Brain Based Learning

Social media seems to hold great potential for learners to collaborate and communicate. But it also makes a lot of people nervous about it being such a public platform. Is it appropriate for kids to be using social media? Is it appropriate for it to be used in schools? Is it appropriate for teachers to communicate with students outside of school, using social media?

This post is based on an email correspondence with a colleague; it became an interesting discussion so I turned it into a blog post.
What do you find meaningful about the emphasis on fun in games?
I think the power of “fun” to create engagement in learning can’t be underestimated. Marc Prensky describes a certain game that detects player decision-making and makes the game harder for them. Despite being more frustrating, players keep playing and try to overcome the limitations they are given. “Fun” doesn’t mean avoiding challenges, in fact when it …

Chuck Dietrich, CEO of SlideRocket, wrote this article on the effectiveness of digital classrooms, where he argues that perhaps the current debate is not framed correctly. I think he makes some excellent points, most importantly about deciding what we really should be evaluating. I’ve read a number of articles lately about school districts that have spent a lot to buy technology for their schools, yet their test scores are not going up at all. The conclusion of these article tends to be that therefore technology does not necessarily improve learning; …