My son is a gamer he plays all types of games (card, board, live action and computers). He knows he wants to do “something” with computers when he heads off to college in a couple of years. To help him figure it out he is taking a course on The Foundations of Game Design at our community college. He is particularly intrigued with the design of games; what motivates the player to keep going, strategy, scoring and leveling. He recently…
Welcome back to school! Those of us in the world of formal education are now deep into the process and our summers of relaxation, professional development and planning have morphed into the daily work of teaching and learning with our students. As we begin our new school year I would like to encourage you to watch a talk by Ken Robinson on How to Change Education from the Ground Up. Many of us are dealing with changes in curriculum as we…
The summer is finally here and I am looking forward to emerging myself in my family. Not just spending time with them face to face but also to return to do research in my family history. I did a lot of genealogical research a decade or so ago but now I get to play with the new tech and tools as well. I am finding I need to update my skills a bit but that is part of the fun. For those of you…
It has been my experience that we all use terms such as learning, education and schooling. We assume we agree on their meaning but I do not think we truly have a shared understanding of these terms. There are also terms and phrases I wish would not be bantered about such as ‘21st Century Learning’. Does that mean we learn differently in this century than in previous ones? To me learning takes place in the mind. How we create understanding,…
Not an educational related post just sharing some of my geekdom, fandom, nerdy side. There is much I am looking forward to this month; Iron Man 3, May 2 and StarTrek ,May 15. Not to mention I am enjoying the new run of Dr Who and all The Doctor Revisited episodes re-living the Doctor’s of my youth. This November it is the 50th anniversary of Dr Who, as well as, the return of Sherlock. All of these are appealing to a new generation, good stories and characters matter…
As a tech integration specialist my role is to help teachers learn to use technology effectively in a classroom to support student learning. Most of the technology deployed in the past by schools has been teacher centered such as interactive white boards (IWB). Now schools are putting technology in the hands of students with a variety of devices. It is my belief this requires a different professional development (PD) model. Some devices have a steep learning curve; I would place…
If you have been reading this blog for any length of time then you know my views on schooling, education, learning are changing. More and more I am finding schooling interfering with learning, not for everyone all the time but, often enough that I am not sure we know what we are doing and why. The article User Generated Learning caught my attention. Though for the most part I agree with the progression I am not sure I agree that…