Category: Games

Review of Frontline’s “Growing up Online”

I watched the program last night. (PBS has made the full version of the program available online, along with extended clips, discussion boards, and a chat room.) Given all the chatter before the airing I found the program to be more balanced than I was expecting, but it was not without bias. Here are some of my random thoughts related to the program.

  • It cautioned that kids may be smarter and safer about online socializing than we think. Are they learning this from themselves, school, parents, media, or …?
  • The program dedicated more time to the use of technology for socializing rather than for educational purposes. I’d like to see a follow-up program deal with that topic.
  • I’m not sure that everything in the program is generalizable to the larger population. While the episode never overtly made any such claim it’s important that viewers not make that assumption.
  • There are excellent teachers that do not make any use of technology in the classrooms. The use of technology does not necessarily make one educational experience better than another.
  • The issue of parents’/ schools’ safety concerns and children’s privacy is one that deserves a great deal more consideration.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/kidsonline

FRONTLINE: growing up online | PBS via kwout

Here’s what others are saying:

  1. Comments to my (Clif’s) initial post
  2. Infinitude: Part I, Part II
  3. Jennifer Maddrell
  4. Weblogg-ed: Post 1, Post 2
  5. Geeky Mom
  6. Nick Pernisco
  7. The Official Growing up Online Discussion Board

Tennis Notes

Tennis Stars Cup is a free online tennis game. I think my friend, Dennis, might call this a mini-game. Thanks to JD for sharing the link.

Here’s are a few notes about the Australian Open.

  • I said from the beginning that I’m pulling for Djokovic and Davenport but I’m expecting Federer and Henin to win.
  • Davenport lost in her 2nd round match against Sharapova. Her story is unbelievable and I hope she has an outstanding year.
  • Roddick is out! Undoubtedly, his best tennis is behind him. Just as I’ve always expected, he will never live up to the hype.
  • James Blake has made it through to the quarter finals and plays Federer next. Blake’s best tennis may be ahead of him. Go Blake!
  • The stories of the Serbian players are inspirational. Djokovic, Jankovic, Ivanovic, and Tipsarevic have all proven to be among the world’s elite players.
  • The women’s draw is down to the quarter finals. It’s an exciting bracket. No matter what happens, all the remaining women’s matchups are intriguing.
  • The men are also down to the quarters. The top half of the draw (with Federer, Blake, and Djokovic) seems much tougher than the bottom half with Nadal.
  • Having both ESPN2 and the Tennis Channel broadcast coverage has certainly made the tournament more accessible.
  • Chris Fowler does a good job anchoring the majors. How does he know so much about tennis?
  • I like Darren Cahill as a tennis commentator. He fits in well with Cliff and Patrick.

“Growing up Online” on PBS’ Frontline

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XyipM9STyY

UPDATE: The program has aired and you can read my review.

Free Open Source Software (FOSS)

I’ve run across several lists of free open source software (FOSS) in the last few days. I’ve added each to my del.icio.us bookmarks (see My Bookmarks in the main menu) but I wanted to a bit more proactive in sharing this information with teachers, thus the reason for this post.

Free/Open Source Software for Kids – This list was generated for those teaching 3-12 year old students. It suggests FOSS for music composition, painting, space exploration, math, and more.

KDE-Education Program – This group is “developing high-quality educational software for the K Desktop Environment. Our primary focus is on schoolchildren aged 3 to 18, and the specialized user interface needs of young users. However, we also have programs to aid teachers in planning lessons, and others that are of interest to university students and anyone else with a desire to learn!” You’ll find about 30 educational software games/ tools related to math, science, languages, art, keyboarding, and more.

23 Most Valuable Free Software – A list of the most outstanding free/open source software.

GIMP – “The GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed piece of software for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. It works on many operating systems, in many languages.”

Exploratree – Exploratree is a free web resource where you can download, use and make your own interactive thinking guides, concept/semantic maps, organizers, charts, tables, and more.

Firefox – A cross-platform browser, providing support for various versions of Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. However, the source code has been unofficially ported to other operating systems. This project has a large community of external contributors. If you haven’t already switched from Internet Explorer to Firefox (or at least something else) then I strongly suggest that you consider it.

Blender – “Blender is the free open source 3D content creation suite.”


For even more, you can also review my previous notes on other FOSS and TeacherJay’s Free Software Guide.

Free Educational Software

My friend Neil Hokanson had an interesting post on his blog about a suite of open source (which also means FREE) educational games for young children. The software is called Childsplay and is available from SourceForge.net. Neil explains that Childsplay has “several games in the software that test basic math and language arts skills along with other exercises that practice matching, listening, and memory skills. The activities help children learn fine motor skills as they navigate the computer keyboard and identify specific number and letter keys, mouse, and mouse pad movements.”

I encourage those of you with learners that are under 10 years old to take a look at Childsplay. Please share your review of the games in the Comments below.

Clif

The Crisis in Darfur: A Mini-Lesson that Teaches So Much

I challenge you to complete this mini-lesson and consider the questions below.

LESSON

  1. Watch this news special about the crisis in Darfur.
  2. Play Darfur Is Dying, a quick mini-game that simulates aspects of daily living in this region.

DISCUSSION

  1. What is your reaction to this information and simulated experience?
  2. What, if anything, did you learn from this lesson?
  3. How might this activity be integrated with teaching and learning?

Pay Attention

As you gear up for a new school year I encourage you to watch this video clip, Pay Attention, at least once and reflect upon its message. You might find it beneficial to review Karl Fisch’s Shift Happens before you watch this video.


Games and Simulations in Education: A Resource List for Newbies

The following is in response to the requests several of you have made for more information about games and simulations in education.

The use of games and simulations in education is increasing. There is a lot being researched, written, blogged, and talked about on this topic. There are increasing numbers of presentations and discussions on the topic at conferences. The topic is also becoming part of the curriculum in more and more educational technology courses and programs. While I believe that the use of electronic games and simulations in teaching and learning is in its infancy, there are those that have had an interest in this for quite some time, and have acquired a respectable level of expertise in this area. I suggest the following resources to help you prepare to integrate games and simulations with teaching and learning in your classroom.

  • Mark Prensky – Prensky’s provocative nature has helped him become one of the biggest names in games in education. His book Digital Game-Based Learning is a must read for anyone looking to become knowledgeable of this topic. (Warning: He likes to be shocking for the sake of being shocking.)
  • Lloyd Rieber – Dr. Rieber’s understanding of rigorous research and development combined with his ability to easily communicate with classroom teachers has made him a well respected individual in the field of instructional technology around the world. His website, Nowhere Road, is full of useful resources.
  • WWILD Team – This is an “online community of teachers, parents, students, and software developers promoting experiential learning.” Be sure to especially look over the Homemade PowerPoint Games (think, “Webquest meets PowerPoint”) section.
  • Rick van Eck – He has become known for his research in instructional games and simulations.
  • Dennis Charsky – As an emerging researcher and practitioner in the area of instructional games, Dr. Charsky has the ability to communicate his knowledge of computer programming, game development, and graphic design to educators.
  • COTS – Integrating commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) games with teaching and learning
  • It’s All Fun and Games until… – This is a partial compilation of resources (podcasts, PowerPoint files, etc.) from guest presentations given in conjunction with a special topics class I helped co-teach.

What resources would you add to this list? Please leave your suggestions (provide URLs when possible) in the comments below.

13 Yr. Old CEO of Innovative Educational Gaming Company

Anshul Samar is the CEO of Elementeo, a startup company seeking to combine fun and learning. This article provides an overview of the company’s goals, video of Anshul’s CEO speech, and a description of the company’s first game which teaches chemistry through a role-playing board game.

This is interesting to me on many different levels. Watching the video of Anshul’s CEO speech gives me the impression that this may have actually been a class project. Regardless, couldn’t a student activity like this be the jumping-off point for effectively integrating technology with teaching and learning?

  1. How many content areas/topics/objectives/skills would this kind of activity include? I’ve noticed 1) math, business and economics, 2) science/chemistry, 3) art and graphic design, 4) language arts, 5) perhaps copyright and patents, 6) ……???
  2. If this was a class project, do you think that the teacher could have ever imagined that this would be the result?
  3. Elementeo is seeking to put the fun back into learning. Has education taken the fun out of learning? It seems that these students think so. What does that tell those of us that are teachers?
  4. If this is not a class project and Anshul and his friends did this of their own initiative then perhaps we, as teachers, should reconsider what it is that we have our students doing. I suggest that a traditional lesson/unit on entrepreneurship would likely not teach students nearly as much about the world of business (and the other aforementioned content areas) as this activity likely did.
  5. While students weren’t necessarily playing games but rather developing games, this could be an example of effectively bringing gaming into the classroom and integrating it with the curriculum.
    1. Let’s begin to consider all the elements of effective teaching and learning (according to today’s research) that might possibly be identified in a class project like this. Such an activity might include 1) problem solving, 2) discovery learning, 3) legitimate peripheral participation and/or authentic/situated/contextual teaching and learning, 4) communities of practice, 5) collaboration, 6) project management (for those instructional designers among us), 7) ……???

    I think this could be a rich discussion. Please, please chime in.