Pages

Showing posts with label TED Talks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label TED Talks. Show all posts

Sunday, December 04, 2011

Gaming to Learn by Learning to Game

Gaming to Learn by Learning to Game opening page
Gaming isn't about merely playing games. It's about learning through creative problem solving, social interaction, diplomacy, collaboration, and critical thinking.

On Friday, December 9 at 1:00 PM GMT (7:00 AM Central Standard Time) the K-12 Online Conference will release a 20-minute presentation that I created on Gaming. (If you haven't seen it yet, you might want to read my previous post that explains how the K-12 Online Conference works.)

You can get to the video at Gaming to Learn by Learning to Game.

 This slideshow can be found at SlideShare.com at Gaming to Learn


Here are the resources I used in the presentation:

Bottle Bank Arcade image gaming
The Fun Theory is an international project sponsored by Volkswagen to explore how play can be used to change behavior and induce learning in a positive manner.




Jane McGonigal on stage. Gaming Games Learning
Jane McGonigal - A game designer who is researching how gaming can make a difference in the world.  She has a number of presentations that she has collected on her personal page.








  World Without Oil screen gaming
World Without Oil is an alternate reality game that was held in 2007.  The Video is quite informative about how they did it and what the results turned out to be.






Partnership for 21st Century   skills
Partnership for 21st Century Skills and Iowa Core Curriculum are two resources for identifying and promoting 21st Century skill development for our schools.







3D Game Lab  Gaming Quests
The 3D GameLab of Boise State University is the brainchild of Lisa Dawley and Chris Haskell.  This is a system that they are developing which will provide educators with an interactive system for creating learning in a gaming environment.

Sunday, October 23, 2011

How Gaming Makes a Difference in Your World (Ted Talks)

Gaming is much more than trying to shoot down Space Invaders or battling between alliances and hordes in Azeroth or teleport through Portals. Jane McGonigal believes that increased gaming can help solve the problems in the world. Stuart Brown explains the benefits and necessity of having fun to create a fully-developed person.  What do you think?  How does this apply to your concept of learning?

Gaming Can Make a Better World
Jane McGonigal
TED 1998


Dr. McGonigal has a vision for the future based upon the propagation of playing games. She has bases her future ideas on stories of the past. Conversely, her plans involve a future that provides opportunities that are now available due to today's technological opportunities.

Explore Dr. McGonigal's website and share in her visions for the future.  You will notice that her website is presented within a gaming context.

Play is More than Fun
Stuart Brown
Serious Gaming Conference, 2008

The importance of play is apparent throughout society. Dr. Brown demonstrates how it is a necessary aspect of personal development for both human and non-human species.
How does this relate to gaming? What needs to be changed in your learning environment to begin to provide this sort of fun learning experience?

A Manifesto for Play, for Bulgaria and Beyond
Steve Keil
TEDxBG Talks in Sofia, Bulgaria
 
Steve Keil shares his ideas on how the whole culture of Bulgaria can be improved through allowing and pursuing play. Consider the culture he is describing where fun and play were squashed through years of communistic oppression.

Do you agree with his ideas for making change? What is he doing that is making a different world in the world? How does this relate to the messages that Stuart Brown is proposing?
Check out his http://playmanifesto.org to review his ideas.

Look for additional resources and add them to the comments below.  What can you find that will benefit your colleagues use in their understanding of our futures' possibilities?
Enhanced by Zemanta

Saturday, October 22, 2011

How is Gaming Different for Boys and Girls? (TED Talks)

Games for Girls
Brenda Laurel

Brenda Laurel explores her research into designing games for girls.  She questions what games for girls need to contain and how they might be designed to benefit girls.

Do you agree with them?  How does this align with your experiences?  If you were a girl once, do these finding match your feelings?

This is a 1998 TED video. Does it still apply? Find updated information and include it in the comments section of this posting.

Gaming to Re-Engage Boys in Learning
Ali Carr-Chellman

Ali really digs into the effect of today's classrooms on boys' engagement in learning. She
shares stats that show boys have 3 time the difficulties of girls in succeeding in the typical classroom. She advocates using gaming in schools to make learning relevant to boys' learning styles. She says that gaming is not the problem but a symptom of boys trying to make life relevant.

Ali identifies 3 reasons that school cultures are out of synch with boys' cultures:
  1. Zero Tolerance
  2. Writing
  3. Fewer Male Teachers
It is a video that makes you rethink how learning should engage boys.

Saturday, August 13, 2011

You are Significant and YOU MATTER - Angela Maiers

Angela Maiers is an amazing person. She travels Iowa, the nation and the world working with educators and students. Her message is one of personal empowerment. She recently spoke at the TEDx - Des Moines where she delivered an inspirational talk about the importance of paying attention to others and validating their importance.

I have seen Angela speak and count her as a friend but this talk is quite moving and YOU MUST take 20-minutes to watch it. She shares stories of working with students and motivating them to do their best by acknowledging their genius. This is what we need to do every day to empower others and ultimately make the world a better place.

Thank you, Angela.

What are your reactions to watching this video?  Please watch it and share.
Your opinion MATTERS!!!


Tuesday, August 09, 2011

TED Talks About Gaming in Our Daily Lives

I was just reviewing the gaming videos on TED Talks and found some jewels. These are videos by leaders in the field that included some observations that opened my eyes.

The Game Layer on Real Life
Seth Priebatsch


Seth talks about building a Game Layer on the world. The game layer is already there. He points out that credit card schemes and airline reward programs are prime examples of a gaming format where citizens/players are rewarded for performing the desired behavior (i.e., spending money using credit cards.)  They are there, but not very well designed.

He says that the past decade has been spent building the Social Layer which is a framework for connections. This framework is done and it is called Facebook.   Now that we have the framework, it is necessary to build the Game Layer.  It is about using dynamics to influence how we behave.

He talks about 4 important gaming dynamics:
  1. Appointment Dynamic - in order to succeed, the player must do something at a specific time.
  2. Influence in Status - reward actions that will provide a specific level of status.
  3. Progression Dynamics - success is displayed and measured through itemized tasks.
  4. Communal Discovery - people working together to find a specific set of information.

When Games Invade Real Life
Jesse Schell


Jesse talks about "Beyond Facebook."

He takes us on a long journey which uncovers a number of changes in our world that have been caused by the new gaming culture. He even talks about how gaming can be used to modify our behavior. He even talks about earning points while we brush our teeth in the morning. This supports Priebatsch's idea of layering gaming over our real lives.  It's difficult to explain his presentation but it is a real eye-opener and you should watch it.

These videos really made me thing about what gaming means to our lives.  It isn't necessarily about jamming on Guitar Hero. It's about the ubiquitous reward system that is possible in today's digital world.

What do you think about this? Is gaming changing your life? Do you agree that we are on the threshold of the Gaming Age?

Z

Friday, August 05, 2011

Is Gaming "As Real As Your Life?"

David Perry                      Michael Perry via WikipediaOnce again, TED comes through with a video that made me think about the future. This isn't just any future, but it is the future brought to us by David Perry where he suggests that our perception and interaction with the world will be moderated or at least affected by simulation gaming. David Perry is a game designer who has created games like Enter Matrix, The Terminator, Aladdin, and Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles,

Perry does a stupendous job of taking us through the evolution of various types of games including game boarding, basketball (from stick figures to life-like player where you can see the sweat rolling off his brow), boxing, StarWars, and 1st-person shooter games. It's easy to see how things on the screen can be mistaken for reality.

The most effective part of the talk was the excerpt he played from Michael Highland's film, As Real As Your Life. Highland explains that he was born in 1984 (the beginning of the Millennial Generation) and his constant involvement with video games has changed his life. The border between his real world and video world have blurred. His interaction in the virtual world is helping mold who he is in the real world. He has driven over 32,000 miles in virtual cars while he has only put 25,000 miles on his real car. 

How will this affect our learning? It has a dramatic effect in who we are and what we do. Does it make us a better or worse person? No. Learning through video games is no different than learning through real life except the learner/teacher has some control over the situations where the learner is learning. This can provide a much richer and more skilled learner because s/he can be experienced beyond his/her years. Look at how this is used with astronauts, pilots, police officers, soldiers and doctors. They have learned to react or proact in situations they have never before experienced in real life. At least when they experience it in the virtual world, there are few repercussions from mistakes that they may experience.

The gaming world can provide a rich experience for learners inside and outside of the classroom. The only problem is that it can be quite complex and more difficult to create such an environment. It is much easier to simply create a lecture with a few poorly-made PowerPoints.  The advantage is that once the gaming environment has been created, it can  reused without much more work on the part of the teacher. It should be continually reviewed and updated as necessary, but it is not like creating a whole new learning situation.



Enhanced by Zemanta

Friday, October 01, 2010

5 MORE TED Talks about Education and Learning: It's about Relevance

I LOVE TED.  No, I am not sharing any unusual amorous intentions. I just enjoy the wealth of genius that is shared through the TED network. 

I had a great response from you readers to the first 5 videos that I posted so here is another 5 videos on learning and teaching that I think you will enjoy:

Sugata Mitra shares How Kids Teach Themselves. He has successfully implemented student-centered learning throughout the world.   In 2007, he introduced his Hole in the Wall project that he has introduced in remote areas. He explores how children can learn through incidental learning. It is an innovative idea for learning about the essence of facilitating learning.

In his 2010 presentation, Child-Driven Education, Sugata Mitra talked about how he addressed the problem of having a great need for good teachers where schools don't exist. He provided a number of examples where computers were used to provide learning opportunities.  This is not about computer labs. It is about groups of children gathering around public computers.  My favorite quote was "Children will learn to do, what they want to learn to do."   Hmmm . . . . sounds like relevance is important to children as well as adults.  What do you think?

Arthur Benjamin's Formula for Changing Math Education  Arthur Benjamin questions the relevance of our secondary math curriculum. He suggests that we replace the calculus-oriented sequence with one that emphasizes statistics. It would be a huge upheaval of our present math system, but is our current math system still relevant to our students' needs?

Along those same lines, Liz Coleman issues a call to reinvent liberal arts education. She regrets the path that American education has take in emphasizing narrow pursuits of knowledge. She suggests that liberal arts need to be oriented to address real-world problems. She stats that "Deep thought matters when you're contemplating what to do about things that matter." Once again, it's ALL about relevancy.

A FUN presentation was given by David Merrill who Demos Siftables. Siftables are "cookie-sized, computerized tiles you can stack and shuffle in your hands." They put the opportunity for learning in the hands of the learners.  These tiles can do math, play music, and even talk with each other. It is an amazing opportunity for hands-on learning.


What do you think?  What did you learn from these videos?

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

5 TED Talks about Education and Learning

TED ROCKS!!!!
The TED Talks is a conference that covers for Technology, Education and Design. This is the opportunity for some of the greatest minds on the planet to get together to share their visions, accomplishments, and ideas. It began as a single event in 1984 and turned into an annual event in 1990.

Since 1990, TED has accrued hundreds of videos of these <18 minute presentations. I must admit that I like to watch these more than anything I can find on TV (except maybe West Wing). These videos range from education to architecture to global warming to world hunger to ????  The list seems endless.  They continually challenge your ideas and give birth to new ones.
Over the past couple of years, TED conferences have been held around the world. These are called TEDx conferences. As of 2010, there have been at least 60 of these TEDx conferences held. India, New York, Rotterdam, Sydney, San Francisco, Boston, Tokyo, Shanghai, Des Moines have all been venues for a TEDx event. (Here is an ever-increasing list of these events) I even heard a rumor that recently, when a group of creative people were stranded in the Heathrow Airport in London because of Icelandic volcanos, they even presented an impromptu TEDx. Don't know if there were any videos taken of that but it would have been interesting.  NOTE: Robin Galloway noted in the comments (see below) that the Heathrow TED was called TEDxVolcano and that the videos can be found on the TED Blog.

Notice that I mentioned Des Moines, Iowa as a site for a TEDx. On May 16, 2010, I had the wonderful opportunity to attend the first TEDx in Des Moines. As you can see from the list on their website, we had Superintendent Carver, Christian Renaud, Dr. Sue Savage Rumbaugh (see below), Fernando Aveiga, and Charlie Wittmack & Andy Stoll.  I will do a more complete report on this when they get their videos online.
Here are some videos about education and learning that I wanted to share with you. There are many more in this field that I liked and I will share them at a later date, but this is the beginning of a series.
Apes by Dr. Susan Savage-Rumbaugh
You will notice that I am beginning with a video on Apes. This doesn't have much to do with schools, but it has a great deal to do with learning. Consider what you are seeing and what it says about the learning process in both human and non-human primates.
Schools Kill Our Creativity by Sir Ken Robinson
Sir Robinson is a strong proponent of rethinking school.  He doesn't propose that we should update it. He believes that is should be completely redone to nurture instead of destroy our children's creativity.
Bring on the Learning Revolution by Sir Ken Robinson
Continuing with his revolutionary perspective, Sir Robinson, advocates nurturing students' strengths.

What Adults Can Learn from Kids by Adora Svitak
A 12-year old lecturing adults to take children more seriously. Adora has been lecturing since she was 7 years old and lectures throughout the world about life from a child's perspective.

Life Lessons Through Tinkering by Gever Tulley
Learning doesn't have to be about books. A great deal of learning has to do with developing ideas and turning them into reality by tinkering.
True Success by John Wooden
The winningest basketball coach in history, John Wooden shares his definitions of success and learning.

I hope that you have enjoyed these videos.  What are your favorite TED talks?  What should I be watching?

Z

 

photos:tedtalks.com

Friday, May 14, 2010

People don't buy WHAT you do, they buy WHY you do it - Simon Sinek

The sun is out and the skies are clear.  This means that I can walk to school and enjoy life. My favorite part of walking to school is listening to my iPod Touch as I travel. Lately I have been listening to the TED Talks presentations. I have arranged my Synching settings so that every time that I synch, it will place another set of 10 unheard TED Talk presentations on my iPod.

I will NEVER run out of TED Talks presentations this way!!!



Anywho, I had the pleasure of listening to Simon Sinek's Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Action presentation. In this presentation, Simon explores his research into why some companies lead and some follow. He talks about his Golden Circle.

He uses the Golden Circle to describe how some organizations are able to lead while others are not. He states that the followers in a field move from the outside inward. They emphasize What they do and How they do it. Leaders in the field begin with Why they do it, How they do it and What they do.

You MUST watch this 18-minute video. I have watched it about 5 times now and am finding that I am applying it to everything that I do.  I am working on a grant with top-notch team of experts. We are progressing along nicely, but I keep wondering if we are conveying WHY we are doing it. Would it make a difference to its appeal to the funding organization if we began with explaining WHY we are doing our proposed program and then explaining HOW we are going to do it?  Would it appeal more to principals in the schools if we shared WHY we are doing this program and then explaining HOW we will be doing it?  I don't know.

What do you think?

I found that Simon Sinek has a book. Not surprisingly, it is entitled Start with Why. I am going to order this from Amazon.

Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action [Hardcover]


image: leadershipnow.com

Saturday, March 14, 2009

A Taste of the Future: SixthSense Computing from MIT

I was just watching a TED Talks video of Patti Maes describing her SixthSense project at MIT. It is a "wearable gestural interface that augments the physical world around us with digital information." This computerized device is something that hangs around your neck like a pendant. It is comprised of a pocket projector, a mirror and a camera. The mobile computing device is in the user's pocket.

This is a mobile computing device that can what you see and what you know about your surroundings. This is definitely Augmented Reality where what you see is made more meaningful with additional information. The camera reads the environment and the projector projects images upon whatever is in front of you to provide additional information. When you pick up a book, the computer can look at the AISN number and then beam reviews onto a blank page in the book. If you want to make a phone call, the projector will project a key pad onto your hand and you can just press on the projected numbers to dial. My favorite is that you can just create a box using the thumb and forefinger on each hand and the system will take a photo of what you see through the box (you have to see this one to understand it.)

It is difficult to describe how this system works so you should watch the TED Talk and the additional WUW/SixthSense video (this video has some of the footage used in the TED talk, but it goes beyond that.)




What do you think? How would this device change your life?

Z


Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Saturday, March 07, 2009

Web Stats and the Future According to Kevin Kelly

Kevin Kelly gave a TED Talk in December, 2007, entitled "Predicting the Next 5000 days of the Web." In this 19-minutes talk, he discussed where the Web has been, where it is now and where it will probably be going.

I especially liked Kelly's talk because he agrees with what I have been thinking for years. He says that through the Web, we are developing a single one-ness of knowledge. We are building a semantic web of connectedness through which people can share, learn and develop a better understanding of the universere (however you define that.)

Throughout the talk, Kelly cited a number of stats that you might find interesting. He didn't cite his sources for the stats so if you use this information, you will probably have to cite his presentation or do additional research to find his source. (If you find the sources, please add them to the comments below.)

I STRONGLY recommend that you watch this TED Talk (as well as the other 400 talks). I know that David Thornburg has said that watching TED Talks has replaced his watching TV. I can't say that I have completely "made the switch" but I am definitely learning more from TED than "Burned Notice."

Web Stats according to Kelly:
(Remember that he quoted these stats in December, 2007. He also quoted Moore's Law that says computing power doubles every 2 years - you do the math.)

Kevin Kelly's Web stats:
  • 100 billion clicks per day
  • 55 trillion links
  • 1 billion PC chips on the internet
  • 2 million emails per second
  • 1 million IM messages per second
  • 8 terrabytes per second traffic
  • 65 billion phone calls per year
  • 255 exabytes of magnetic storage
  • 1 million voice queries per hour
  • 2 billion location nodes activated
  • 600 billion rfid tabs used
  • Uses 5% of global electricity
He compared the Web to the complexity of the Human Brain
  • 1 billion social sites on the web
  • 55 trillion links (similar to the number of synapses in the human brain.)
  • 1 quintillion transistors (similar to the number of neurons in the human brain.
Moore's law indicates that this is doubling in power every 2 years

Identified it as a McLuen Reversal where:
  • "Machines are an extension of the senses" (McLuen)
  • The senses are an extension of The Machine (Kelly)

Explored the Restructuring towards a Semantic Network
  1. Linking Computers - The Net
  2. Linking Pages - The Web
  3. Linking Data - The One Machine

Cited TLAs (Three-Letter Acronyms) of the Web

XML - eXtensible Markup Language
RSS - Real Simple Syndication
API - Applicaton Programming Interface
RDF - Resource Description Framework
OWL - Web Ontology Language

Kelly ended by describing
The One. This is his prediction of the future world and how it is interconnected through the Web or whatever form on connected network we will develop in the next 5000 days (13.7 years). (Sounds like The Borg to me.)

There is only One machine
The web is its OS
All screens look into the One
No bits will live outside the web.
To share is to gain.
Let the One read it.
The One is Us.

What do YOU think? Do you agree with these Web stats that Kevin Kelly has presented?

Monday, March 02, 2009

How Twitter's spectacular growth is being driven by unexpected uses - Evan Willams at TED Talks

Just listened to Evan Williams, founder of Twitter, on TED Talks. In his 8-minute talk, he explained how Twitter was molded by how users used it instead of how the company designed it. Here are some highlights from the lecture:
  • Defined Twitter as "Say what you are doing in 140 characters or less. People who are interested in you get those updates. If they are REALLY interested in you, they will get those updates on their cell phones."
  • Twitter lets people share their lives - both the spectacular and mundane.
  • He didn't anticipate how important Twitter could be in real time events.
  • Information was shared during the San Diego fires.
  • There are currently over 2000 apps for twitter including one that allows an unborn baby to twitter when it kicks or a plant to twitter when it needs water.
  • Summize was a company that built a Twitter search engine. Williams liked the search engine so much that they bought the company.
  • Some people in Atlanta used Twitter to find gas when it was scarce.
  • People have raised tens of thousands of dollars for people in crisis over Twitter in a matter of days.
  • Don't know what will happen next with Twitter, but when you give people easier ways to share information - more good things will happen.
Would you believe that at the end of his talk, the MC of TED searched Twitter to find about 50 tweets about Evans' talk.

Here is a man who is changing the world with his imagination. He invented Blogger as well.

BTW, if you aren't watching/listening to TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) Talks, you are missing an opportunity to listen to the greatest minds in the world.

Follow Dr. Z on Twitter at http://twitter.com/zeitz