I had a conversation with an Iowa parent the other day. In middle school her son started making voice-narrated Pokemon game walkthrough videos and posting them on YouTube. That’s exactly the kind of thing that most adults would look at and consider ‘a complete waste of time.’ He’s now 18 and has 70,000+ subscribers to...
Category: gaming
Is Diane Ravitch anti-technology?
I confess that I’m struggling with Diane Ravitch lately (and not for the reasons I struggled back in 2010). I think that she’s a valuable voice in the educational policy landscape and I greatly appreciate her passion and her ability to energize educators and citizens as she speaks up against political and pedagogical abuses of...
What does it take?
Upcoming travel and events December 3-5 – International School of Amsterdam, The Netherlands February 3 – Virginia Is for Learners Innovation Network, TBD, VA February 25-26 – Missouri Educational Technology Leaders CTO Clinic, TBD, MO March 10-13 – Central & Eastern European Schools Association (CEESA) Annual Conference, Budapest, Hungary June 8-9 – Roanoke County Public...
Most educational games teach skills, not thinking
Jordan Shapiro said: The majority of [learning] games fail because they attempt to teach skills rather than thinking. They focus on retention rather than understanding. They miss the whole reason we should be excited about game-based learning in the first place: because it offers the potential to change the common way we approach teaching and...