I really enjoyed the talk we got to go to last Thursday, The Civic Potential of Video Games, by Dr. Joseph Kahne. When it comes to the cliché'd admonition to not throw the baby out with the bathwater, I thought he eloquently expressed the case for the baby.
I feel like I've heard so much negativity and fear whenever a new technology captures the time and attention of people, that I can't justify jumping on that boat. Yeah, sure, video games can be violent, but not all of them. To focus on their negative aspects is to negate any benefits or usefulness inherent in the technology.
The tools at our disposal continue to grow in number and quality, but seem slow to be picked up in education. Why? Well, some people will say that they need to see a track record of usefulness in order to engage the stakeholder buy-in. But if the track record is only in violent games, then those stakeholders won't see the track record of usefulness. This violent track record is, I believe, given to us by sensationalist media eyes (google the negative effects of video games for more references). Cooperation and puzzle-solving aren't newsworthy. Killing your fellow-students is an internationally newsworthy story. We see what we are given to see and ignore the benefits.
Yes. There are bad aspects to pretty much everything. We might as well protest about humans and ban ourselves if we want to take things to their logical conclusion. Just look around you. But humans span the vast spectrum of human nature, which encompasses both good and evil. Likewise, videogames (along with many technologies which humans use) span the spectrum of human nature.
What we need to focus on is not how bad they are, but on how useful they could be. We don't have to call it education, but as Shakespear said, "a rose by any other name would smell as sweet."
To what use can we use them in a way that fosters cooperation, critical thinking, civic involvement, and a great number of other things that could be educational?
Showing posts with label education. Show all posts
Showing posts with label education. Show all posts
Monday, March 23, 2009
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Automated responsiveness everywhere!
I really enjoyed our guest speaker's presentation in the last class session. Dr. Ellen Wagner is an engaging, dynamic, and forward-thinking woman.
Two things she brought up, haptics and ubiquitous access (and subsequently smart buildings / products), are subjects that I have thought a lot about in relation to world- and community-changing technologies. I believe that these two things combined will have a significant impact on our future lives. it will change our assumptions and the assumptions of future generations. But we don't have to feel that they are things that are coming down the pike. In fact, these concepts are not totally new or revolutionary. When I think of ubiquity of access to information, I try to remind myself of books, newspapers, and magazines -- even while out in the woods camping, I still had my book to read if I wanted to. I try to think of how televisions and telephones saturated the market to the extent that some homes even had several of these items. Or of the thermostat keeping the temperature in a building within a certain range. Even of automatically opening doors.
While the concepts may not be revolutionary, their implementation certainly is. It allows us to do magic (or what would appear to be magic if we were time travelers from the past). Hmmm...
NEWSFLASH: My favorite blog, information aesthetics, just posted about Sixth Sense. Here's a four-minute video. Imagine the implications! This is soooo cool, and it's very much what Dr. Wagner was discussing in class about Web 3.o (3D).
Oh, speaking of automatically opening doors, I have to share something that happened to me once in Las Vegas. I learned that casinos are designed to always turn the customer back to the slot machines and tables. On this particular day I was determined to see the outdoors -- to see sunlight. Somehow I couldn't find my way out of the place (but it was so easy to come in!). Finally, I found the door! In my excitement, I raced to the door and was stopped by the glass. I backed up and went toward the door. Nothing happened. Obviously it was broken. So I went to the other door and it, too, was broken. Aaaargh! I couldn't get out of the casino!
Just then, I saw some people heading into the casino. They walked up to the door and pushed it. It wasn't broken; it was manual.
Finally, I'd like to share this link with you. It's an interactive map of future forces affecting education: http://www.kwfdn.org/map/map.aspx. It's really interesting and they invite participants to add to it.
Two things she brought up, haptics and ubiquitous access (and subsequently smart buildings / products), are subjects that I have thought a lot about in relation to world- and community-changing technologies. I believe that these two things combined will have a significant impact on our future lives. it will change our assumptions and the assumptions of future generations. But we don't have to feel that they are things that are coming down the pike. In fact, these concepts are not totally new or revolutionary. When I think of ubiquity of access to information, I try to remind myself of books, newspapers, and magazines -- even while out in the woods camping, I still had my book to read if I wanted to. I try to think of how televisions and telephones saturated the market to the extent that some homes even had several of these items. Or of the thermostat keeping the temperature in a building within a certain range. Even of automatically opening doors.
While the concepts may not be revolutionary, their implementation certainly is. It allows us to do magic (or what would appear to be magic if we were time travelers from the past). Hmmm...
NEWSFLASH: My favorite blog, information aesthetics, just posted about Sixth Sense. Here's a four-minute video. Imagine the implications! This is soooo cool, and it's very much what Dr. Wagner was discussing in class about Web 3.o (3D).
Oh, speaking of automatically opening doors, I have to share something that happened to me once in Las Vegas. I learned that casinos are designed to always turn the customer back to the slot machines and tables. On this particular day I was determined to see the outdoors -- to see sunlight. Somehow I couldn't find my way out of the place (but it was so easy to come in!). Finally, I found the door! In my excitement, I raced to the door and was stopped by the glass. I backed up and went toward the door. Nothing happened. Obviously it was broken. So I went to the other door and it, too, was broken. Aaaargh! I couldn't get out of the casino!
Just then, I saw some people heading into the casino. They walked up to the door and pushed it. It wasn't broken; it was manual.
Finally, I'd like to share this link with you. It's an interactive map of future forces affecting education: http://www.kwfdn.org/map/map.aspx. It's really interesting and they invite participants to add to it.
Monday, March 2, 2009
Video Response to C. Bonk's lecture on 2/26/09
I read an article early last week, Facebook and Bebo risk 'infantilising' the human mind. This kind of sensationalism about new technology both frustrates me and makes me laugh. I couldn’t help but think of previous sensationalist claims. For example, Is television destroying our children's minds?
Yes. I chose the same online news publication, The Guardian, from the U.K. I couldn’t help myself.
I’ve also read articles about how we've discovered specific genes (HAR genes) that give us a propensity for rapid brain development and that each new tool we use somehow acts on our brains, furthering our development – a development that supposedly makes us better than our fellow co-critters. Whether it does or doesn’t, current research indicates that we have genes that speed up brain development, and that’s what makes us different from other creatures.
Dr. C. Bonk’s lecture last week fed right into my mindset of the day, and one of the very many websites he presented was Adora’s website.
So my assignment, a 1-minute visual, tries to capture those things.
Yes. I chose the same online news publication, The Guardian, from the U.K. I couldn’t help myself.
I’ve also read articles about how we've discovered specific genes (HAR genes) that give us a propensity for rapid brain development and that each new tool we use somehow acts on our brains, furthering our development – a development that supposedly makes us better than our fellow co-critters. Whether it does or doesn’t, current research indicates that we have genes that speed up brain development, and that’s what makes us different from other creatures.
Dr. C. Bonk’s lecture last week fed right into my mindset of the day, and one of the very many websites he presented was Adora’s website.
So my assignment, a 1-minute visual, tries to capture those things.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
More on the Web 2.0 discussion (& two educational wikis)
I was thinking about our class discussion last week and wanted to mention what I think of when I think of Web 2.0.
When I think of Web 2.0, I think “user-generated content.” It’s not just "interactive" in that we have to interact with things (i.e., clicking on a link). I've had problems with these kinds of interactive activities because it seemed that people were making the user click just for sake of clicking -- not to add value. But now, with Web 2.0, "interactive" actually means that interacting with a thing ultimately means we are interacting with other people. With an environment that stresses user-generated content, people are creating things, putting them out “there,” getting feedback generated by other users, and interacting with the content put out by other users.
Anyway, these are the two educational wikis I found in response to our homework assignment:
Classroom 2.0 is one of the social networks I lurk in and I read their blog. They also have a wiki. The whole Classroom 2.0 endeavor is about sharing ways to incorporate Web 2.0 technologies into the classroom.
This wiki is for The Time Travel Narrative wiki. It's an online course focusing on the timeline in narrative endeavors (movies, literature, anime, TV).
When I think of Web 2.0, I think “user-generated content.” It’s not just "interactive" in that we have to interact with things (i.e., clicking on a link). I've had problems with these kinds of interactive activities because it seemed that people were making the user click just for sake of clicking -- not to add value. But now, with Web 2.0, "interactive" actually means that interacting with a thing ultimately means we are interacting with other people. With an environment that stresses user-generated content, people are creating things, putting them out “there,” getting feedback generated by other users, and interacting with the content put out by other users.
Anyway, these are the two educational wikis I found in response to our homework assignment:
Classroom 2.0 is one of the social networks I lurk in and I read their blog. They also have a wiki. The whole Classroom 2.0 endeavor is about sharing ways to incorporate Web 2.0 technologies into the classroom.
This wiki is for The Time Travel Narrative wiki. It's an online course focusing on the timeline in narrative endeavors (movies, literature, anime, TV).
Saturday, February 7, 2009
lively class
This is the more serious and reflective post...
This week's class session was pretty lively and fun. There were several things that seemed to really stand out as far as how the class views Web 2.0 in general and in relation to transferring knowledge or information.
As we spoke about the topic of connectivism, it was hard to escape the idea that truth exists externally and is constructed internally. Other learning theories might have made this external/internal relationship seem mutually exclusive, but there’s no reason for this to be the case. Web 2.0 technology is educationally useful in that the associated tools contain inherent knowledge. Also, use of the tools enable a sharing of knowledge. Instead of knowledge being unidirectional, going from one to many, it now is pan-directional, going from all to all (or many to many).
Validity seemed to be the unanimous issue, so I won’t say much about it here except that just because something is posted doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s true or that the information is valid.
We are bombarded with information and we need to sift through it to find the facts. More importantly than ever, people need to learn how to learn effectively as early as possible. The ability to think critically and to define one’s own learning goals and educational agenda are necessary.
Personally, I really liked the analogies!
This week's class session was pretty lively and fun. There were several things that seemed to really stand out as far as how the class views Web 2.0 in general and in relation to transferring knowledge or information.
As we spoke about the topic of connectivism, it was hard to escape the idea that truth exists externally and is constructed internally. Other learning theories might have made this external/internal relationship seem mutually exclusive, but there’s no reason for this to be the case. Web 2.0 technology is educationally useful in that the associated tools contain inherent knowledge. Also, use of the tools enable a sharing of knowledge. Instead of knowledge being unidirectional, going from one to many, it now is pan-directional, going from all to all (or many to many).
Validity seemed to be the unanimous issue, so I won’t say much about it here except that just because something is posted doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s true or that the information is valid.
We are bombarded with information and we need to sift through it to find the facts. More importantly than ever, people need to learn how to learn effectively as early as possible. The ability to think critically and to define one’s own learning goals and educational agenda are necessary.
Personally, I really liked the analogies!
great analogies
There were a couple of analogies that I really loved. I love analogies.
The fridge analogy was great. The outside of the fridge has lots of stuff on magnets and post-its--typically notes and photos and stuff. This is like commenting on people’s blogs, putting reminders in Remember the Milk, wikis, and the like. Then there’s the inside of the fridge which has all kinds of stuff in there for consumption. Some of the stuff is good and some of the stuff is either unhealthy or has gone bad. Sometimes you need to check with your peers, “Hey, does this milk smell bad to you?” Ultimately, you tend to avoid the yukky stuff.
The Borg analogy was also pretty good in that it points to the Hive Mind. What one drone learns, all drones learn. While there are some definite advantages of this and it reminds me of D. Dennett’s quote about a joined cognitive system. The downside is that indiscriminate consumers of the information could be misinformed by the unscrupulous participants out there.
Dr. Foreman's driving analogy was really descriptive in how navigating around all these wonderfully collaborative and user-generated content can be tricky. She said that it’s like people are learning how to drive while simultaniously trying to figure out how to get to their destination. Meanwhile, all the beginners on the road could, and more likely would, cause accidents.
The fridge analogy was great. The outside of the fridge has lots of stuff on magnets and post-its--typically notes and photos and stuff. This is like commenting on people’s blogs, putting reminders in Remember the Milk, wikis, and the like. Then there’s the inside of the fridge which has all kinds of stuff in there for consumption. Some of the stuff is good and some of the stuff is either unhealthy or has gone bad. Sometimes you need to check with your peers, “Hey, does this milk smell bad to you?” Ultimately, you tend to avoid the yukky stuff.
The Borg analogy was also pretty good in that it points to the Hive Mind. What one drone learns, all drones learn. While there are some definite advantages of this and it reminds me of D. Dennett’s quote about a joined cognitive system. The downside is that indiscriminate consumers of the information could be misinformed by the unscrupulous participants out there.
Dr. Foreman's driving analogy was really descriptive in how navigating around all these wonderfully collaborative and user-generated content can be tricky. She said that it’s like people are learning how to drive while simultaniously trying to figure out how to get to their destination. Meanwhile, all the beginners on the road could, and more likely would, cause accidents.
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