Next up: Angry Birds in the classroom. Rovio plans to publish a line of educational books for children ages four to their teens. Embracing the Finnish education system—which emphasizes play in learning—they're also designed as a counterpoint to the strict "Tiger Mom
" approach to child rearing, says Wibe Wagemans, a Rovio branding executive.
He says one of the books will illustrate geometry lessons by launching a bird character through the air...
'Angry Birds' Spreads Wings
By NICK WINGFIELD
WSJ | August 10, 2010
E.D. Hirsch needs to get with a branding executive.
How can you possibly argue that E.D. Hirsch does not already have a branding executive?
ReplyDeleteIn this article in today's Chronicle, Mark D. Milliron argues that one way to improve university education is to teach with video games. Not surprisingly, Mr. Milliron works for the Bill Gates Foundation.
ReplyDeletehttp://chronicle.com/article/State-Officials-Say-Difficult/128600/
quote:
"But improving the graduation rate will mean little if institutions can't ensure the quality of their degrees, said Mark D. Milliron, deputy director of postsecondary improvement for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which has taken an active role in efforts to improve college attainment. To maintain and even improve the quality of a degree with fewer resources, institutions must learn to use technology in ways that are common in other parts of daily life but largely ignored in academe, such as interactive video games, Mr. Milliron said."
So I guess it will be Angry Birds in the classroom.
Having used a math program written by a Finnish teacher (Math Mammoth), "playful" would not be the word that comes to mind to describe it. "Solid", "thorough", and if I'm allowed a phrase rather than a single adjective, "balanced between building conceptual understanding and practicing math facts & traditional algorithms to automaticity". It's very similar to Singapore Primary Mathematics in its approach.
ReplyDeleteI am glad to see that this site is still here.
ReplyDeleteIt is now bookmarked.
This is offtopic from the post, except for the fact I'm trying to introduce geometry concepts to our daughters in a memorable and fun way (I did Khan Academy to refresh, relearn, and go over stuff I don't think I ever learned in school).
Who has read Moonwalking With Einstein by Joshua Foer?
I just finished it this afternoon.....so lots of thoughts and memory, learning, and tests, and how to apply to kids learning concepts for the first time.
Thank you for this site.
Lisa
"...To maintain and even improve the quality of a degree with fewer resources, institutions must learn to use technology in ways that are common in other parts of daily life but largely ignored in academe, such as interactive video games, Mr. Milliron said."
ReplyDeleteI think this quote is tangled enough that there are multiple ways of interpreting what Mr. Milliron means and we can't know which one he intended.
A rewording that I would actually *agree* with would be this:
...institutions must learn to use technology in ways that are common in other parts of daily life, such as interactive video games, but largely ignored in academe.
Specific ways that technology is used in video games is that video games:
(a) tend to provide challenges in small, incremental steps,
(b) tend to provide very tight feedback loops, and
(c) allow the players to go at their own pace.
All of these are *good*.
I wonder how many of these are done in a typical class (also, I wonder how many of these *CAN* be done in a class with one teacher and 30 kids covering a 4+ year range of skills)?
The subject of video games as a model for teaching came up at Joanne Jacobs blog a few months ago:
http://www.joannejacobs.com/2011/04/video-games-model-good-teaching/
It was contentious then, too :-)
-Mark Roulo