FINALLY S&P Dropped U.S. Credit Rating from AAA to AA+

It FINALLY happened.

An outside organization has finally spoken out to tell our elected officials in Washington that their infantile battling is leading our country into poverty. Yesterday Standard and Poor's dropped the United States of America's long-term rating from AAA to AA+. (Now our rating matches that of Belgium) They were reviewing our country's administration as they would any company's leadership and they found us wanting.

Their decision and their rationale for this decision was posted in the public domain in an 8-page report. Here it is:

US Downgraded AA+

The problem is that very few people will read this short but informative document. Pundits and politicians are already spinning this into a political decision that is the result of poor administration.  It is your responsibility as an American citizen to read this report to know why this change was made.

Let's take a look at some of the reasons they have become disenchanted with how our politicians are administering our country.  All of these quotes come from S&P's document above. 

S&P says "Our lowering of the rating was prompted by our view on the rising public debt burden and our perception of greater policymaking uncertainty, consistent with our criteria . . . Nevertheless, we view the U.S. federal government's other economic, external, and monetary credit attributes, which form the basis for the sovereign rating, as broadly unchanged."

They were disappointed in our politicians' unwillingness to work together to effect the necessary changes that can deliver us from our fiscal servitude. "Our opinion is that elected officials remain wary of tackling the structural issues required to effectively address the rising U.S. public debt burden."

"The political brinksmanship of recent months highlights what we see as America's governance and policymaking becoming less stable, less effective, and less predictable than what we previously believed. The statutory debt ceiling and the threat of default have become political bargaining chips in the debate over fiscal policy. Despite this year's wide-ranging debate, in our view, the differences between political parties have proven to be extraordinarily difficult to bridge, and, as we see it, the resulting agreement fell well short of the comprehensive fiscal consolidation program that some proponents had envisaged until quite recently."

John Chambers of S&P says that they evaluate countries' strengths in 5 areas: Political Setting, Fiscal Profile, Real Economy, External Situation, and Monetary Policy. The two areas where the U.S. was weak were Political Setting and Fiscal Profile. Their explanatory report identifies upside and downside scenarios. The Upside Scenario projects that the net public debt burden "would rise from an estimated 74% of GDP by the end of 2011 to 77% in 2015 and to 78% by 2021." The Downside Scenario projects that "the net public debt burden would rise from 74% of GDP in 2011 to 90% in 2015 and to 101% by 2021."  Even in the best of projections, this means that in ten years for every $10 in the US GDP (market value of all final goods and services produced in our country) we will have borrowed $8 to help that happen.

Yes, there was a $2 trillion error in S&P's calculations but that doesn't make the difference. It's about leadership. It's about the Political Setting. Please remember that U.S. leadership is not just the President. It involves the House and Senate working with the President in a bipartisan manner that is directed towards the betterment of our country. Roadblocking plans just for either party's benefit in future elections is the type of irresponsible leadership that leads to this loss of confidence.

We have spent the last decade overspending our budget and not paying attention to balancing income and expenditures. We have been in 2+ wars since 2002 and there have been no increases in revenue (taxes, closing tax loopholes, etc.). The cost of the wars weren't even included in Bush's budgets. We have a $14,000,000,000,000 debt ceiling and our leaders believe that we just need to raise the debt ceiling to take care of things? I don't think so.

While I don't look forward to the consequences of this monumental drop in the U.S. Credit rating, I hope that it will finally catch the attention of the irresponsible blockage on Capitol Hill.

What do you think?

Z

Is Gaming "As Real As Your Life?"

                      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.

Related articles

• Virtual Worlds Are Scary for Parents, Liberating for Kids (pbs.org)
• Supporting Learning Styles in the Virtual World (gridjumper.net)
• Video games teach kids 'new literacy': Do you buy it? (theglobeandmail.com)
• Video Game Lessons (magwunderlich.wordpress.com)

*This posting was prompted by an assignment from 3D GameLab.

Is THIS Fully Digitalized Classroom Better?

Recently, the Learning Matters blog posted a 9-minute piece that they filmed about a school district in Mooresville, North Carolina that went "completely digital."  All of the students and teachers from grades 4 - 12 have laptops (over 5,000).  This project began 3 years ago and the teachers are describing big differences in their teaching and the students' learning.

Is this any different then other 1-to-1 experiences? Is it really about the computers? What changes do you see in the pedagogy of the school?  It is difficult to answer these questions in 9 minutes, but what do you think?

Watch the video and see what you think? They have had reductions in school problems. They have an active filtering system on the information accessible. They blog YouTube, FaceBook and MySpace.


What do you think?

Z

7 Ways Games Reward the Brain

On August 1, I began a 3-week class through Boise State University entitled 3D GameLab.
This online experience is designed to provide an opportunity where an educator/learner can become involved in a game-based learning situation first-hand. It's a personal journey through the gaming theory that is purveyed by Gee and Prensky.

It's VERY personal and I like it.

The explanation of how this works is rather complicated. It is complex enough to warrant it's own independent posting at another time. The main reason that I am writing this post is because it is part of the quest that I am presently trying to complete. How's THAT for motivation?

We were asked to watch the Ted Talk presentation, 7 Ways Games Reward the Brain by Tom Chatfield, and then reflect upon something that he said.  This talk is about how the complexities of gaming can be applied to motivate people in learning. Chatfield describes (both psychologically and biologically) how game-like challenges engage the human soul.



The interesting part of his analysis is how he describes the process that game designers use to capture your attention and engage your soul. It's not as much about the actual activity that you are completing (he suggested opening virtual boxes) as it is about the reward schedule that the player experiences in the process. Its about "the rate, the nature, the type, the intensity of the rewards in games that keep players engaged over long periods of time."

When I was trying to find another way to describe this, the term, relevance, popped into mind. But this wasn't the proper word. I just finished saying that the activity wasn't as important as the form of interaction that the learner has with the activity. That interaction is personal. The most successful interaction is one that has been personal-ized to meet the needs, wants and desires of the learner. It has been customized to respond often enough with rewards that are interesting enough to maintain grasp of the learner's soul.

As Chatfield explains, the onset of computing has provided a venue through which feedback can be individualized to make such activities infinitely interesting. This is nothing new. I remember first reading about it in 1982 in an article written by R. F. Bowman, A Pac-Man Theory of Motivation.

Watch the video and consider the 7 ways that games reward our brains:

1. Use Experience Bars to Measure Progress
2. Provide Multiple Long/Short-Term Aims
3. Reward Effort - Don't Punish Mistakes
4. Link Actions to Consequences
5. Include an Element of Uncertainty
6. Include Peer Collaboration
7. Engage Players by Doling Out the Rewards at the Personalized Intervals.

Which one do you feel is the most powerful strategy for your learning?

Related articles

• New ways of learning... (whatedsaid.wordpress.com)
• More from Open Tech: Games (juliac2.wordpress.com)
• Game-Based Learning is not about games, it's about mindsets (deangroom.wordpress.com)

*This posting was prompted by an assignment from 3D GameLab.

Dr. Z on Digital Portfolios - Voices of ISTE '11

I was honored to be interviewed by Wesley Fryer at the ISTE '11 conference last week. Wesley did his typical outstanding job of covering presentations at the conference, but what was most impressive was  his recording equipment which just included an iPad2, a $60 iRig mic. He recorded this interview, used iPad iMovie to edit it and insert titles, and it was posted on the web in 5 minutes.  Wes is a media genius.
Anyway, here are some comments I made on my philosophy of Digital Portfolios. You can see the rest of Wes's Voices of ISTE at his website, Speed of Creativity. He has notes and interviews with Steven Covey, Chris Lehman, Scott McLeod and others. At this point, he hasn't indexed them in a single posting so you will have to search around for them.
So what do you think?  What are your philosophical thoughts on creating portfolios for students and professional educators?

Panoramas of the Lunar Surface

Did you know that the US landed men on the moon in 6 missions flown over 41 months (July 20, 1969 - December 11, 1972.) In 1969 we landed on the moon in July and November.  I must admit that I hadn't realized that we sent rockets to the moon with that rapidity.

During that time, 12 men walked on the moon. They walked and drove the lunar landers (are they still up there?)  A little known fact is that each astronaut was fitted with a chest camera. It was a Hasselblad EDC that was specially designed for the trip.  (I wrote about another extraordinary photography tool, the Gigapan in November, 2009)

The photographs that the astronauts took on the moon have been "sewn together" to create Interactive QuickTime VR Panoramas of the moon that are available at Panorama.dk. Not only can you scan the lunar surface while sitting in your classroom, your journey is accompanied with audio tracks of what the astronauts broadcast back to Houston. Admittedly, the scanning is a little tricky and jerky but it is something to see.

You really MUST explore the Panoramas.dk website. It has panoramas a wide variety of travel destinations including the NEW 7 Wonders of the World:  

• Roman Colosseum (been there)  *
• China's Great Wall (been there)  *
• Petra in Jordan (probably go there this summer)
• India's Taj Mahal (would LOVE to go)
• Machu Picchu in Peru (Not yet)
• Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro (Not yet)
• Chichen Itza in Mexico (been there)  *

Looks like my wife, Kathy, and I have just created a new "Bucket List."

I began this posting raving about shooting men to the moon and ended telling you about my bucket list. Looking at these places in Google Earth can be a good introduction to the locales, but panoramas like these can make it real.

Have you used or created panoramas like these before?

Z

Related articles

• Panoramas are the next level in photographic representation (garry.posterous.com)

19 Digital Storytelling Tools to Explore

flickr.com/vancouverfilmschool

Looking for some innovative tools for creating your digital stories? 


Ozge Karaoglu has shared 19 Digital Storytelling Tools on the Tech & Learning Advisor blog. She shares a plethora of audio, picture and animation tools that include the familiar and the new and exciting (at least they are to me.)

You should go to her posting to see this wonderful assortment. I am quite familiar with some of the standards that she posted including VoiceThread, Voki, Vocaroo, Jing, Animoto, GoAnimate and Xtranormal. But she included a panorama of new development scenery to begin exploring. Some of these tools include DVolver, DomoAnimate, PhotoPeach, Zooburst (3D popup book), Fotobabble and BubbleJoy.  

I can tell right now that I won't be getting much done for the next few days.

I hope that you enjoy Ozge's posting and visit her blog, Ozge Karaoglu's Blog, where she has a wealth of other tools for you to explore.

Is your favorite Digital Storytelling tool included here?  Share it in the comments section below.  It would be good to round this off to an even 20 or 25 or 50 . . . 

Z