Exploding Myths About Learning Through Gaming : NPR Ed "What makes a game fun is not that it's easy," says Greg Toppo, "but that it's hard." Smcgee/Flickr hide caption toggle caption Smcgee/Flickr "What makes a game fun is not that it's easy," says Greg Toppo, "but that it's hard." Part of our series of conversations with leading teachers, writers and activists on education issues. If you had to pick the most promising — and possibly most overhyped — education trends of the last few years, right up there with the online college courses known as MOOCs would almost certainly rank this one: Game-based learning shall deliver us to the Promised Land! But between hype and hating lies the nuanced discoveries of veteran education reporter — and former teacher — Greg Toppo. You argue in your book that what can look like escapist fun in fact offers opportunities for deep concentration and learning. I think the thing we need to understand first is a basic idea: What makes a game fun is not that it's easy but that it's hard. Greg Toppo. Twitter Pinball.
Guanxi For the autonomous region, see Guangxi. Guanxi describes the basic dynamic in personalized networks of influence, and is a central idea in Chinese society. In Western media, the pinyin romanization of this Chinese word is becoming more widely used instead of the two common translations—"connections" and "relationships"—as neither of those terms sufficiently reflects the wide cultural implications that guanxi describes.[1] Guanxi has a major influence on the management of businesses based in China, and also those owned by overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia, known as the bamboo network.[2] Description and usage[edit] At its most basic, guanxi describes a personal connection between two people in which one is able to prevail upon another to perform a favor or service, or be prevailed upon. Guanxi refers to the benefits gained from social connections and usually extends from extended family, school friends, workmates and members of common clubs or organizations. Usage examples[edit]
Finding Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi – Summary Being in a state of flow is when you’re fully immersed in a specific task with a seemingly inexhaustible amount of focus. Five hours may zip by and you hardly even notice. I’ve experienced flow on many occasions, such as when I get “in the zone” and program for 8 hours straight, or when I get consumed reading about a topic I find particularly interesting for a solid day. In an effort to read up more about flow—primarily the pros and cons, and how to achieve states of flow more often—I read Finding Flow by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi (apparently it’s pronounced “chicks-send-me-high”), who first proposed the whole idea. What follows in this post are my rough book notes. Chapter 1 – The Structures of Everyday Life Psychic energy: mental awareness/attention/focus; a limited resource. Work, maintenance, and leisure take up most of our psychic energy. Chapter 2 – The Content of Experience All emotions are essentially either positive/attractive or negative/repulsive. Work vs leisure vs maintenance tasks.
Hearing Is Our Least Trustworthy Sense by Orion Jones We like to think we perceive the world just as everyone else does. That's what makes communication possible, and without a baseline reality, how would science proceed? But our sense of hearing is remarkably unreliable, say sound psychologists. And since hearing is one out of just five senses we use to perceive the world, that's a little concerning. Or one out of seven if you count proprioception and vestibular sensation — and hey, why not? Just yesterday, for example, I missed a call from an unfamiliar number, and because I haven't set up my voicemail yet (who needs it?!) Ironically, our sense of hearing is unreliable because of its robust ability to create meaning from otherwise random sounds. Diana Deutsch, sound psychologist at UC San Diego, says that how we hear sounds depends on the tonality of our mother tongue, which varies greatly from country to country. Read more at BBC Future.
Note: "Types of Creative Thinking" This article doesn’t focus on ePortfolios but rather this woman’s approach to creativity and how/why creative thinking is important for students to practice: Convergence and divergence – two necessary types of thinking for being creative: Partly because it is tied to the profitability in business, a great deal of effort has been put forth in defining creative problem-solving and in training folks in how to do it. In this genre one of the more common definitions of creativity has to do with dissecting creative thought into a process of dual exchanges through the melding of two types of thinking — convergence and divergence. Definitions of divergent thinking usually include the ability to elaborate, and think of diverse and original ideas with fluency and speed. Unfortunately, too often the processes involved in schooling concentrate on convergent thought, and ignore or undervalue divergent thinking.
Chimps, Like Humans, Act Out When They Know They're Right by Monica Joshi Chimpanzees are marvelous creatures. Jane Goodall has spent her whole life trying to understand them. Researchers at Georgia State University, Agnes Scott College, Wofford College, and the University at Buffalo, The State University of New York have discovered that chimpanzees not only are capable of metacognition, but also can adjust their behaviour based on this metacognition. Published in the journal Cognition, their findings suggest that this reflects a form of cognition control that underlies intelligent decision-making across species. Humans are able to report confidence in a few different ways such as: using an oral reportage of confidence or lack thereof, numerical rating scales, and body language. In the course of the study, three chimps were tested using a series of computerized tests. One thing that they wanted to replicate in the study was something that chimps do all day in a forest: leaping from one branch to another without hesitation.
Strategies Quick Learners Use To Pick Up Anything Prague Holds The Secret To Great Art by Jason Hreha What conditions are necessary for great art? Does it merely require a person of extreme genius to come along? Does it require patronage and lots of money? What about a vibrant and active community? Each of these questions was on my mind as I walked through the streets of Prague a couple of weeks ago. Prague is a city that forces you to feel humble. This is perhaps one of the reasons why the west coast of California, in which a 100-year-old claptrap building is “ancient,” is the home of audacious visions and innovation. Tradition is filled with barriers to entry, but it’s also filled with beauty. Our modern cities today look as if they were made out of cardboard boxes and Lego pieces. The buildings that make up much of Prague, however, have crown moulding more beautiful than half the pieces in the Museum of Modern Art. This is the conclusion that scholar Charles Murray came to in his great tome, Human Accomplishment.