Learning & Technology News

Just how far can we incorporate the concept of video games into modern learning? This article from Edutopia by Judy Willis MD focuses on the video-game-strucutural-model-as-teaching-method scenario.

The truth is that the iPad is not destined to change the face of education. Nor is it just an expensive toy bought only by Apple fanboys, as some anti-Apple bloggers hyperbolize. It's a tool, like any other, and in the classroom it must always be thought of as being in the service of pedagogy. The pedagogical foundations must be solid, because the tool will achieve no heights the underlying pedagogy will not support.

Teachers from around the world of ELT share their opinions and ideas about what they want from the perfect digital course book.

How has the English language changed over the course of the last 500 years? What are the social and political contexts that have affected how these changes have come about?

Refelcting on these ideas it is clear to see that the best practive we currently identify by those at the cutting edge of technology use within education has one key attribute in common: it is student centric. It is for this reason that we should all ensure our VLE’s, MLE’s Learning Platforms, Learning Gateways and whatever it is we want to call them increasingly become one thing. A personal learning environment where students can add, edit, tag, comment, search, share and review their learning. This is surely the reason behind our use of technology within education: to promote independance and interdependance amongst learners and instant interaction and feedback with students and teachers to ensure we are engaging in meaningful learning.

Have your say about how you think teachers should be approaching this difficult issue. You can read and find out what teachers think, or you can vote, add suggestions or add refinements to the existing arguments.

"Exchange 2.0 - Technology-enabled International Interaction" was developed to help teachers use the Internet to "reach out" globally. These materials were initially prepared as part of the US Department of Education's inaugural International Education Week in November 2000 and were hosted by the US Department of Education. This is the third version of this Guide.

Mentira, a project launched in July 2009, is the first mobile, place-based, augmented reality game explicitly oriented towards the development of language skills in Spanish. It is set in a Spanish-speaking neighborhood in Albuquerque, NM and plays out much like a historical novel in which fact and fiction combine to set the context and social conditions for meaningful interaction (in Spanish) with simulated characters, other players, and local citizens. While playing Mentira, learners must investigate clues and talk to various non-player characters (NPCs) in order to absolve their own family, proving they are not responsible for a murder in a local neighborhood.

The Obama Administration’s recently unveiled plan for transforming American education through technology does not envision “plugging kids in and making them smarter,” declares Karen Cator. Instead, it focuses on leveraging aspects of digital technology “to create way more compelling environments in schools,” and to address educational inequities and the larger issue of undereducated Americans.

The reality is the astounding rise of the internet as a social intermediary with social media being the number 1 use of the web, 600 million Facebook users. Potential employees, employees, learners and customers, are using this stuff in anger. The modern executive, manager, teacher or trainer can’t really call themselves a professional without at least a knowledge of social media. You’ve got to play with this stuff to understand its virtues and vices.

Inanimate Alice is a remarkable literary and digital phenomenon – a ‘born digital’ text, authored by Kate Pullinger, an award-winning Canadian novelist, that deploys text, video, images, sound and gaming components to deliver a compelling and powerful tale of a young girl, Alice, who travels the world with her parents. To date, the story develops over four episodes (there are six more in the pipeline) and the narrative increases in complexity as Alice herself grows older through the story. Like many who have met Alice, the young reader above has been completely gripped by her tale.