blogging life & creation for young minds
Last night, I got my beta invitation to Kingsisle Entertainment’s new mmo for kids: Wizard 101 and although I’m still a mere Novice Conjurer who hasn’t explored much beyond Unicorn Way, I am impressed with the game so far.
Continue reading ‘First impressions: Wizard 101’
Tags: gaming, kingsisle, media, mmo, technology, videogames, virtualworlds, wizard101Yesterday was the Joan Ganz Cooney Center Inaugural Symposium, Logging Into the Playground: How Digital Media Are Shaping Children’s Learning, in New York City and thanks to the wonders of streaming media and virtual worlds like Second Life, I was able to take part in the action.
The site’s blurb described the event as:
Key leaders from the fields of research, industry, policy, philanthropy, and education will convene to examine how recent research and experimentation with interactive media such as games, mobile technologies, and other platforms can accelerate children’s literacy learning. We will also be releasing recent research and reports from the Center, including a national survey conducted with Common Sense Media that examines parents’ and educators’ attitudes regarding digital media use in young children. Another highlight is the early release of a white paper by noted games expert, James Paul Gee.
The whole day was packed with great speakers, from PBS, EA Games and many NGOs, each outlining their plans for engaging learners with digital technology from virtual worlds to talking books and everything in between.
For me, however, the most important part of the day was release of some great papers on digital learning, including James Paul Gee’s “Getting Over the Slump: Innovation Strategies to Promote Children’s Learning.” [pdf]
In the paper, Gee calls for the American education system to wake up and start some serious action to engage learners and prepare them for the digital future. In addition to calling for more funding of school programs and a revamping of how kids are assessed, Gee outlines a vision for “Digital Teacher’s Corp”, where teachers are “trained to help students learn to transform information for discovery and problem solving, not leave it inert in storage.” Gee also sees a role for the community in the learning of students through centres not unlike the Boys & Girls Club, where children can go to learn and build on their digital literacy skills. Personally, I see these centres working like the literacy tutoring centres, Once Upon a School Dave Eggers has helped create (and outlines in this fantastic TED Talk), but instead of magazine editors and writers, the place is filled with game designers who take the afternoon off to teach kids how to make video games.
Although the conference and the reports are all from US educators and based in the current education climate in the states, Canadian educators have the same lessons to learn. As our education system begins to move toward standardized testing, now is the time for provinces and school boards across the country to increase their funding of technology in schools and create innovative programming that is rooted in sound pedagogical theory but also designed for the future and the learners who will make that future.
Check out more about the symposium here.
Tags: education, gaming, literacy, media, rezed, technology, teensWith the arrival of ning.com, creating social networks is as easy as creating an email account. I find places like Facebook too broad in their focus for an online network. Same with LinkedIn (although as more people are joining linkedin and find me, a cohesive network is forming for me.)
Already I belong to a few ning groups, like Classroom 2.0, but I’m really excited about the latest group I’ve joined: RezEd, the MacArthur funded network for educators interested in using virtual worlds in education.
I blogged about RezEd a few months ago and have been waiting for their launch ever since. They went into a live beta earlier this week and the place is beginning to fill up nicely now (I think they’re close to 200 members at the moment.)
Being a very new network, there is much territory that needs to be defined, so I took the initiative and created the K-8 Virtual Worlds group, with the aim for it to be:
A place to discuss, challenge and explore virtual worlds for elementary learners from Kindergarten to Grade 8. Join the discussion. Share your thoughts and help shape these powerful spaces for youth.
With educational virtual worlds like Quest Atlantis and others receiving both funding and accolades from the public, I think we are at the beginning of something very important in education. If you agree or are just curious about what these spaces are or what learning they can facilitate for students, then I invite you to explore RezEd and join the discussion.
In the meantime, check out this video of Quest Atlantis in action:
Hope to see you inside.
Tags: education, gaming, questatlantis, technology, virtualworldsWriting this as I run out the door: Heading out to finally see the totally cool looking new documentary, Second Skin as part of Toronto’s equally cool Hot Docs festival.
After that, I’m meeting with the star of the film (okay, he’s got a 15 second soundbite) Tony Walsh, evil genius and chief navigator at Phantom Compass.
After that, we’re heading off to check out the open house for the latest round of Jim Munroe’s Artsy Game Incubator. It kicks off at 7pm and is open to all, so if you’re in Toronto come on by.
If you’re not in TO, then I’ll leave you with the trailer for Second Skin, which hopefully will be coming to a theatre near you in the very near future.
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Last Friday marked the end of my classes at OISE’s Bachelor of Education program, but I’m not done with my teacher training or talking to teachers.
In addition to a month-long internship at the Institute of Child Studies Lab School, I’m heading out to Huron Street School this afternoon to talk with elementary teachers about virtual worlds for kids. It’ll be part of an overall workshop on critical literacies in the classroom, much like my presentation at the OISE Dean’s Conference in March.
I’ll be looking at the underlying messages that are currently in most kids’ vws (ie the game/coin/consumption cycle of consumerism) and showing teachers how they can get their students to look critically at the messages, question them and reimagine their own virtual worlds with messages they’d like to see.
If you’re interested in learning more, there’s a blog for the presentation and a below are the ppt slides (but there’s no audio and slides really need audio to make sense – will work on that.)
Tags: consumerism, education, kids, virtual worlds
Virtual Worlds 2008 has come and gone and while I spent the weekend wrapping up some writing projects and searching in vain for a feed/stream/webcast of the conference, the who’s who of vw’s talked shop and engaged in some serious crystal ball gazing. Over at Virtual Worlds News they’ve got a good wrap-up of the weekends events.
When it comes to kids virtual worlds, here’s some highlights that I noted:
Continue reading ‘Virtual Worlds 2008 wrap up’
No tag for this post.There is a great discussion going on over at Shaping Youth (starting with this post and then this one) and Izzy Neis about the possibilities of eco-education in kids’ virtual worlds. I’m so happy to hear this discussion because, as I’ve said before, virtual worlds for kids are bursting with educational opportunities as well as a chance for brand-extension and the moving of product.
Continue reading ‘All kids’ virtual worlds are educational’
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The auditorium on ISTE Island was packed last night, with a maximum of 74 avatars gathered to hear online community pioneer Howard Rheingold talk about his Social Media Virtual Classroom project. He did that and a lot more.
Continue reading ‘Rheingold draws “maximum” crowd in Second Life’
No tag for this post.Thanks [yet again!] to my twitter network, I learned about the Subcommittee meeting of the US Congress, Online Virtual Worlds: Applications and Avatars in a User-Generated Medium, (archived video here) just as it was kicking off. I managed to catch all the good and the bad. And so did some other bloggers.
Continue reading ‘Congress hearing on virtual worlds’
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