Speak 180: Why Is Game-Based Learning Good for Today's Youth? | Marcus T. Wright Speak 180 hosted by Marcus T. Wright is a new written segment where industry experts, thought leaders, and notable figures get a chance to answer an important question in 180 words or less. A 180 represents a turnaround, as in, our guests have 180 words to possibly turn around your opinion about a topic. Today's question:Why is Game-Based Learning Good for Today's Youth? So let's hear from three industry experts. Today's Guests: Lindsey Tropf, Founder & CEO, Immersed GamesDr. Lindsey Tropf 176 words Games are a natural learning environment that make lessons relevant within context and without risk. Dr. Good games offer compelling opportunities to engage with the world around us. Dr. Play in general is beneficial.
The Myth of 'I'm Bad at Math' - Miles Kimball & Noah Smith “I’m just not a math person.” We hear it all the time. And we’ve had enough. Is math ability genetic? How do we know this? Different kids with different levels of preparation come into a math class. Thus, people’s belief that math ability can’t change becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. The idea that math ability is mostly genetic is one dark facet of a larger fallacy that intelligence is mostly genetic. A body of research on conceptions of ability has shown two orientations toward ability. The “entity orientation” that says “You are smart or not, end of story,” leads to bad outcomes—a result that has been confirmed by many other studies. You have a certain amount of intelligence, and you really can’t do much to change it. They found that students who agreed that “You can always greatly change how intelligent you are” got higher grades. The results? For almost everyone, believing that you were born dumb—and are doomed to stay that way—is believing a lie. So why do we focus on math? 1.
instaGrok.com Gamifying Education: Do We Know How to Gamify the Classroom? Gamification in many parts of education is a sham. Listening to the researchers and experts in this area has convinced me of that. If you’re interested in making your classroom more intriguing and powerful, read on. We can do better. Who Is Shaping The Gamifying Education Conversation? In this week’s conversation with Australian Gamer and researcher Lauren Ferro we all went on a bit of a rant about the ridiculous state of badges in education.Teacher Alice Keeler uses games all the time (and doesn’t give grades).Sixth grade teacher Michael Matera reinvented his whole sixth grade classroom as a Games Based classroom and shares how he did it.A Higher Ed Panel had a powerful conversation for why we need games in highered. All of these are YouTube videos that have been recorded over the past week and a half as part of the Open Online Community (called an OOC) focusing on games in education. I have 3 take aways from the learning so far: #1: The Way We’re Doing Many Badges In Education Is A Joke
Three Ways to Make Games More Effective for Learning I’m a big fan of the constructive use of games in education. After all, games are engaging and, potentially, connected to rich, authentic activities. Traditional schooling is often neither. Digital games can capture the process of learning. Traditional assessment is typically about the outcome of learning. Gaming promotes productive failure (or at least players persevere and fail productively in the games they play). That promise for digital games to transform learning has been with us for a while. Meeting the recurring promise of digital games requires thoughtful and intentional integration into the curriculum. So what can we do to make games more effective for learning. Keep the gap between the game skills and the real world (including the real world of school) skills small. The promise of games I heard back in 1983 remains. Author's disclosure: I worked on Sushi Monster and MATH 180 at Scholastic
Twelve Math Myths | College of Rural & Community Development 1. MEN ARE BETTER IN MATH THAN WOMEN. Research has failed to show any difference between men and women in mathematical ability. Men are reluctant to admit they have problems so they express difficulty with math by saying, "I could do it if I tried." Women are often too ready to admit inadequacy and say, "I just can't do math." 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12.
Forget Storytelling, Try Storydoing Marc Andreessen famously said, "A company without a story is a company without a strategy." I couldn't agree more. Having a clear and distinctive story is critical in building a brand today. However, there's a distinction to be made between broadcasting your story--storytelling--and living your story, or storydoing. Understanding the difference between the two and making that shift toward the latter is fundamental to building a business. We are living in a world turned upside down. This abundance and fragmentation has put a real strain on probably the two most important resources of all: time and money. None of this has proven good for brands. The statistics are alarming, but perhaps more alarming is this: In this world of pervasive and systematic commoditization, most CEOs are unaware of the reality. From Storytelling to Storydoing So, if broadcasting your story is not enough, how do you effectively get the story of your brand and product into the world?
Crossword Puzzle Maker You must have an OLD browser. The old crossword maker doesn't allow all of the new features like cool fonts, adding images, shadows, special colors, and much more coming in the furture like saving, and being playable online. You can upgrade your browser to IE 9+ or better yet, get the Google Chrome browser and enjoy all of those great features. Not convinced? 2 reasons crosswords will not generate: 1. 1. Take the following example word list: "home, cat, dog". A slightly different impossible list: "home", "dog", "lizard" - all 3 have letters that they share! When you add a bunch of words, the chance for it being an impossible can increase (depending on many factors). 2.
A New Project – World of Warcraft In School For over nine years now, I’ve been playing MMORPG’s. It was a student who introduced me to Everquest back in 2000. Since then, I’ve played primarily with students, former students, and folks from around the world in a guild that I lead called Harbingers of Light. We’ve progressed through Everquest, Dark Age of Camelot, and World of Warcraft. It didn’t take long before I was convinced that these sorts of virtual environments must have some sort of place in education. How many times have I thought, “If I could just use this feature or that, I could easily teach concept X?” As a gamer and a teacher I had a connecting point with many of my students. Why couldn’t we use a game like this in a school setting? Then I thought, “surely we’re not alone.” So, what sort of lessons could you learn from World of Warcraft? In Math – Damager Per Second (DPS) Analysis: Acquire two different weapons in world used by your character’s class. So, how would all of this be implemented? -Lucas
How to Learn Math: For Students How to Learn Math is a free self-paced class for learners of all levels of mathematics. It combines really important information on the brain and learning with new evidence on the best ways to approach and learn math effectively. Many people have had negative experiences with math, and end up disliking math or failing. This class will give learners of math the information they need to become powerful math learners, it will correct any misconceptions they have about what math is, and it will teach them about their own potential to succeed and the strategies needed to approach math effectively. If you have had past negative experiences with math this will help change your relationship to one that is positive and powerful. The course will feature Jo and a team of undergraduates, as well as videos of math in action - in dance, juggling, snowflakes, soccer and many other applications.
Free Game Assets World of Warcraft Finds Its Way Into Class World of Warcraft Students’ passions can be a powerful driver for deeper and more creative learning. With this knowledge, some educators are using popular commercial games like World of Warcraft (WoW) to create curriculum around the game. And they say they’re seeing success, especially with learners who have had trouble in traditional classrooms. World of Warcraft is a Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplay (MMOR) game, where players take on the identity of characters in a narrative-rich plot, working together to overcome challenges. “In my estimation, a well-designed video game is pure, scaffolded, constructivist learning at its best,” said Peggy Sheehy, one of the designers of WoW in Schools, an elective English Language Arts curriculum built around the game. “Game designers get that failure is anticipated and celebrated. Sheehy designs “quests” with particular learning objectives in mind that the students or — “heroes” as they’re called in class — must complete. Related
Performance-Based Assessment: Making Math Relevant Joan: The students have ownerships of the material, and it clearly demonstrates their knowledge. Jeff: We ask our teachers is the performance that we want from kids short-term memory? Or do we want comprehensive understanding of big ideas? Student: Did you remember to go from North first? Student: Fifty-nine degrees and then eleven... Jeff: Is the performance that I can solve an algorithm that was handed to me on a piece of paper? Joan: We wanted to come up with a Performance-Based Assessment, so we sat down at a table and just started saying these are the things that we wanted to assess. Andrew: We had a discussion about, "Where can I integrate something relevant in this unit I'm doing on polar coordinates." Mary: Like the kind you would see on radar blips, you know, directing a plane or a ship. Andrew: And we came up with the idea of mission relief, which not only uses polar coordinates, but reviews a lot of the trig concepts that they're using throughout the year. Mary: Okay.
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