Just learnt about the concept of the Virtual Field trip (http://www.simplek12.com/virtualfieldtrips ) from @SimpleK12 on Twitter.
The concept is simple. Instead of the real location show the a series of websites about the place. Perhaps in the near future with virtual reality the children can even experience the place.
For now though I have mixed feelings about this concept. Most of (children included) are glued to one or the other screen (TV, PC,
I was just reading about TechRepublic’s list of 10 ‘Linux applications’ for educational environments (http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/10things/?p=853).
Surprised that Moodle is not included. Must compare and find out why Atutor pipped Moodle to the post in the list, J
Just spotted a week old Google blog post that talks about how Google is targeting the K12 segment.
It is an interesting move to get teachers to use Google technologies (a modified version of Google apps) to teach.
The blog post mentions that they pan to launch a Google Apps Education Community site for educators and students to share tips and ideas for using Google Apps in their classrooms, as well as the Search Education Curriculum and a Google Apps Education resource center with 20 classroom-ready lesson plans for teachers.
This will be interesting to track and see how it helps collaborative learning among young people in classroom situations.
Read the rest of the post at:
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/06/google-heads-to-grade-school-new.html
Google has launced YouTubeEDU to collect videos from educational institutes, colleges, universities, et al.
The blurb on the YouTube blog says
“Using YouTube as a vehicle to democratize learning is one of the coolest, unintended outcomes of its existence. YouTube EDU is a volunteer project sparked by a group of employees who wanted to find a better way to collect and highlight all the great educational content being uploaded to YouTube by colleges and universities. We'll feature some of these videos on the home page on Friday and elaborate further in a separate post on that day.”
First thoughts – University on demand J
After institutions like MIT opening up their entire curriculum this is an interesting way to mine such info.
Click here to try out YouTube EDU
You could register for the webinar at
https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/558400490%20
Background:
The webinar promises to will discuss the development of a casual video game, called “Celebrity Calamity.”. While managing the finances of spendthrift celebrity, the game teaches low- to moderate-income women the basics of credit and debit cards.
For many in the target audience, personal finance education can be difficult, scary, and boring. Keeping players motivated and engaged was important, though only half the battle. For the game to be considered successful, players also had to emerge from the experience with the confidence -- and knowledge -- to manage their credit and debit card accounts. To facilitate this, D2D and Enspire conducted rigorous user experience testing during the iterative production process. Later, efficacy testing was used to determine knowledge and confidence changes as a result of the game.
In this webinar, once can learn about casual games and how to leverage games for learning through a case study of D2D’s “Celebrity Calamity.”
Specifically, one will:
• Learn about casual games and how these games match to specific learning needs;
• Understand the role of user testing in the game design process and how it can yield better learning; and
• Get tricks of the trade from Enspire’s game designers.
The webinar is on Thursday, April 9, 2009 at 1:00 PM - 2:30 PM CDT
Although we hear more about the
Here is an interesting article about how
Have a look at:
Once such collaboration is taught at primary schools it will rapidly change how an entire generation learns.
Just came across an interesting bit of news. Microsoft has invested $1.5-million (USD) to start The Games for Learning Institute, a joint venture with
You could read about it from:
Related news articles about this are:
