Brian C. Smith's Library tagged gaming → View Popular

During the past four years of the survey, the technology that students most wanted to see implemented in their classrooms was a personal laptop for each student. For the first time this year, laptops for students also topped the list of teachers’ and school leaders’ most desired technologies.
64 percent of students in grades K-12 say they play online or electronic-based games regularly.
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- Julie Evans, Project Tomorrow’s chief executive. “Students are really articulating their interest in gaming, as well as the many benefits educational gaming can provide, such as helping them to learn difficult math concepts. Even the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics recognizes the huge potential for gaming technologies [in education].”
- It’s driving up math scores. When our students are experiencing success on the game, it transfers to success in the classroom.”
- Nearly two-thirds of middle and high school students said “let me use my own laptop, cell phone, or other mobile device at school.”
- While 53 percent of middle and high school students are excited about using mobile devices to help them learn, only 15 percent of school leaders support this idea. Also, fewer than half as many parents as students see a place for online learning in the 21^st century school.
- And even fewer teachers, parents, and school leaders want students to have access to eMail and instant-messaging accounts from school.
- Keeping school leaders well informed is the first step toward helping to bridge this disconnect
- Hopefully, the results of this survey will reach them. If school leaders become more familiar with student views,
- his vision for the ultimate school is one where the teachers and the principal actively seek and regularly include the ideas of students in discussions and planning for all aspects of education—not just technology.

13 May 08

Education Week's Digital Directions: Building Gaming Into Science Education

Science and gaming

www.edweek.org/...04sciencegames_web.h01.html - Preview

gaming science

"[Games are] kind of a model for what the scientific method is," says Ken Eklund, a freelance game designer in San Jose, Calif.
"It's really a part of student culture."
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- "I've had teachers tell me,” says Eklund, “that after they introduced the game to their students, the classroom went completely silent because all of the kids were just reading."
  
  "You just don't get that kind of engagement and involvement with the story" with a textbook, he says.
- A report written by researchers about The River City Project for a 2006 conference concluded "that students learned biology content, that students and teachers were highly engaged, that student attendance improved, that disruptive behavior dropped, that students were building 21st-century skills in virtual communication and expression, and importantly, that using this type of technology in the classroom can facilitate good inquiry learning."
- "I'm in a unique situation where there's a computer at every lab table," he says, pointing out that many teachers do not have that ratio of students to computers.
- when the games don't work properly, but most teachers don’t have that level of technical skill, she points out.
- "There are little things you need to know," she says, to keep the games running smoothly. "[Otherwise], it's not going to work in the classroom, and teachers aren't going to use it."
- "If [the game] doesn't have a focus or clear reason for what they're doing, it really doesn't work," says Pokrzywinski. Adapting games to the curriculum is possible, she says, but it takes time—something many teachers don't have.

08 May 08

The Games Teachers Play - Education Articles

www.districtadministration.com/viewarticle.aspx - Preview

literacy gaming stager teaching

Rather than take the steps necessary to make school more social, teachers more engaging, and curriculum more relevant, we either shift blame to parents, TV and hip hop, or seek salvation in the lessons of Grand Theft Auto.
Perhaps there are many more distractions facing children today, but great teachers continue to create environments where their students want to be and to learn.
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- Teachers tend to become dependent on teacher-proof systems and stop exercising professional judgment.