the Darwin Online project in Cambridge is making 90,000 new pages of material available to anyone on the web.

Darwin junkies will be in their element with gems that range from scientifically significant notes on his theory of evolution to touching correspondence written by his wife.”

Author: James Randerson, Guardian, 16th April 2008

Full article available here.

Daniel Livingstone discusses Prensky’s Digital Natives and refers to recent figures of game playing. He also refers to an eSchool News article on Project Tomorrow’s Speak Up Survey, which is ‘the largest annual survey addressing the attitudes and opinions of K-12 students, teachers, parents, and school administrators toward the use of technology in education’. Worth a look.

“I’m starting to think that more of Prensky’s ideas about digital natives are becoming reality, albeit not for the generation he originally identified. While often technologically naive, game playing (and social virtual worlds) are perhaps now so commonplace amongst younger age groups (say six to 16) in the UK that the term ‘gamer’ is likely to become somewhat obsolete - or restricted to those who play the ‘hardcore’ games while other induldge in more casual gameplay.”

Author: Daniel Livingstone, Learning Games Blog, 14th April 2008

See full article here.

Glenn Wiebe and Dave Warlick have both recently posted on Digital Vaults, a new website by the US National Archive that brings elements of social networking to primary history and social science resources.

Digital Vaults is an interesting concept and one I think works well with it’s logical tag organisational structure. The digitisation of sources and Web2.0 twist makes the wealth of knowledge highly accessible and even allows the user to create their own collections.

Read Glenn Wiebe’s post and Dave Warlick’s post for more information.

TECHNOLOGY is changing the way we learn. That is a given as school students — the ubiquitous digital natives — come to class equipped with skills and expectations unparalleled in schools 20 years ago.

To Dale Spender, an educationalist and an expert on the impact of digital technologies on learning, the shift is fundamental: “There has been a switch from passive to active learners,” she says, “and active learners need a different range of support staff.”

Author: Kirsten Lees, The Australian, 5th April 2008

Full article available here.

Gaming innovation - doof is an Interesting gaming concept, combining casual online gaming with social networking. Find out more below:

doof.com - Games, Friends & Fun!

doof is exactly what it says, the home of social gaming. A very impressive concept: a social network built around casual gamers all wrapped up in a slick interface.

It’s not the gaming you expect; doof is not centered around PC games, handhelds, or the three major consoles. doof is all about casual gaming and specifically revolves around its own online games and doof has plenty. From brain-caning puzzle games (Cascade, Roobix), to fast and frenzied action games (Columns, Titris) , to plain hilarious time-wasters (Golden Arrow, Tribe), doof.com is pretty much the only place you need to be for your daily fix of brain candy. Riveting and compelling, our online games exists simply to have fun with!

In addition to games, doof mixes up a variety of community features. Most notably each member gets their own profile page which tracks game achievements, play history, and can let you pull in your photos from Facebook. As you play games, you earn credits, which may be used in tournaments with other players, or to purchase “gifts” for your friends. The gifts are basically avatars of items such as frogs, jewelry, crowns and various other items for showing your “like” in a humorous manner.

But doof offers not just games and web pages. You cab also watch online videos, keep track of news, tournaments, and a rating system for players and content and much more. Its also offers Instant messenger and email features, letting you know when your favorite game partners are available and giving you the ability to contact them. Just click on the person’s username and you can chat while playing games.

Free educational tool launched to support debate on any topic

Futurelab has launched Power League, a free online resource for schools which supports pupils of all ages to explore, debate and discuss any topic in a fun and easy way. Power League, available at www.powerleague.org.uk, enables the user to rank and display group opinions on any issue across the entire curriculum.

Author: FutureLab, 9th April 2008

Full article available here.

One educator demonstrates that blending face-to-face and online instruction can lead to better student grades and understanding.

“Hybrid courses,” or courses that deliver part of their instruction in a traditional lecture manner and part in an online environment, are becoming increasingly popular among schools and colleges. Proponents of the concept say it capitalizes on the benefits that both face-to-face and online learning can provide—and now, there is some evidence to suggest that hybrid courses can help students learn more effectively.

Brian McFarlin, a professor at the University of Houston’s Laboratory of Integrated Physiology, decided to conduct an experiment in one of his classes to observe the strengths and weaknesses of hybrid courses.

Author: Meris Stansbury, Assistant Editor, eSchool News, 3rd April 2008

Full article available here.

New low-cost laptops, now targeted to U.S. schools as well, have larger screens and more storage

Intel’s new Classmate PCs–slated to go on sale this month for between $300 and $500–reflect the company’s growing efforts to sell computers equipped with its own chips to schools in developing countries, a battleground for technology companies because of the millions of people there just coming online.

But the target market for these low-cost laptops has expanded to include kids in the United States, too, as potential users of cheaper, stripped-down machines.

Author: eSchool News staff and wire service reports, 3rd April 2008

Full article available here.

Dave Warlick has written some interesting posts about his personal learning network and he elaborates also on the technologies and tools he uses along the way. This is an exerpt from one such post:

“Somewhere between 22 and 59 virtual attendees, the chat conversation became more of a focus point for me, as lurkers were commenting less about where they were from (PA, TX, SC, Perth, Shanghai) and more about the topics of Steve’s presentation, each shining a slightly different light on the idea, each giving me a different way of looking at it. A sudden small and fragile network was becoming a temporary branch of my Personal Learning Network.”

Author: Dave Warlick, 2cent Worth Blog, 9th April 2008

Full article available >here.

To be fair to Barbie Girls it isn’t the only virtual world for kids that worries me - with its not-so-implicit goal of training children to be good little consumers. Reinforcing the concept in children that rewards come from playing games, watching shows (themselves somewhat promotional, I’d guess) and from buying products does not seem a good one, and I was despairing of seeing a model other than this. So while I’ve yet to delve deeper, Handipoints appears to be the first imaginative alternative.

Author: Daniel Livingstone, Learning Games Blog, 7th April 2008

Full article available here.