Games « you found me. I make alternate reality games: games that are designed to improve real lives or solve real problems. I’ve been making ARGs since 2001 — and you can watch trailers for a dozen of my favorite ARGs below. Many of my games challenge players to tackle real-world problems at a planetary-scale: hunger, poverty, climate change, or global peace, for example (see: EVOKE, World Without Oil, Superstruct). The biggest influence on my game design is the science of positive psychology. the full range of positive emotions and engagement,stronger social connections and relationships,more resilience in the face of challenges and obstacles,more ambitious and surprising accomplishmentsand service to something bigger than ourselves? Most of the games I make aren’t like typical videogames that you can play whenever you want. SUPERBETTER (2012 ) The game that builds your real-life resilience. My role: Inventor and chief creative officer for SuperBetter Labs. My role: Creative director. So how did it work?
10 Ideas in Pursuit of a Global Curriculum This book is published through TeachThought by Terry Heick as part of the Innovate Learning series. Background Now over a decade into the 21 st century, there is tremendous pressure for education to “globalize.” In major world markets, the business world globalized decades ago, expanding beyond domestic markets in pursuit of more diverse audiences and stronger profits. This is made all the more strange by the relationship between education and economic systems. The Book In just under 20 pages, educator Terry Heick will help you get started down the path of “globalization,” offering strategies that can be immediately implemented in any K-12 classroom tomorrow. 10 Ideas, 30 Strategies, 1 Important Conversation. The book can be found here , or via the embedded Amazon link below.
Webmaster, Technology, and Headline News & Resources | SiteProNews GDC: Hecker's Nightmare Scenario - A Future Of Rewarding Players For Dull Tasks It's possible that an over-reliance on metrics-driven design and extrinsic rewards for in-game actions could lead to a future of "designing shitty games that you have to pay people to play," warns independent developer Chris Hecker. Hecker, who is currently working on the espionage-themed multiplayer game SpyParty, presented his hypothetical "nightmare self-fulfilling scenario" as part of a talk inquisitively titled "Achievements Considered Harmful?" during Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. Hecker based his talk on a large volume of often-conflicting psychological studies about the effects of intrinsic and extrinsic rewards, but he was quick to preface his hypothesis by noting that "there are no direct studies" about the topic as it specifically relates to video games, and he called for more research into the effects of reward structures in design. "You want to make an intrinsically interesting game," he said of game designers at large.
Flipped Classroom: Beyond the Videos Last week, I read an interesting blog post by Shelley Blake-Plock titled “The Problem with TED ed.” It got me thinking about the flipped classroom model and how it is being defined. As a blended learning enthusiast, I have played with the flipped classroom model, seen presentations by inspiring educators who flip their classrooms, and even have a chapter dedicated to this topic in my book. However, I am disheartened to hear so many people describe the flipped classroom as a model where teachers must record videos or podcasts for students to view at home. There are many teachers who do not want to record videos either because they don’t have the necessary skills or equipment, their classes don’t include a lot of lecture that can be captured in recordings, or they are camera shy. Too often the conversation surrounding the flipped classroom focuses on the videos- creating them, hosting them, and assessing student understanding of the content via simple questions or summary assignments. 1. 2.
evolver.at Game Theory .net - Resources for Learning and Teaching Strategy for Business and Life What Do Emotions Have to Do with Learning? Thinkstock When parents and teachers consider how children learn, it’s usually the intellectual aspects of the activity they have in mind. Sidney D’Mello would like to change that. The University of Notre Dame psychologist has been studying the role of feelings in learning for close to a decade, and he has concluded that complex learning is almost inevitably “an emotionally charged experience,” as he wrote in a paper published in the journal Learning and Instruction earlier this year. During the learning experiments described in his paper, he notes, the participating students reported being in a neutral state only about a quarter of the time. Another counter-intuitive contention made by D’Mello is that even negative emotions can play a productive role in learning. Confusion motivates us to restore our equilibrium through thought, reflection, and problem solving, and deeper learning is the result. animated agents discussing scientific case studies. Related
Syllabus « Gaming the Classroom Indiana University, Bloomington Department of Telecommunications T366: Multiplayer Game Design Section 13353 Spring 2010 Email: clsheldo@indiana.edu Description Focus is on massively-multiplayer online games and virtual worlds. Class time will be divided between fighting monsters (Quizzes, Exams etc.), completing quests (Presentations of Games, Research etc.) and crafting (Personal Game Premises, Game Analysis Papers, Video Game Concept Document etc.). At the beginning of the semester everyone in the class will choose and name their avatars. Grading Procedure You will begin on the first day of class as a Level One avatar. *Your level will be determined by experience points (XP) on a 2000 XP scale. · Solo: Craft your own game proposal. 1. Grading is rigorous. Attendance and Conduct You are expected to attend every class. Plagiarism, submitting assignments written by others, and other forms of academic misconduct are governed by university policy. Required TextDesigning Virtual Worlds.
Imagine Learning: Students with Disabilities Five Key Components of Reading No more roadblocks to reading. Students with disabilities often struggle to acquire basic reading skills. Research indicates that these students benefit from instruction that is explicit and sequenced, ensuring that key prerequisite skills are met before more complex tasks are required. Explicit instruction in phonological awareness phonics fluency vocabulary comprehension Vocabulary Development A better way to learn the lingo. Vocabulary knowledge directly influences comprehension, so students with disabilities who struggle with comprehension need all the extra vocabulary instruction they can get. Contextualized instruction in basic vocabulary academic vocabulary content-specific vocabulary Listening Comprehension Help students develop an ear for understanding. Many students with disabilities experience difficulty in processing language. Students learn through selective listening verbal and non-verbal cues specific words and phrases A real conversation starter.
Considering Using Technology In Education? Read This First. Back in February, a local Swedish newspaper reported that the Stockholm suburb of Sollentuna planned to transition entirely away from textbooks to tablet PCs by 2013. In a familiar argument, Sollentuna ed leaders argued that their schools should embrace technology–that they were in, in fact, in the ‘backwater’ compared to others. Insecurity The evolution of anything depends on (sometimes unequal parts) emotion and logic. For many professionals, there is a constant insecurity that someone somewhere is doing it better–faster, smarter, for less money, with better results. The trouble is that the data for these “other people” that are undoubtedly “doing it better” is usually scant: a compelling video, a bar graph reflecting test scores, a carefully-crafted blog post explaining their success in detail. That this kind of insecurity is universal should be comforting, but unfortunately it’s not. “We know that not every student has computer access at home. Adoption
9 of the coolest educational videos from TED-Ed By Lauren Granger on 30 April, 2012 398 Share When TED launched its educational website for younger students last week, I think teachers everywhere realised they had to up their game. The 3-10 minute videos are designed to encourage curiosity and show how the world works using compelling animation and the audible explanations of a gifted teacher. How Simple Ideas Lead to Scientific Discoveries How can you not wish that Mythbusters’ Adam Savage was your science teacher? Just How Small is an Atom? Ok, so this one is kind of brain-warping. The Cockroach Beatbox If you can get past the part where neuroscientist Greg Gage dismembers a cockroach, you will never forget how electrical energy moves your limbs ever again. How Folding Paper Can Get You to the Moon How Many Universes are There? String theory, quantum physics, Steven Hawking and parallel universes all assemble to take their part in this mind-popping video narrated by TED’s Chris Anderson. 398
25 TED Talks Perfect For Classrooms The 50 Best Sources of Free STEM Education Online 12.05K Views 0 Likes Colleges, universities, and other educational forums in your community can be excellent places to learn more about a variety of STEM topics, but there is also a wealth of educational material available on the web for those who prefer to learn at their own pace or take a more individual approach.