Fwd: ES-Instruct Edition 012: Game tweets; DIY the site
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edition 012
01 May 2012
Happy May Day!
Did you get your ticket? "Maker Faire," the exuberant outpouring of home-made talent and inspiration, takes place on May 19 and 20 in San Mateo, Calif. Teachers are eligible for a free pass! At the heart of the faire will be a special pavilion devoted to education (and coordinated by EdSurge). Learn to use a laser cutter, design your own school, meet a fire-breathing robotic dragon. All the details are here. Hope to meet you at Maker!
TEACHER FEATURE: Congratulations to Ms. Rebecca Mieliwocki, seventh grade English teacher at Luther Burbank Middle School, outside of Los Angeles, who was named National Teacher of the Year by President Barack Obama. Some 53 educators were honored by the President.. Here’s Ms. Mieliwocki, speaking with Charlie Rose on CBS News. Her wise words in this story: “You surround yourself with good people and you shut up and you listen to what they have to say and you watch what they do and you try to soak it all up.”
TWEET WRAP-UP:
A big thanks to everyone who tweeted, retweeted, mentioned, and tagged during our 3rd #esinstruct tweet chat on Games and Learning in the Classroom. In the twitter-ings of @midhamohit, the chat was “chaotic and thought provoking at the same time” with a number of educators and game developers exploring the underpinnings of games-based learning. With nearly 400 tweets in one hour, we’re going to pass on the complete play-by-play but here are the highlights:
Need a crash course on games and learning? Update your summer reading list with Reality is Broken by Jane McGonigal and Video Games and Learning: Teaching and Participatory Culture in the Digital Age by Kurt Squire. Also keep a tab on the webinars offered by EdWebNet which regularly touch upon games-based learning. (Tip of the hat to @katorade82, @brainpop, @Joe_Ballou).
Several educators expressed disappointment with games that fail to innovate on analog curriculum materials. As @katorade82 put it, “I’m tired of ‘multiple choice’ shoot the right answer games.” So what constitutes a good learning game? According to @MangaHigh, “1) High engagement 2) More math in the same time 3) mapped to curriculum & auto-populates grade book.” @ZuQuinn opined that the trick to making good ed games is to not make them except “where it makes sense to do it as a game.” Our research friends from @RiceCTTL brought it home with the most practical (and retweeted) advice: “I'd say a problem to solve, control over their own learning, good graphics.”
One thread in particular focused on teacher opposition to games in the classroom, with @katyamuses admitting that “converting non-believers is tough. they need to see that games teach more than entertainment.” @mr_isaacs agreed, noting “Nonbelievers have to see true tie in to curriculum” -- a tall task when many ed games don’t easily map to mandated curriculum. Most everyone agreed that the best path to further adoption is a bottom-up approach where, as @mslinch puts it, “students bring games to teachers, teachers to schools, schools to districts, etc." @karimderrick doubled-down on this logic, noting that “kids reporting to the teachers their success in the game, becomes self-assessment.”
The chat was peppered with plenty of practical wisdom on why and how games in the classroom matter. The techie-minded can review the entire tweet chat in this Google spreadsheet; we’ve included some of our favorites here:
- Game design is great vehicle for storytelling / creative writing #esinstruct - @mr_isaacs
- @root_one I use games to engage learners and then find it a lot easier to measure effectiveness separately through AFL #esinstruct - @nightzookeeper
- @root_one Through play testing, we found incorporating writing reflections a good assessment strategy to use w/ #gbl. #esinstruct - @brainpop
- @karimderrick Also getting concepts by playing role within a system. Helps contextualize concepts and broader system. #esinstruct - @icivics
- Gme dsgn apps like @gamestarmech are awesome because students practice metacog thinking. "Why am I designing my game like this?" #esinstruct - @santipanti
- You can even turn a football (soccer) game into something educational. #esinstruct - @josepopoff
OCCUPY THE CLASSROOM
MATHLASH, RETURN OF THE JEDI: Many edtech companies are devoted to teaching math. That's all good. (Even EdSurge occasionally needs a refresher in place value.) But as we've written, the intense focus on math algorithms threatens to crowd out teaching mathematical inspiration--or giving kids a mathematical context for viewing the world, even if those problems are messier than, say, calculating how many red and blue marbles Mary should hand out to make everyone happy. Now math teacher and Mathalicious founder, Karim Kai Ani, has moved to action: he's running a cool Kickerstarter campaign to fund 52 math videos (neatly linked to the Common Core standards) which any teacher will be able to use for free. Check out "Big Foot Conspiracy?" May the force of Kickstarter be with you!
TED ED PT. DEUX: It’s official: TED for education. (We talked about it unfolding back in March.) Now it’s official. This website, which is part of TED.com, aims to support teachers building lesson plans around its videos. Go ahead and tweak or redo lessons featured on TED-Ed, or create other from scratch, using its flip this video” feature. Plus one for this article on parents and children flipping video at home.
INTRO TO THE PLANET: Apparently the Math Emporium is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to large-scale edtech for Hokie nation. Meet Mr. John Boyer, instructor to the masses for the World Regions course at Virginia Tech. Ever-popular with the students, Mr. Boyer’s course enrollment has ballooned from 50 to 2,670 students without forsaking student engagement thanks to the untiring efforts of this eclectic professor and his commitment to utilizing technology. Before office hours on Ustream, his TA sends alerts to 9,000 Twitter and Facebook friends. (You can catch his blog here.) Making the grade is a fun endeavor, too: Mr. Boyer has introduced game mechanics that allow students to choose their own assignments while accumulating points. Maybe we should give edtech a rest and work on cloning Mr. Boyer! Full details here from the Chronicle of Higher Ed.
TONY WAGNER ON INNOVATION: An informative read from Forbes on the education system’s failure to produce innovators. Pulling details from the latest books by Mr. Tony Wagner, Innovation Education Fellow at Harvard, the article details the skills required to compete in a globalized workforce and the deficiencies in American education system that “stunt” those skills. Many of the new competencies, including analyzing information and adapting to new conditions, are the antithesis of passive learning and risk aversion all too commonplace in structured learning environments. Mr. Wagner’s money quote: “The system has become obsolete. It needs reinventing, not reforming.”
EITHER, OR, BOTH: Brookings Institution’s Mr. Paul T. Hill says today’s K-12 debate should not be an either-or battle over a particular school model, but a quest to “make public sponsorship compatible with effective education.” He applauds organizations like Rocketship, 4.0Schools, and NYC iZone taking this debate to center stage but concedes that not every school relying upon “human judgement and performance” will succeed. For all of the finger pointing, Mr. Hill reminds us that there are “many ways government can destroy good schools, and only one known way that it can support them.”
A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME: Reading Rods, VersaTiles. These and other manipulatives have long come from Illinois-based ETA/Cuisenaire. Now, same hands-on products but a (handy) new name: ETA hand2mind. Just in case you were wondering!
VENI, VIDI, VICI VIMEO. NEXT: Zach Klein, the founder of Vimeo (that nifty alternative to YouTube) has launched his next big thing and it’s close to our heart: DIY. It aims to be a (free) online community for kids who are part of the Maker movement. It encourages them to share pictures what they’ve made, earn “stickers” or badges for the work, and still gives parents a bit of oversight. All free and it features pretty kid-slick graphics. Aimed at the elementary school set.
SKOOL TOOLS
With tags--both price tags and descriptive ones so you can spot what interests you. Remember that "Beta" tools are typically free but may have a few kinks in the system, "$" is a modest price or subscription while "$$" will set you back. We hope this will be "good news for gripers," as one friend likes to request! Let us know if you agree.
Free! HISTORYPIN: An interesting mixin of Pinterest and history brought to you by not-for-profit, We Are What We Do, in partnership with Google. Users are invited to explore existing history pins -- geotagged photos described in historical context -- create their own, or create collections and tours of multiple history pins. A great way for history teachers to bring history lessons alive, or students to explore their own local history through inquiry-based learning.
See more: 21st Century Skills, History, Media Literacy
Free! AGREEMENT GROUPS IN THE US SENATE: We love when technology and scholarship come together. A case in point is this awesome political visualization from Adrien Friggeri, a PhD candidate studying complex systems at ENS De Lyon. Perhaps a bit advanced for K-8, but high school and secondary teachers of government, poli-sci, or US history will appreciate the attention to detail and accompanying discussion points.
See more: U.S. History, Data Visualization, Infographics
Free! IMM.IO: A hidden gem revealed from last week’s tweet chat, this one-click picture sharing site allows users to upload a picture from desktop or mobile and instantly share the link via Twitter, Delicious, Digg, or StumbleUpon. A simple way for students to share photos, or say, send teachers a screenshot of a Motion Math high score for extra credit!
See more: Media Literacy
Free! VISCOSITY EXPLORER: Our friends at LateNite Labs will surely get a kick out of this flash-based game that allows players to explore viscosity of liquids through the time-tested ball drop experiment. For the two beakers, choose different liquids and/or different temperatures, press drop, and let gravity do the rest. A great way to introduce the concept and allow students to experiment without the setup and cleanup.
See more: Chemistry
Free! TINKERCAD: A free web-based tool for creating 3D designs that can exported to STL for 3D printing. The drag-and-drop interface combined with a full set of tutorials and lessons make this easy to learn. It’s free to use but there’s a fee for 3D prints. Be sure to use Tinkercad in Chrome or Firefox which handle the WebGL 3D web standard better than other browsers.
See more: DIY Education, STEM Education
Free! EASYBIB: Maybe the old school won’t approve, but last-minute report writers will rejoice! Enter a website, book, newspaper article, or journal article and EasyBib spits out citations perfectly formatted in MLA, APA, or Chicago writing style.
See more: Language Arts, Reading
Free! VOCABGRABBER: Straight from the source: “Vocabgrabber analyzes any text you're interested in, generating lists of the most useful vocabulary words and showing you how those words are used in context.” Great for grokking articles, fiction pieces, and technical papers.
See more: Language Arts, Reading
Free! ANSWERGARDEN: As the name implies, AnswerGarden provides a space for ideas and suggestions to literally grow. Users create an AnswerGarden by posing a question and inviting others to respond in 20 characters or less. As identical answers accumulate (you can easily +1 an answer by clicking it), they grow larger in the answer space. The result is a Wordle-like text mashup of the top answers to the originally posted question.
See more: 21st Century Skills
Free! DIFFERENTIATOR: A free tool for creating differentiated learning goals. Users can construct explicit goals by choosing a thinking skill (from Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy), type of content, resources required, product outcome, and number of collaborators. Created for teachers by a teacher, Mr. Ian Byrd, who also moonlights as computer programmer.
See more: Teacher Tools, Differentiated Learning
Free! LOGARITHMS LITE: This iOS app from Mathtoons is designed to help students understand and practice changing between exponential and logarithmic forms of an equation. The app employs two animated characters, Captain Calculator and Corporal MiniCalc, to support memorization of conversion techniques.
BETA GAMESTAR MECHANIC: Currently looking for middle school students and teachers to try out their new game in the fall, one based on social system dynamics where kids will gain a better understanding of how the social systems they inhabit work and understand how to address issues like gender-based violence, bullying and online safety.
See more: 21st Century Skills, Games
BECAUSE YOU ASKED:
We’re experimenting with different ways to share insights on products that make sense for the classroom. This week, we’ve found a clever teacher in Texas who has tackled a question posed by a colleague. He’s generously shared his solution so we’re going to post the entire review here on our website (just one click will get you there!) A hearty round of applause for Mr. Ben Stern, an 8th grade history teacher in Houston. Do let us know if you want more features like this.
Q: I need an easier way to grade my students' journals. Any suggestions?
A: A stack of marble composition books three feet high overwhelms even the most resolute grader. Our students use Google Docs for most written assignments but one of my colleague prefers that her students use journals for more personal writing. “Dear Docs” just doesn't have the same ring to it as “Dear Diary.” Paper journals are a challenge to grade, however, so she asked me whether there might be a technological solution...
(In the rest of this essay, Mr. Stern explores Diary.com, Open Diary and Penzu. Click here for the full review.)
If you have questions--or want to try your hand at answering one--let us know here.
3RS: REPORTS, RESEARCH, RESULTS
MORE ON GAMES: A great summary from Mindshift on education gaming research conducted in the UK. Apparently, the “secret sauce” to educational games lies in the intrinsic game play -- that is, baking feedback into the gameplay and not simply awarding a simple gold star or check mark (which is called extrinsic game play). In the study, students who played the intrinsic version of a game learned more math and played 7x more than students on the extrinsic version of the same game. Download the journal article here.
TEN SCHOOL MODELS: And what, you may ask, is the difference between the “in-person flex” and the “in-person rotation” model of school? Public Impact, an education policy and management consulting organization with funding from the Gates Foundation and Carnegie Corporation, is so glad you asked. Here are 3 to 8-page summaries of how 10 different school models are structured. Comes complete with a handy info graphic, Extending the Reach of Great Teachers."
A SUMMERTIME THING
NEXTGENLEARNING WAVE IIIa: Next Generation Learning Challenges (NGLC) is a partnership between EDUCAUSE, the League for Innovation in the Community College, the International Association for K-12 Online Learning (iNACOL), the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO). and funding from the Gates and Hewlett foundations. NGLC is currently accepting Wave IIIa RFPs for new districts and charters looking to “identify and scale fundamentally redesigned, whole school models that combine the best aspects of brick and mortar and online learning and result in more personalized, mastery based learning.” The deadline for initial applications is June 8th, with second phase applicants being notified July 8th. Application details can be found here..
LEARNZILLION: Scale your impact! LearnZillion is a site free for educators that is chock-full of videos on great lessons. Here's a profile of us. We're looking for teachers who want to have a broader impact and who have the talent to craft dynamite video lessons. Dream Team members receive lesson creation equipment, $2000 and recognition on LearnZillion's website. Each member will create 20 lessons this summer. Lessons will be available for free on www.learnzillion.com and linked to professional development platforms in multiple states. Click here to apply or visit www.learnzillion.com/join. Admissions are rolling. We are currently recruiting for our second admissions cycle, which ends April 29, and our final cycle ends May 27. Please also feel free to email Ann at LearnZillion (ann...@learnzillion.com) if you have questions about the application.
ESSENTIALS: New Orleans: June 23-26; Memphis: Aug. 4-7. A free, four-day workshop in applying the skills of empathy, unbundling and prototyping in the classroom. Alumni eligible to take part in more extensive programs on teacher-entrepreneurship. Apply here..
LAUNCH: Mountain View, CA, June 12-13: Conference to showcase the latest edtech innovations. Watch entrepreneurs compete to get the attention of funders! Grab the educator's complimentary tix now as only 50 are available.
JOBS JOBS JOBS
CHICAGO PUBLIC SCHOOLS: CPS is looking for a Education Technology Director to implement and execute on a long-term strategy for incorporating technology in schools. The director will design and implement a long-range and ongoing district strategy for effective application of educational technology, integrating technology into the curriculum and teaching practices, providing recommendations regarding potential software application purchases, and monitoring the effectiveness of technology instruction. Application details are here..
YAHOO! EDUPRENEURS: Bookmark this Yahoo group often for the latest administrative, instructional, and technical openings in schools and edtech organizations.
OUT OF THE BOX
MAY
WWW
5/2Education On Air. May 2, noon-10p ET. an education technology conference entirely online and completely free, convened by Google in Education. Featuring over 40 sessions covering topics ranging from Blended Learning to YouTube to Digital Portfolios to how Google tools can help with productivity, collaboration, assessment and instruction. All via Google+ Hangouts On Air. Learn how to participate in the conference here. SJC
5/3NEW! Technovation National Pitch Competition. May 3, 6-9:30p ET. This spring, over 500 high-school girls from around the country took part in the challenge to build the most innovative mobile app using App Inventor for Android. Courses were hosted by Google, Microsoft, LinkedIn, Adobe, Twitter, UC Berkeley and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Now the field is down to 11 regional winners from NY, LA, Boston, and SF. Come show your support to these amazing young ladies at this free event! BDU
5/18-
5/20Startup Weekend-EDU, Boulder, CO. May 18-20. Ah yes, Boulder does truly rock, in so many ways! A thriving edtech world is happening in the mountains. Even better: a 10% discount if you use "edsurge" as the codeword when you sign up. TVD
5/19The inaugural Blended Learning and Technology for Teachers Conference Providence, RI, May 19th. Hosted by the Highlander Institute. Featuring Jennie Dougherty of EdUpgrade, Melissa Pickering from iCreatetoEducate, and reps from LearnZillion, Engrade, K12, LessonWriter, BroadBandRI, and others. Enter the code "edsurge" for $10 off registration! JFK
5/19-
5/20Teachers College Educational Technology Conference (TCETC). May 19-20. Teachers College, Columbia University. Guest speakers will include Lori Takeuchi, Director of Research for the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop, Andrew Gardner, Senior Manager of BrainPOP Educators, and a special workshop on Minecraft in education from Daniel O'Keefe, Brendon Trombley, and Claudio Midolo at Quest 2 Learn. We also have many exciting presentations lined up from ed tech researchers across the United States. The full schedule is available here. Interested folks can register here. EDSURGE (IN THE) NEWS
Thanks for checking out EdSurge-instruct. If you want to peek at our list of tools for teaching languages, click here. Or here for our list of non-standard assessment tools. Want the scoop on what edtech developers are thinking? Sign up for the original EdSurge newsletter on our site. You can also see our stories on the FastCompany blog and on KQED's Mind/Shift. But fear not: we bring the best stuff directly to you first. Always.
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