Gaming & Learning

The Futurelab Research Day was hard work, and all the better for it. The sessions shared experiences of projects, discussion papers and research reviews, and posed difficult questions to an audience more than prepared to offer their perspectives from a wide range of different communities. The day was thought-provoking, and I went away with ideas, not only about the topics addressed, but also about what we might need to do to prepare ourselves adequately for the tasks of planning for the future of education. I was reminded of Ted Wragg’s call for ‘intelligent action’.

Author: Avril Loveless, Flux Blog, 30th March 2008

Full article available here.

• Adobe Photoshop Express - Made You Look.
  This is exciting, and very un-Adobe. It’s an online photo editing application with all the bells and whistles of a web 2.0 application. I look forward to really playing with it.
  (tags: images)
• Middle School Journal - Video Games in the Middle School Classroom
  This article describes “a pilot curriculum built around a commercially available video game.” Students are playing Restaurant Empire in Middle School. I hope to see more and more of this.
  (tags: edugames)

Author: Mark Wagner, Educational Technology and Life Blog, 31st March 2008

Full article available here.

A Canadian university has instilled a culture of fear by threatening to expel a student for cheating because he set up an online study group on Facebook, critics said this week. Toronto’s Ryerson University threatened to expel first-year computer engineering student Chris Avenir last week, arguing that his study group on the Facebook networking site might encourage cheating.

Ryerson decided to lift the expulsion threat on Tuesday, but Avenir will get zero credits for the course work discussed on the Facebook forum last autumn, and the university has put a disciplinary notice on his record.

Canadian media analyst Jesse Hirsh said Ryerson’s actions send the wrong message to students, most of whom spend a lot of their time on the Internet.

Author: Reuters, cnet news.com, 20th March 2008

Full article available here.

In his classroom, Mr. Thompson has been using blogs to communicate class activities to parents and SMARTboard technology to have students create powerpoint presentations. In addition, Mr. Thompson utilizes movie technology for both classroom lessons and student products. This caring and dedicated teacher even provides “Podcasts” on his web page that give verbally recorded instructions for parents on how to help children with their math and reading instruction.

Below we present our interview Mr. Thompson in question and answer format. We have included numerous links to his classroom materials including “The Morning Work Show,” “The Literacy Fastbreak,” and his classroom web page.

Author: Tom Hanson, OpenEducation Blog, 27th March 2008

Full article available here.

One of those days… if I had another 6 hours, I still wouldn’t be done. So in brief, some links and very little comment:

INTUITION, SRI Virtual Worlds survey, The Myth of the Media Myth, and VLE vs PLE again again. More below.

INTUITION

INTUITION is a Network Of Excellence focused on virtual reality and virtual environments applications for future workspaces. It is funded by the European Union, and operates under the 6th Framework of the European Commission (IST). The Network includes 58 partners and it is being coordinated by the Institute Of Communication And Computer Systems of the National Technical University of Athens in Greece.

SRI Business Intelligence Virtual Worlds Consortium

Author: Daniel Livingstone, Learning Games Blog, 26th March 2008

Full article available here.

(seriously, Sid Meier is a keynoter and it only cost $250 for the whole conference!)The George Mason University Instructional Technology Program and the Defense Acquisition University invite you to attend the 4th Annual Innovations in e-Learning Symposium to be held on June 3, 4 & 5, 2008 in the Johnson Center on the Fairfax Campus of George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia.
The topics for this year’s symposium are:
* Mobile Learning and Gaming
* Web 2.0 and Cyber-infrastructure
* Innovation Design and Research Partnerships
* Collaboration in a Virtual World

Author: Mark Oehlert, e-Clippings Blog, 18th March 2008

Full article available here.