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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_36821\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-36821\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/07/j84a8474_0.jpg\" alt=\"Quest to Learn\" width=\"640\" height=\"427\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/07/j84a8474_0.jpg 640w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/07/j84a8474_0-400x267.jpg 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/07/j84a8474_0-320x214.jpg 320w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Quest to Learn\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Part 13 of \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/series/guide-to-games-and-learning/\" target=\"_blank\">MindShift's Guide to Games and Learning\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"dropcap-serif\">In education, it seems as if innovation and revolution play like the song of the Sirens in a culture of perpetual obsolescence. 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Instead, the hammer was revolutionary because it forever transformed human experience by introducing the possibility of striking, and therefore altering, our natural surroundings. It changed the way we look at things.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still today, a great deal of our teaching is essentially grounded in teaching the perspective that early tools enabled. We want our students to know that humans have the capacity to shape their own world. We want them to provide them with the skills necessary to do so. We want to teach them how to utilize the ways of knowing that were made possible through the technological innovations that enabled, produced, and shaped the civilizations of the past and the present.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Our current civilization is built on information technologies. Smartphones, the internet, and video games are all simply hunks of machinery that become special because they introduce new interactive narrative structures. They introduce non-linear ways of thinking about the world and organizing information.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-35200 alignright\" style=\"border: 0\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/04/MindShiftGames-140x140.png\" alt=\"MindShiftGames\" width=\"140\" height=\"140\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When we look at a network, or a jumble of hyperlinks, or an interactive simulation like a video game, it immediately appears chaotic. This is because we are conditioned to make sense of it using the habitual linear narrative traditions that have defined “literacy” for a few thousand years. We try to identify beginnings, middles, and ends. But new narrative conventions require a different form of literacy: \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/07/games-can-advance-education-a-conversation-with-james-paul-gee/\">systems literacy\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Systems literacy is playful and inter-subjective. It defines order according to the way things interact with one another. It privileges the quality of the relationship between nodes rather than trying to figure out what is first, last, and in-between (value judgments). Systems work more like a sandboxes than ambitious ladders to the top.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the current world, our schools should be focused on teaching both linear and non-linear ways of knowing. We need to remember that the goal of technology is ultimately to help us mentor our youth so that they become familiar with the many ways of knowing that humanity has discovered. It's not just to develop proficiency with today’s tools while maintaining yesterday’s predominant thinking.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This shift is precisely what seems to be happening at the \u003ca href=\"http://q2l.org/\">Quest To Learn School\u003c/a>. Curriculum experts and game designers work together to reimagine what school might look like if it drew its inspiration from video games. The New York City public school employs a standards-based integrated curriculum that “mimics the action and design principles of games by generating a compelling ‘need to know’ in the classroom,” as they describe it. The goal: to intrinsically motivate kids toward mastery. Students seek out knowledge because they need to know it in order to complete a project based task.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Quest To Learn doesn’t set out to change the learning objectives, but rather the process through which they are achieved. Of course, process and product are indistinct. Transform the shape of the container and you simultaneously alter the the kind of content that can fit inside. Sometimes you don’t notice all the implications just by looking at the surface. Students at the Quest To Learn School “encounter a series of increasingly complex, narrative challenges, games or quests, where learning, knowledge sharing, feedback, reflection and next steps emerge as a natural function of play.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>GAMES IN PRACTICE\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When I visited Quest To Learn, I saw a school that looked very similar to any other school, except every student seemed engaged, empowered, and motivated. It wasn’t what I expected from a place that most people describe as “the video game school.” There weren’t screens all over the place. No fingers pounding game controllers. I didn’t see tons of gadgets or gizmos. But I did see a curriculum that was designed to approach from a video game perspective. The organizational structure through which material was presented was game-like.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_36819\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-large wp-image-36819\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/07/PANO_20140624_131530-640x233.jpg\" alt=\"Jordan Shapiro/MindShift\" width=\"640\" height=\"233\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Quest to Learn School: Jordan Shapiro/MindShift\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Failure is reframed as iteration” reads one poster that’s hanging by the elevators. Another explains how to break down complex ideas: “Systems are all around us -- games are playful systems.” Students are encouraged to analyze, interpret, and articulate using categories like space, components, rules, challenges, core mechanics, and goals. They apply this model, or other game-based systems-thinking models, to almost everything.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In one class, kids play \u003ca href=\"http://www.instituteofplay.org/work/projects/print-play-games-2/socratic-smackdown/\">Socratic Smackdown\u003c/a>. Eighth-grade English Language Arts Teacher/Designer Rebecca Grodner created the game to teach the building blocks of argumentation while simultaneously making a space where students practice and assess their peers’ conversational etiquette. Students might earn points for using supporting evidence or playing devil’s advocate. They lose points for interrupting or insulting other players. They’re intrinsically motivated to learn the components of rhetoric, to understand how they function within a discursive system, and to be able to use them in everyday contexts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=\"43245470412e360d3a276e622d83cd20\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In another class, the students play Rock-onimoes, a geology-themed version of dominoes that asks players to make connections by using words like sedimentary and magma. Again, they need to understand the relationships between the geological concepts. Success is a product of their to ability use complex concepts in context, not to memorize and regurgitate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Quest To Learn shows us what happens when the old “factory model” of organization is replaced with a systems-based game-like paradigm. They call it games, systems, or design. That’s code for understanding content in context -- and for seeing the interconnectedness between elements.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We need to do a better job at giving children and young people opportunities to rise, which means developing systems that enable that rise -- that enable them to move across networks and to engage in really hard problems with relevant resources. Games are all about creating spaces of possibility, where players feel they can do anything,” \u003ca href=\"http://www.instituteofplay.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/QuestToLearn-DevelopingTheSchoolForDigitalKids.pdf\">writes Katie Salen\u003c/a>, who helped launch and design Quest To Learn while she was the founding executive director of the \u003ca href=\"http://www.instituteofplay.org/\">Institute of Play\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Systems are all about connections, networks, and the ways in which nodes relate to one another. This focus on connections might also be one of the building blocks of citizenry, humanity, and social community. Perhaps this is why one of Quest To Learn’s core values is “Collaboration Matters.” You can see it manifest among their students. They embody it. They know that “we need the support, ideas, and respect of others to truly succeed.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/series/guide-to-games-and-learning/\" target=\"_blank\">MindShift Guide to Games and Learning\u003c/a> is made possible through the generous support of the \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/05/math-science-history-games-break-boundaries-between-subjects-interdisciplinary-learning/www.joanganzcooneycenter.org/\" target=\"_blank\">Joan Ganz Cooney Center\u003c/a> and is a project of the \u003ca href=\"http://www.joanganzcooneycenter.org/initiative/games-and-learning-publishing-council-analyzing-a-rising-sector/\" target=\"_blank\">Games and Learning Publishing Council\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_36821\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-36821\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/07/j84a8474_0.jpg\" alt=\"Quest to Learn\" width=\"640\" height=\"427\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/07/j84a8474_0.jpg 640w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/07/j84a8474_0-400x267.jpg 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/07/j84a8474_0-320x214.jpg 320w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Quest to Learn\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Part 13 of \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/series/guide-to-games-and-learning/\" target=\"_blank\">MindShift's Guide to Games and Learning\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"dropcap-serif\">In education, it seems as if innovation and revolution play like the song of the Sirens in a culture of perpetual obsolescence. It seems as if we’ve got an unhealthy fetish for new-ness, indiscriminately choosing the convenient disposability of shrink-wrap over the sustainability of the well-worn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Digital games can be amazing tools, but only when used to make it easier to \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/05/how-games-based-learning-teaches-problem-solving-in-context/\">contextualize the gifts\u003c/a> we’ve received from Shakespeare, Socrates, Euclid, and others. The thing about tools is that their strength is usually derived from the way they approach a problem rather than in the particularity of the solution they offer. For example, consider the hammer: a great technological innovation that our human ancestors imagined more than 2 million years ago. What made it revolutionary was not so much in the material from which it was assembled, nor the particular object it bashed. Instead, the hammer was revolutionary because it forever transformed human experience by introducing the possibility of striking, and therefore altering, our natural surroundings. It changed the way we look at things.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still today, a great deal of our teaching is essentially grounded in teaching the perspective that early tools enabled. We want our students to know that humans have the capacity to shape their own world. We want them to provide them with the skills necessary to do so. We want to teach them how to utilize the ways of knowing that were made possible through the technological innovations that enabled, produced, and shaped the civilizations of the past and the present.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Our current civilization is built on information technologies. Smartphones, the internet, and video games are all simply hunks of machinery that become special because they introduce new interactive narrative structures. They introduce non-linear ways of thinking about the world and organizing information.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-35200 alignright\" style=\"border: 0\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/04/MindShiftGames-140x140.png\" alt=\"MindShiftGames\" width=\"140\" height=\"140\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When we look at a network, or a jumble of hyperlinks, or an interactive simulation like a video game, it immediately appears chaotic. This is because we are conditioned to make sense of it using the habitual linear narrative traditions that have defined “literacy” for a few thousand years. We try to identify beginnings, middles, and ends. But new narrative conventions require a different form of literacy: \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/07/games-can-advance-education-a-conversation-with-james-paul-gee/\">systems literacy\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Systems literacy is playful and inter-subjective. It defines order according to the way things interact with one another. It privileges the quality of the relationship between nodes rather than trying to figure out what is first, last, and in-between (value judgments). Systems work more like a sandboxes than ambitious ladders to the top.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the current world, our schools should be focused on teaching both linear and non-linear ways of knowing. We need to remember that the goal of technology is ultimately to help us mentor our youth so that they become familiar with the many ways of knowing that humanity has discovered. It's not just to develop proficiency with today’s tools while maintaining yesterday’s predominant thinking.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This shift is precisely what seems to be happening at the \u003ca href=\"http://q2l.org/\">Quest To Learn School\u003c/a>. Curriculum experts and game designers work together to reimagine what school might look like if it drew its inspiration from video games. The New York City public school employs a standards-based integrated curriculum that “mimics the action and design principles of games by generating a compelling ‘need to know’ in the classroom,” as they describe it. The goal: to intrinsically motivate kids toward mastery. Students seek out knowledge because they need to know it in order to complete a project based task.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Quest To Learn doesn’t set out to change the learning objectives, but rather the process through which they are achieved. Of course, process and product are indistinct. Transform the shape of the container and you simultaneously alter the the kind of content that can fit inside. Sometimes you don’t notice all the implications just by looking at the surface. Students at the Quest To Learn School “encounter a series of increasingly complex, narrative challenges, games or quests, where learning, knowledge sharing, feedback, reflection and next steps emerge as a natural function of play.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>GAMES IN PRACTICE\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When I visited Quest To Learn, I saw a school that looked very similar to any other school, except every student seemed engaged, empowered, and motivated. It wasn’t what I expected from a place that most people describe as “the video game school.” There weren’t screens all over the place. No fingers pounding game controllers. I didn’t see tons of gadgets or gizmos. But I did see a curriculum that was designed to approach from a video game perspective. The organizational structure through which material was presented was game-like.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_36819\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-large wp-image-36819\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/07/PANO_20140624_131530-640x233.jpg\" alt=\"Jordan Shapiro/MindShift\" width=\"640\" height=\"233\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Quest to Learn School: Jordan Shapiro/MindShift\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Failure is reframed as iteration” reads one poster that’s hanging by the elevators. Another explains how to break down complex ideas: “Systems are all around us -- games are playful systems.” Students are encouraged to analyze, interpret, and articulate using categories like space, components, rules, challenges, core mechanics, and goals. They apply this model, or other game-based systems-thinking models, to almost everything.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In one class, kids play \u003ca href=\"http://www.instituteofplay.org/work/projects/print-play-games-2/socratic-smackdown/\">Socratic Smackdown\u003c/a>. Eighth-grade English Language Arts Teacher/Designer Rebecca Grodner created the game to teach the building blocks of argumentation while simultaneously making a space where students practice and assess their peers’ conversational etiquette. Students might earn points for using supporting evidence or playing devil’s advocate. They lose points for interrupting or insulting other players. They’re intrinsically motivated to learn the components of rhetoric, to understand how they function within a discursive system, and to be able to use them in everyday contexts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In another class, the students play Rock-onimoes, a geology-themed version of dominoes that asks players to make connections by using words like sedimentary and magma. Again, they need to understand the relationships between the geological concepts. Success is a product of their to ability use complex concepts in context, not to memorize and regurgitate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Quest To Learn shows us what happens when the old “factory model” of organization is replaced with a systems-based game-like paradigm. They call it games, systems, or design. That’s code for understanding content in context -- and for seeing the interconnectedness between elements.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We need to do a better job at giving children and young people opportunities to rise, which means developing systems that enable that rise -- that enable them to move across networks and to engage in really hard problems with relevant resources. Games are all about creating spaces of possibility, where players feel they can do anything,” \u003ca href=\"http://www.instituteofplay.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/QuestToLearn-DevelopingTheSchoolForDigitalKids.pdf\">writes Katie Salen\u003c/a>, who helped launch and design Quest To Learn while she was the founding executive director of the \u003ca href=\"http://www.instituteofplay.org/\">Institute of Play\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Systems are all about connections, networks, and the ways in which nodes relate to one another. This focus on connections might also be one of the building blocks of citizenry, humanity, and social community. Perhaps this is why one of Quest To Learn’s core values is “Collaboration Matters.” You can see it manifest among their students. They embody it. They know that “we need the support, ideas, and respect of others to truly succeed.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"disqusTitle": "How Teachers Can Use Video Games In The Humanities Classroom",
"title": "How Teachers Can Use Video Games In The Humanities Classroom",
"headTitle": "The MindShift Guide to Digital Games and Learning | MindShift | KQED News",
"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>Part 12 of \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/series/guide-to-games-and-learning/\" target=\"_blank\">MindShift's Guide to Games and Learning\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"dropcap-serif\">We often think about game-based learning as if video games can become robotic teachers. In the same way that software file systems have created more flexible and efficient file cabinets, we imagine that video games can make great instruction more scalable and accessible. In the same way that email, text messages, and social media have provided more efficient methods of communication, we imagine that digital analytic systems will streamline assessment. These things are true.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_36834\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-medium wp-image-36834\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/07/erinscott_-7085-300x168.jpg\" alt=\"Erin Scott\" width=\"300\" height=\"168\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Erin Scott\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>While digital games will certainly never replace a great teacher, they are tools that can help teachers do their jobs more effectively. Just like a shovel works better than digging with only your hands, game-based teaching tools will enable teachers to reach students in ways we can only begin to imagine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But let's approach video games in a different way. What if teachers used video games as texts? Let's think about how we might teach kids to think critically about the underlying messages in commercial games and how we might leverage video games for their ability to engage students and provoke conversation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the moment, there's far too little critical examination of video games happening in school. We take it for granted that we should teach our students how to read books interpretively, how to analyze movies, and how to read the newspaper critically. But all too often we overlook video games as a meaningless triviality.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the contrary, video games may be indicative of a shift in the way we construct narrative. A good argument could even be made that video games are the new mythology, a kind of non-linear interactive storytelling that shapes the conscious attitudes of today’s youth. Video games might even represent the modern examples of storytelling that will eventually become the classics of literature in hyper-connected centuries to come. After all, nobody could’ve imagined that the novel would be so important to the future of schooling when they read Miguel de Cervantes’ \u003cem>Don Quixote\u003c/em> in 1605.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-35200 alignright\" style=\"border: 0\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/04/MindShiftGames-140x140.png\" alt=\"MindShiftGames\" width=\"140\" height=\"140\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If video games are shaping the conscious attitudes of an entire generation, we need to start asking difficult questions about the kinds of stories we want to tell. These video games are shaping the next generation. These video games are teaching our students how to think about the world, how to make meaning. And we’re letting it happen by accident. That’s crazy. We need help from Humanities teachers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>How can we be more cognizant of the implicit messaging in video games? In my book, \u003cem>FREEPLAY\u003c/em>, I try to model a practice and a method of analyzing the underlying psychology of video game narrative. But we need more people to jump on that bandwagon. We need more video game studies departments that are not about game development and computer programming, but rather about critical thinking. Not video game classes that analyze game design and mechanics -- video game classes that are about analyzing the literature of gaming. We have film studies, now it's time for video game studies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You can start by adding a game to your curriculum. In my undergraduate college classroom, I sometimes require all of my students to play a popular game in the weeks immediately following a unit on Freud. I challenge them to analyze the game like a dream. I ask them to identify the latent content. We identify gender biases, the subtle differences between games aimed at boys and games aimed at girls. What skills are these games teaching? What conceptions of reality are they privileging?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are also many games that are intentionally created to provoke thought. Some games are designed so that they force us to ask questions. One good example is a game called \u003ca href=\"http://dukope.com/play.php?g=trt\" target=\"_blank\">\u003ci>Republia Times\u003c/i>\u003c/a>. In the game, you are editor-in-chief of the newspaper in “the free nation of Republia.” Your job is to use your influence to sway public opinion. How much space on the front page do you give to each article? Which items coming over the wire do you ignore? What and how do you deem things newsworthy? You must make quick decisions as stories come into the newsroom. How do the stories impact the readers’ loyalty to the government? You earn points by increasing readership and manufacturing more citizens that are loyal to the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=\"5e388d2c9e3ce8b412ee666192b90c21\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is a simple game that students can play for a few minutes. It's free and web-based, and works in any browser. You could assign it as homework.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Imagine how this game could fit into a social studies classroom. Imagine the discussion it could inspire about free speech, about how political conversations are framed, about media bias, about political agendas. This is a game that inspires critical thinking rather than rote memorization.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are many games like \u003ci>The Republia Times\u003c/i>, and they belong to a category that’s often called “Social Impact Games.” These are games designed as simulations of real life situations. The mechanics of the game are organized with images and stories in order to make the underlying patterns in our present culture more apparent. They are essentially interactive essays and social commentaries. Or, from a teacher's perspective, they are simply games that can be used as texts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The great thing about using video games as a text is that they help to make it clear that the reason I’m writing this series about bringing video games into the classroom is not because game-based learning is some amazing new technique or method for teaching. Instead, the reason we teach in the first place, and the reason to bring video games into the classroom is social impact.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We want to educate students into good citizens for a future world that’s better than the one we live in now. We do that by teaching students to think critically about the world. We do that by teaching them to think about the images, stories and technologies that surround them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/series/guide-to-games-and-learning/\" target=\"_blank\">MindShift Guide to Games and Learning\u003c/a> is made possible through the generous support of the \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/05/math-science-history-games-break-boundaries-between-subjects-interdisciplinary-learning/www.joanganzcooneycenter.org/\" target=\"_blank\">Joan Ganz Cooney Center\u003c/a> and is a project of the \u003ca href=\"http://www.joanganzcooneycenter.org/initiative/games-and-learning-publishing-council-analyzing-a-rising-sector/\" target=\"_blank\">Games and Learning Publishing Council\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>Part 12 of \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/series/guide-to-games-and-learning/\" target=\"_blank\">MindShift's Guide to Games and Learning\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"dropcap-serif\">We often think about game-based learning as if video games can become robotic teachers. In the same way that software file systems have created more flexible and efficient file cabinets, we imagine that video games can make great instruction more scalable and accessible. In the same way that email, text messages, and social media have provided more efficient methods of communication, we imagine that digital analytic systems will streamline assessment. These things are true.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_36834\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-medium wp-image-36834\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/07/erinscott_-7085-300x168.jpg\" alt=\"Erin Scott\" width=\"300\" height=\"168\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Erin Scott\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>While digital games will certainly never replace a great teacher, they are tools that can help teachers do their jobs more effectively. Just like a shovel works better than digging with only your hands, game-based teaching tools will enable teachers to reach students in ways we can only begin to imagine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But let's approach video games in a different way. What if teachers used video games as texts? Let's think about how we might teach kids to think critically about the underlying messages in commercial games and how we might leverage video games for their ability to engage students and provoke conversation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the moment, there's far too little critical examination of video games happening in school. We take it for granted that we should teach our students how to read books interpretively, how to analyze movies, and how to read the newspaper critically. But all too often we overlook video games as a meaningless triviality.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the contrary, video games may be indicative of a shift in the way we construct narrative. A good argument could even be made that video games are the new mythology, a kind of non-linear interactive storytelling that shapes the conscious attitudes of today’s youth. Video games might even represent the modern examples of storytelling that will eventually become the classics of literature in hyper-connected centuries to come. After all, nobody could’ve imagined that the novel would be so important to the future of schooling when they read Miguel de Cervantes’ \u003cem>Don Quixote\u003c/em> in 1605.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-35200 alignright\" style=\"border: 0\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/04/MindShiftGames-140x140.png\" alt=\"MindShiftGames\" width=\"140\" height=\"140\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If video games are shaping the conscious attitudes of an entire generation, we need to start asking difficult questions about the kinds of stories we want to tell. These video games are shaping the next generation. These video games are teaching our students how to think about the world, how to make meaning. And we’re letting it happen by accident. That’s crazy. We need help from Humanities teachers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>How can we be more cognizant of the implicit messaging in video games? In my book, \u003cem>FREEPLAY\u003c/em>, I try to model a practice and a method of analyzing the underlying psychology of video game narrative. But we need more people to jump on that bandwagon. We need more video game studies departments that are not about game development and computer programming, but rather about critical thinking. Not video game classes that analyze game design and mechanics -- video game classes that are about analyzing the literature of gaming. We have film studies, now it's time for video game studies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You can start by adding a game to your curriculum. In my undergraduate college classroom, I sometimes require all of my students to play a popular game in the weeks immediately following a unit on Freud. I challenge them to analyze the game like a dream. I ask them to identify the latent content. We identify gender biases, the subtle differences between games aimed at boys and games aimed at girls. What skills are these games teaching? What conceptions of reality are they privileging?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are also many games that are intentionally created to provoke thought. Some games are designed so that they force us to ask questions. One good example is a game called \u003ca href=\"http://dukope.com/play.php?g=trt\" target=\"_blank\">\u003ci>Republia Times\u003c/i>\u003c/a>. In the game, you are editor-in-chief of the newspaper in “the free nation of Republia.” Your job is to use your influence to sway public opinion. How much space on the front page do you give to each article? Which items coming over the wire do you ignore? What and how do you deem things newsworthy? You must make quick decisions as stories come into the newsroom. How do the stories impact the readers’ loyalty to the government? You earn points by increasing readership and manufacturing more citizens that are loyal to the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is a simple game that students can play for a few minutes. It's free and web-based, and works in any browser. You could assign it as homework.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Imagine how this game could fit into a social studies classroom. Imagine the discussion it could inspire about free speech, about how political conversations are framed, about media bias, about political agendas. This is a game that inspires critical thinking rather than rote memorization.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are many games like \u003ci>The Republia Times\u003c/i>, and they belong to a category that’s often called “Social Impact Games.” These are games designed as simulations of real life situations. The mechanics of the game are organized with images and stories in order to make the underlying patterns in our present culture more apparent. They are essentially interactive essays and social commentaries. Or, from a teacher's perspective, they are simply games that can be used as texts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The great thing about using video games as a text is that they help to make it clear that the reason I’m writing this series about bringing video games into the classroom is not because game-based learning is some amazing new technique or method for teaching. Instead, the reason we teach in the first place, and the reason to bring video games into the classroom is social impact.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We want to educate students into good citizens for a future world that’s better than the one we live in now. We do that by teaching students to think critically about the world. We do that by teaching them to think about the images, stories and technologies that surround them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/series/guide-to-games-and-learning/\" target=\"_blank\">MindShift Guide to Games and Learning\u003c/a> is made possible through the generous support of the \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/05/math-science-history-games-break-boundaries-between-subjects-interdisciplinary-learning/www.joanganzcooneycenter.org/\" target=\"_blank\">Joan Ganz Cooney Center\u003c/a> and is a project of the \u003ca href=\"http://www.joanganzcooneycenter.org/initiative/games-and-learning-publishing-council-analyzing-a-rising-sector/\" target=\"_blank\">Games and Learning Publishing Council\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_36709\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-36709\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/07/erinscott_-7061.jpg\" alt=\"Erin Scott/MindShift\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/07/erinscott_-7061.jpg 640w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/07/erinscott_-7061-400x225.jpg 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/07/erinscott_-7061-320x180.jpg 320w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Erin Scott/MindShift\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp class=\"dropcap-serif\">Just a few years ago, mobile devices were almost unheard of in classrooms. Over time, teachers and administrators have been experimenting with how to make mobile devices into powerful learning tools, and have come up with some strategies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A group of administrators from some of the first districts to pioneer Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policies and other forms of mobile learning are now sharing their experiences with those hustling to get on board. \u003ca href=\"http://www.cosn.org/\" target=\"_blank\">The Consortium of School Networking\u003c/a>, a professional group for district leaders, is trying to make that knowledge more widely available through its \u003ca href=\"https://sites.google.com/site/lmlguide/\" target=\"_blank\">Mobile Learning Initiative\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a way to keep up with what are the new burning questions, find out what leading people are doing, give a variety of insights into that particular topic so you can get a little bit of context and understanding,” said Marie Bjerede the initiative’s project director.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The site offers insights into some of the key steps to implementing a strong mobile learning program and provides quick answers to real world problems that busy administrators may have as they roll out their own programs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>1. Set goals and expectations for teaching and learning with mobile devices before worrying about the device itself. \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If this is a device plan and not a learning plan, you are definitely going down a path that could lead to some confusion and failed deployments,” said Michelle Bourgeois, technology coordinator at \u003ca href=\"http://www.svvsd.org/\" target=\"_blank\">St. Vrain Valley School District in Colorado,\u003c/a> and every administrator echoed this sentiment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It's easy to focus a mobile learning initiative on the devices themselves, without realizing that some of the thorniest shifts are in how educators approach the use of technology in the classroom. “The technology is a tool,” said Scott Smith, chief technology officer at \u003ca href=\"http://www.mgsd.k12.nc.us/MGSD/Home.html\" target=\"_blank\">Mooresville Graded School District\u003c/a> in North Carolina. “The technology gives us exponential potential to do things we haven’t been able to do before. But the focus is on curriculum and instruction.”\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">\"It's no longer just something you implement; it's evolving and it's unique in each location.\"\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Focusing on how mobile devices will change learning -- not merely replicate old pedagogy on a digital device -- means involving teachers and curriculum specialists in the planning process from the beginning. “The tendency is for the technology people to make the decisions in terms of the technology,” said John Connolly, Director of Technology at \u003ca href=\"http://d230.org/\" target=\"_blank\">Consolidated High School District 230\u003c/a> in Illinois. “I think it’s really important for the curriculum folks and teachers to be involved in choosing what type of device and content, but more importantly the goals and where do we want to go as a group.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Beginning a new initiative with the support and energy of teachers will also help the program to go more smoothly. Administrators who’ve been through the roll-out process before also recommend a pilot program to help identify problems, areas of professional development that are most needed and to begin developing some best practices to share with a larger group of teachers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>2. Develop a strong community of support for the initiative early and keep up transparent communication with parents and community members throughout the process.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Long before we handed out the first device, we started a community awareness program in terms of what we were planning to do and why,” Smith said. District representatives held many community meetings where they explained why it would be important for students to come out of school fluent in technology use and with a collaborative set of skills different from what parents were expected to have. By describing a vision for what students would be able to do after leaving school, Smith gradually won over parents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Things were a lot different then,” said \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/01/how-byod-programs-can-fuel-inquiry-learning/\" target=\"_blank\">Tim Clark\u003c/a>, Coordinator of Instructional Technology for \u003ca href=\"http://www.forsyth.k12.ga.us/site/default.aspx?PageID=1\" target=\"_blank\">Forsyth County Schools in Georgia\u003c/a>. The iPad hadn’t even been released yet when Forsyth began its program. “Now the parents are expecting it and are actually driving our schools to adopt even more mobile learning because they want students to find instructional purposes for those devices in their pockets.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The strong vision for how mobile learning can change teaching and learning was the core of the communication between district officials and the community. Getting everyone on board with the ultimate goal helped them deal with the inevitable bumps in rolling out the technology and learning to use it for learning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>3. Think about equity, but don’t let it stop forward motion.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While some districts deal with more poverty than others, equity concerns are part of every school administrator’s job. Many districts that pioneered mobile learning programs did so because they wanted to offer more equal access to the benefits of anytime-anywhere access to knowledge that computers offer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"When you give every student a device, it levels that playing field, but there are still inequities,” Smith said. His district charges each student a $50 tech fee per year. A local education foundation has agreed to pay for families who can’t afford the fee, but about half of the families eligible for free and reduced price lunch still pay the fee because they recognize its importance for their children, Smith said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For many districts embracing a 24-7 mobile learning program, the toughest equity challenge is getting every student access to the internet at home. “We’ve been trying to build lots of partnerships,” Bourgeois said. Her district \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/02/think-big-how-to-jumpstart-tech-use-in-low-income-schools/\" target=\"_blank\">includes both urban and rural areas\u003c/a>, each of which have access issues. The district has been mapping resources that already exist, convincing cities to extend their programs if they are offering free internet in downtown business districts, and making sure students and parents know how to save resources for offline use.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Most of our kids are bringing a device to school, so we’ve just been able to supplement what students bring in with school owned technology,” Clark said. His students go back and forth between school-owned devices and their own, depending on need and in case of battery failure or other technical difficulties. It’s become a very fluid process, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>4. Evaluate the effectiveness of a mobile learning initiative based on the goals set at the beginning of the rollout.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s easy to use improved test scores as a measure of whether a mobile learning initiative has been successful, but school leaders recommend trying to evaluate the goals set forth in the original vision and to think about evaluation holistically. If one element of a district’s vision is to put more power to direct learning in the hands of students, test scores aren’t the most appropriate measure of that goal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=\"bbc86d0e49f0b2ed278b2c409f765c1d\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Everybody wants to look at test scores because that’s a measurable goal that everyone understands, but there are other things that you can use to evaluate success,” Smith said. His district is in the sixth year of implementation and has found that graduation rates, attendance rates and academic success are all up. Meanwhile discipline issues and dropout rates are down. “Is that all because of technology? Absolutely not, but it is certainly a contributing factor for being able to meet all students where they are,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s also tempting to expect results immediately, but leaders recommended allowing three to four years for educators and parents to grow into the program before expecting to see its value.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>5. Some of the biggest lessons learned include giving up control and trusting students.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A lot of our shifts are making sure we are not mandating any more than we have to and that we’re empowering as much as we can,” Bourgeois said. She found that once devices were in the hands of teachers and students there was far more potential for creativity and student empowerment than district officials had imagined. The district has been working to get out of the way of that generative energy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“One of the things I would do early is bring the students into the process because I think their insights are pretty powerful and sometimes surprising in the way they think about things,” Bourgeois said. If she could re-do her rollout she would have \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2013/06/students-speak-up-trust-us-with-devices/\" target=\"_blank\">included students in the discussions\u003c/a> long before devices were chosen or in classrooms. They are stakeholders in their own education, but often aren’t included in the decisions that will directly affect their daily instruction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Over time you start to really focus in on what students are doing and learning with those devices and then where is the rigor of instruction and where is the authenticity of instructional tasks,” Clark said. He noted that it's natural for schools to worry about the technical aspects of a rollout, but the novelty of the devices wears off quickly and when it does the whole school community can become even more focused on how to use the devices to offer the best learning opportunities possible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>STAY NIMBLE\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While these mobile learning pioneers have seen some of the pitfalls and can help districts new to the game avoid the same stumbles, this space is changing quickly and every community’s needs will be different.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s no longer just something you implement; it’s evolving and it’s unique in each location,” Bjerede said. “If you try to be cookie cutter about it you won’t meet the needs of every kid in every classroom.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The technology will change, students will surprise their teachers and the best advice to district leaders is to stay open to all the possibilities and allow students to take control of the tremendous learning opportunity that having a device at all times could offer them.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_36709\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-36709\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/07/erinscott_-7061.jpg\" alt=\"Erin Scott/MindShift\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/07/erinscott_-7061.jpg 640w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/07/erinscott_-7061-400x225.jpg 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/07/erinscott_-7061-320x180.jpg 320w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Erin Scott/MindShift\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp class=\"dropcap-serif\">Just a few years ago, mobile devices were almost unheard of in classrooms. Over time, teachers and administrators have been experimenting with how to make mobile devices into powerful learning tools, and have come up with some strategies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A group of administrators from some of the first districts to pioneer Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policies and other forms of mobile learning are now sharing their experiences with those hustling to get on board. \u003ca href=\"http://www.cosn.org/\" target=\"_blank\">The Consortium of School Networking\u003c/a>, a professional group for district leaders, is trying to make that knowledge more widely available through its \u003ca href=\"https://sites.google.com/site/lmlguide/\" target=\"_blank\">Mobile Learning Initiative\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a way to keep up with what are the new burning questions, find out what leading people are doing, give a variety of insights into that particular topic so you can get a little bit of context and understanding,” said Marie Bjerede the initiative’s project director.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The site offers insights into some of the key steps to implementing a strong mobile learning program and provides quick answers to real world problems that busy administrators may have as they roll out their own programs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>1. Set goals and expectations for teaching and learning with mobile devices before worrying about the device itself. \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If this is a device plan and not a learning plan, you are definitely going down a path that could lead to some confusion and failed deployments,” said Michelle Bourgeois, technology coordinator at \u003ca href=\"http://www.svvsd.org/\" target=\"_blank\">St. Vrain Valley School District in Colorado,\u003c/a> and every administrator echoed this sentiment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It's easy to focus a mobile learning initiative on the devices themselves, without realizing that some of the thorniest shifts are in how educators approach the use of technology in the classroom. “The technology is a tool,” said Scott Smith, chief technology officer at \u003ca href=\"http://www.mgsd.k12.nc.us/MGSD/Home.html\" target=\"_blank\">Mooresville Graded School District\u003c/a> in North Carolina. “The technology gives us exponential potential to do things we haven’t been able to do before. But the focus is on curriculum and instruction.”\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">\"It's no longer just something you implement; it's evolving and it's unique in each location.\"\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Focusing on how mobile devices will change learning -- not merely replicate old pedagogy on a digital device -- means involving teachers and curriculum specialists in the planning process from the beginning. “The tendency is for the technology people to make the decisions in terms of the technology,” said John Connolly, Director of Technology at \u003ca href=\"http://d230.org/\" target=\"_blank\">Consolidated High School District 230\u003c/a> in Illinois. “I think it’s really important for the curriculum folks and teachers to be involved in choosing what type of device and content, but more importantly the goals and where do we want to go as a group.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Beginning a new initiative with the support and energy of teachers will also help the program to go more smoothly. Administrators who’ve been through the roll-out process before also recommend a pilot program to help identify problems, areas of professional development that are most needed and to begin developing some best practices to share with a larger group of teachers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>2. Develop a strong community of support for the initiative early and keep up transparent communication with parents and community members throughout the process.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Long before we handed out the first device, we started a community awareness program in terms of what we were planning to do and why,” Smith said. District representatives held many community meetings where they explained why it would be important for students to come out of school fluent in technology use and with a collaborative set of skills different from what parents were expected to have. By describing a vision for what students would be able to do after leaving school, Smith gradually won over parents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Things were a lot different then,” said \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/01/how-byod-programs-can-fuel-inquiry-learning/\" target=\"_blank\">Tim Clark\u003c/a>, Coordinator of Instructional Technology for \u003ca href=\"http://www.forsyth.k12.ga.us/site/default.aspx?PageID=1\" target=\"_blank\">Forsyth County Schools in Georgia\u003c/a>. The iPad hadn’t even been released yet when Forsyth began its program. “Now the parents are expecting it and are actually driving our schools to adopt even more mobile learning because they want students to find instructional purposes for those devices in their pockets.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The strong vision for how mobile learning can change teaching and learning was the core of the communication between district officials and the community. Getting everyone on board with the ultimate goal helped them deal with the inevitable bumps in rolling out the technology and learning to use it for learning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>3. Think about equity, but don’t let it stop forward motion.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While some districts deal with more poverty than others, equity concerns are part of every school administrator’s job. Many districts that pioneered mobile learning programs did so because they wanted to offer more equal access to the benefits of anytime-anywhere access to knowledge that computers offer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"When you give every student a device, it levels that playing field, but there are still inequities,” Smith said. His district charges each student a $50 tech fee per year. A local education foundation has agreed to pay for families who can’t afford the fee, but about half of the families eligible for free and reduced price lunch still pay the fee because they recognize its importance for their children, Smith said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For many districts embracing a 24-7 mobile learning program, the toughest equity challenge is getting every student access to the internet at home. “We’ve been trying to build lots of partnerships,” Bourgeois said. Her district \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/02/think-big-how-to-jumpstart-tech-use-in-low-income-schools/\" target=\"_blank\">includes both urban and rural areas\u003c/a>, each of which have access issues. The district has been mapping resources that already exist, convincing cities to extend their programs if they are offering free internet in downtown business districts, and making sure students and parents know how to save resources for offline use.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Most of our kids are bringing a device to school, so we’ve just been able to supplement what students bring in with school owned technology,” Clark said. His students go back and forth between school-owned devices and their own, depending on need and in case of battery failure or other technical difficulties. It’s become a very fluid process, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>4. Evaluate the effectiveness of a mobile learning initiative based on the goals set at the beginning of the rollout.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s easy to use improved test scores as a measure of whether a mobile learning initiative has been successful, but school leaders recommend trying to evaluate the goals set forth in the original vision and to think about evaluation holistically. If one element of a district’s vision is to put more power to direct learning in the hands of students, test scores aren’t the most appropriate measure of that goal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Everybody wants to look at test scores because that’s a measurable goal that everyone understands, but there are other things that you can use to evaluate success,” Smith said. His district is in the sixth year of implementation and has found that graduation rates, attendance rates and academic success are all up. Meanwhile discipline issues and dropout rates are down. “Is that all because of technology? Absolutely not, but it is certainly a contributing factor for being able to meet all students where they are,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s also tempting to expect results immediately, but leaders recommended allowing three to four years for educators and parents to grow into the program before expecting to see its value.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>5. Some of the biggest lessons learned include giving up control and trusting students.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A lot of our shifts are making sure we are not mandating any more than we have to and that we’re empowering as much as we can,” Bourgeois said. She found that once devices were in the hands of teachers and students there was far more potential for creativity and student empowerment than district officials had imagined. The district has been working to get out of the way of that generative energy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“One of the things I would do early is bring the students into the process because I think their insights are pretty powerful and sometimes surprising in the way they think about things,” Bourgeois said. If she could re-do her rollout she would have \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2013/06/students-speak-up-trust-us-with-devices/\" target=\"_blank\">included students in the discussions\u003c/a> long before devices were chosen or in classrooms. They are stakeholders in their own education, but often aren’t included in the decisions that will directly affect their daily instruction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Over time you start to really focus in on what students are doing and learning with those devices and then where is the rigor of instruction and where is the authenticity of instructional tasks,” Clark said. He noted that it's natural for schools to worry about the technical aspects of a rollout, but the novelty of the devices wears off quickly and when it does the whole school community can become even more focused on how to use the devices to offer the best learning opportunities possible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>STAY NIMBLE\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While these mobile learning pioneers have seen some of the pitfalls and can help districts new to the game avoid the same stumbles, this space is changing quickly and every community’s needs will be different.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s no longer just something you implement; it’s evolving and it’s unique in each location,” Bjerede said. “If you try to be cookie cutter about it you won’t meet the needs of every kid in every classroom.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The technology will change, students will surprise their teachers and the best advice to district leaders is to stay open to all the possibilities and allow students to take control of the tremendous learning opportunity that having a device at all times could offer them.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_36847\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-medium wp-image-36847\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/07/Screen-Shot-2014-07-10-at-11.53.33-AM-300x167.png\" alt=\"Alien Health Game\" width=\"300\" height=\"167\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Alien Health Game\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp class=\"dropcap-serif\">Today’s educational technology often presents itself as a radical departure from the tired practices of traditional instruction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But in one way, at least, it faithfully follows the conventions of the chalk-and-blackboard era: it addresses itself only to the student’s head, leaving the rest of the body out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Treating mind and body as separate is an old and powerful idea in Western culture, dating to Descartes and before. But this venerable trope is facing down a challenge from a generation of researchers—in cognitive science, psychology, neuroscience, even philosophy—who claim that we think with and through our bodies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even the most abstract mathematical or literary concepts, they maintain, are understood in terms of the experience of our senses and of moving ourselves through space.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This perspective, known as “embodied cognition,” is now becoming a lens through which to look at educational technology. Work in the field shows promising signs that incorporating bodily movements—even subtle ones—can improve the learning that’s done on computers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For example, Margaret Chan and John Black of Teachers College, Columbia University have \u003ca href=\"http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1150044\">shown\u003c/a> that physically manipulating an animation of a roller coaster helps students understand the workings of gravity and energy better than static onscreen images and text. Interestingly, this embodied exercise becomes even more helpful as the challenge of understanding grows greater: when students are younger, or the problem posed is more difficult. In counter-intuitive domains like physics, bodily rooted learning allows the learner to develop a “feel” for the concept being described, a physical sense that is more comprehensible and compelling than a concept that remains an abstract mental entity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In similar \u003ca href=\"http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360131511001412\">experiments\u003c/a>, led by Insook Han of Hanyang Cyber University in South Korea, students learn about the concept of force by using a joystick to move two gears shown on a computer screen. Han’s studies show that allowing users to physically manipulate the gears in this way improves their memory and problem-solving performance on force-related questions. The richer the perceptual experience provided by the computer program, the greater the students’ understanding and retention of the material.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">Physically acting out knowledge to be learned or problems to be solved makes the conceptual metaphors employed by our brains a literal reality.\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>There are other reasons that involving the body improves learning. One is that bodily movements provide the memory with additional cues with which to represent and retrieve the knowledge learned. Taking action in response to information, in addition to simply seeing or hearing it, creates a richer memory trace and supplies alternative avenues for recalling the memory later on. Movement may also allow users to shed some of their “cognitive load”—the burden imposed by the need to keep track of information. Instead of trying to imagine what the gears would do if moved, a mentally-taxing activity, learners can allow their hands to do it and see what happens, freeing up mental resources to think more deeply about what’s happening.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Finally, physical movements made in the course of learning complement the brain’s way of handling information. From an evolutionary perspective, our brains developed to help us solve problems in the real world, moving through space and manipulating actual objects. More abstract forms of thought, such as mathematics and written language, came later, and they repurposed older regions of the brain originally dedicated to processing input from the senses and from the motor system.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This repurposing is apparent in the frequency with which we use physically grounded metaphors to express abstract ideas: counting is like moving through space (“the countdown is approaching zero”); accommodating two different principles is like “balancing” them on a scale. Bringing the body back into the equation can provide learners with a useful way station between concrete referents and all-out abstraction. Physically acting out knowledge to be learned or problems to be solved makes the conceptual metaphors employed by our brains a literal reality.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We can see this principle at work in the research of Arthur Glenberg of Arizona State University. In a series of experiments carried out more than a decade ago, Glenberg \u003ca href=\"http://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ685001\">found\u003c/a> that children’s reading comprehension improved when they acted out a written text, using a set of representational toys (a miniature barn and horse, for example, accompanied a story about a farm). Glenberg then \u003ca href=\"http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11251-009-9096-7\">demonstrated\u003c/a> that the same procedure could work on a digital platform: in a 2011 experiment, he showed that having first- and second-grade students manipulate images of toys on a computer screen benefits their comprehension as much as physical manipulation of the toys.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=\"3a57b7554b6428ff66e0c88384bb275d\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mina Johnson Glenberg (who is married to Arthur Glenberg and also works at Arizona State, as director of the university’s Embodied Games for Learning lab) is taking the embodied approach even further, designing educational games that engage learners’ entire bodies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"http://egl.lsi.asu.edu/alienhealth.html\">program\u003c/a> called The Alien Health Game, for example, presents students with this scenario: “You have just woken up to find an alien under your bed. It is hungry and it is your job to figure out what makes it healthy.” (A bonus: the game is so physically active that it measurably elevates users’ heart rates.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In other \u003ca href=\"http://www.smallablearning.com/\">work\u003c/a>, Johnson Glenberg employs Xbox Kinect-like technology to capture students’ movements as they interact with images projected onto a whiteboard. The interface is being used to teach subjects like physics and chemistry in half a dozen American schools, including Quest to Learn in New York City and ChicagoQuest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>PROMISING EARLY RESEARCH\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s early days for these real-world applications. But the research behind them can help teachers, parents and students better evaluate and use educational technology products that are already widely available.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>An awareness of embodied cognition, for example, might lead users to prefer touch-sensitive devices like the iPad, which respond directly to the movement of users’ fingers on the screen, over computers that interpose a keyboard between screen and user. \u003ca href=\"http://pocketknowledge.tc.columbia.edu/home.php/viewfile/102926\">According\u003c/a> to John Black of Teachers College, Columbia University, technology that evokes movements that complement the concepts to be learned is also likely to be effective from an embodied point of view: for example, an application in which counting is expressed by tapping on a mouse (discrete movements that complement the discrete nature of counting) will better promote learning than a program that asks users to make a sliding movement as they count (a continuous action at odds with the discrete nature of counting).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Parents and educators can also treat the virtual “movements” involved in many educational programs and games as preparation for more traditional learning. For example, John Black and Jessica Hammer, also of Teachers College, Columbia University, \u003ca href=\"http://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ829875\">showed\u003c/a> that moving through the virtual spaces of the history game \u003cem>Civilization\u003c/em> made players much better at learning history from a conventional textbook than players of the game \u003cem>The Sims\u003c/em>. Even though \u003cem>Civilization\u003c/em> players possessed no greater knowledge of history when they opened the textbook, their virtually-embodied experience of the era under study made them better prepared to absorb the lessons of the text.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Educators and parents can also help students incorporate bodily movements of their own into the use of educational technology, an approach that Black has applied to the programming language Scratch. Asking students to act out the motions they intend for the program’s virtual “agent” using their own bodies, and then programming the agents to make the same moves, has shown itself to be “a particularly effective learning approach,” Black \u003ca href=\"http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-1-4419-5716-0_3\">writes\u003c/a>. Even when they’re learning on computers, it’s wise to remember that students are more than mental machines. \u003cem>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This article originally appeared on the \u003ca href=\"http://hechingerreport.org/content/body-next-breakthrough-education-tech_16629/\" target=\"_blank\">Hechinger Report\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2014/07/educational_technology_s_next_move_tools_to_help_kids_learn_with_their_bodies.html\" target=\"_blank\">Slate\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_36847\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-medium wp-image-36847\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/07/Screen-Shot-2014-07-10-at-11.53.33-AM-300x167.png\" alt=\"Alien Health Game\" width=\"300\" height=\"167\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Alien Health Game\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp class=\"dropcap-serif\">Today’s educational technology often presents itself as a radical departure from the tired practices of traditional instruction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But in one way, at least, it faithfully follows the conventions of the chalk-and-blackboard era: it addresses itself only to the student’s head, leaving the rest of the body out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Treating mind and body as separate is an old and powerful idea in Western culture, dating to Descartes and before. But this venerable trope is facing down a challenge from a generation of researchers—in cognitive science, psychology, neuroscience, even philosophy—who claim that we think with and through our bodies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even the most abstract mathematical or literary concepts, they maintain, are understood in terms of the experience of our senses and of moving ourselves through space.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This perspective, known as “embodied cognition,” is now becoming a lens through which to look at educational technology. Work in the field shows promising signs that incorporating bodily movements—even subtle ones—can improve the learning that’s done on computers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For example, Margaret Chan and John Black of Teachers College, Columbia University have \u003ca href=\"http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1150044\">shown\u003c/a> that physically manipulating an animation of a roller coaster helps students understand the workings of gravity and energy better than static onscreen images and text. Interestingly, this embodied exercise becomes even more helpful as the challenge of understanding grows greater: when students are younger, or the problem posed is more difficult. In counter-intuitive domains like physics, bodily rooted learning allows the learner to develop a “feel” for the concept being described, a physical sense that is more comprehensible and compelling than a concept that remains an abstract mental entity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In similar \u003ca href=\"http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360131511001412\">experiments\u003c/a>, led by Insook Han of Hanyang Cyber University in South Korea, students learn about the concept of force by using a joystick to move two gears shown on a computer screen. Han’s studies show that allowing users to physically manipulate the gears in this way improves their memory and problem-solving performance on force-related questions. The richer the perceptual experience provided by the computer program, the greater the students’ understanding and retention of the material.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">Physically acting out knowledge to be learned or problems to be solved makes the conceptual metaphors employed by our brains a literal reality.\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>There are other reasons that involving the body improves learning. One is that bodily movements provide the memory with additional cues with which to represent and retrieve the knowledge learned. Taking action in response to information, in addition to simply seeing or hearing it, creates a richer memory trace and supplies alternative avenues for recalling the memory later on. Movement may also allow users to shed some of their “cognitive load”—the burden imposed by the need to keep track of information. Instead of trying to imagine what the gears would do if moved, a mentally-taxing activity, learners can allow their hands to do it and see what happens, freeing up mental resources to think more deeply about what’s happening.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Finally, physical movements made in the course of learning complement the brain’s way of handling information. From an evolutionary perspective, our brains developed to help us solve problems in the real world, moving through space and manipulating actual objects. More abstract forms of thought, such as mathematics and written language, came later, and they repurposed older regions of the brain originally dedicated to processing input from the senses and from the motor system.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This repurposing is apparent in the frequency with which we use physically grounded metaphors to express abstract ideas: counting is like moving through space (“the countdown is approaching zero”); accommodating two different principles is like “balancing” them on a scale. Bringing the body back into the equation can provide learners with a useful way station between concrete referents and all-out abstraction. Physically acting out knowledge to be learned or problems to be solved makes the conceptual metaphors employed by our brains a literal reality.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We can see this principle at work in the research of Arthur Glenberg of Arizona State University. In a series of experiments carried out more than a decade ago, Glenberg \u003ca href=\"http://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ685001\">found\u003c/a> that children’s reading comprehension improved when they acted out a written text, using a set of representational toys (a miniature barn and horse, for example, accompanied a story about a farm). Glenberg then \u003ca href=\"http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11251-009-9096-7\">demonstrated\u003c/a> that the same procedure could work on a digital platform: in a 2011 experiment, he showed that having first- and second-grade students manipulate images of toys on a computer screen benefits their comprehension as much as physical manipulation of the toys.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mina Johnson Glenberg (who is married to Arthur Glenberg and also works at Arizona State, as director of the university’s Embodied Games for Learning lab) is taking the embodied approach even further, designing educational games that engage learners’ entire bodies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"http://egl.lsi.asu.edu/alienhealth.html\">program\u003c/a> called The Alien Health Game, for example, presents students with this scenario: “You have just woken up to find an alien under your bed. It is hungry and it is your job to figure out what makes it healthy.” (A bonus: the game is so physically active that it measurably elevates users’ heart rates.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In other \u003ca href=\"http://www.smallablearning.com/\">work\u003c/a>, Johnson Glenberg employs Xbox Kinect-like technology to capture students’ movements as they interact with images projected onto a whiteboard. The interface is being used to teach subjects like physics and chemistry in half a dozen American schools, including Quest to Learn in New York City and ChicagoQuest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>PROMISING EARLY RESEARCH\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s early days for these real-world applications. But the research behind them can help teachers, parents and students better evaluate and use educational technology products that are already widely available.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>An awareness of embodied cognition, for example, might lead users to prefer touch-sensitive devices like the iPad, which respond directly to the movement of users’ fingers on the screen, over computers that interpose a keyboard between screen and user. \u003ca href=\"http://pocketknowledge.tc.columbia.edu/home.php/viewfile/102926\">According\u003c/a> to John Black of Teachers College, Columbia University, technology that evokes movements that complement the concepts to be learned is also likely to be effective from an embodied point of view: for example, an application in which counting is expressed by tapping on a mouse (discrete movements that complement the discrete nature of counting) will better promote learning than a program that asks users to make a sliding movement as they count (a continuous action at odds with the discrete nature of counting).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Parents and educators can also treat the virtual “movements” involved in many educational programs and games as preparation for more traditional learning. For example, John Black and Jessica Hammer, also of Teachers College, Columbia University, \u003ca href=\"http://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ829875\">showed\u003c/a> that moving through the virtual spaces of the history game \u003cem>Civilization\u003c/em> made players much better at learning history from a conventional textbook than players of the game \u003cem>The Sims\u003c/em>. Even though \u003cem>Civilization\u003c/em> players possessed no greater knowledge of history when they opened the textbook, their virtually-embodied experience of the era under study made them better prepared to absorb the lessons of the text.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Educators and parents can also help students incorporate bodily movements of their own into the use of educational technology, an approach that Black has applied to the programming language Scratch. Asking students to act out the motions they intend for the program’s virtual “agent” using their own bodies, and then programming the agents to make the same moves, has shown itself to be “a particularly effective learning approach,” Black \u003ca href=\"http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-1-4419-5716-0_3\">writes\u003c/a>. Even when they’re learning on computers, it’s wise to remember that students are more than mental machines. \u003cem>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This article originally appeared on the \u003ca href=\"http://hechingerreport.org/content/body-next-breakthrough-education-tech_16629/\" target=\"_blank\">Hechinger Report\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2014/07/educational_technology_s_next_move_tools_to_help_kids_learn_with_their_bodies.html\" target=\"_blank\">Slate\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"disqusTitle": "The Facebook Conundrum: Where Ethics and Science Collide",
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"content": "\u003cp class=\"dropcap-serif\">\u003cimg class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-36675\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/07/eqm10110_f3-596b39a35d21d704b2148a39d766e7a19082b48e-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"The Course Signals dashboard tells professors how their students are doing at a glance.\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\">When students at Purdue University are reading their homework assignments, sometimes the assignments are reading them too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A software program called \u003ca href=\"http://www.itap.purdue.edu/learning/tools/signals/\">Course Signals \u003c/a> tracks various pieces of information, including the number of points earned in the course and the amount of time the student has spent logged in to the college's software platform.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Course Signals combines this data with knowledge about the student's background, such as her high school GPA, and generates a \"green,\" \"yellow,\" or \"red\" light representing her chances of doing well in the course.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Professors then have the option of sending students text messages or emails either warning them to buckle down or cheering them on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We work on sending tailored feedback--tips, tricks, hints,\" says Matt Pistilli, a \u003ca href=\"http://www.jngi.org/matt-pistilli/\">research scientist at Purdue \u003c/a>who helped develop Course Signals. \"It's giving students good information, so it doesn't come across as saying you're going to fail as much as, you're going to do better.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Course Signals has now been used by 24,000 students at various schools since its introduction in 2007, including about a fifth of Purdue's undergraduates in recent years. It has been shown to increase the number of students earning A's and B's and lower the number of D's and F's, and it significantly raises the chances that students will stick with college for an additional year, from 83% to 97%.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is one early real-world application of the new and rapidly expanding fields of research called learning analytics and educational data mining.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When students use software as part of the learning process, whether in online or blended courses or doing their own research, they generate massive amounts of data. Scholars are running large-scale experiments using this data to improve teaching; to help students stay motivated and succeed in college; and even to learn more about the brain and the process of learning itself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But with all this potential comes serious concerns. Facebook caused a furor over the past \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2014/06/30/326923945/lab-rats-one-and-all-that-unsettling-facebook-experiment\">couple of weeks \u003c/a>when the company's lead scientist published a research paper indicating that the social network had tinkered with the news feeds of hundreds of thousands of people in an experiment to see whether their emotions could be influenced.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As unsettling as that may have been, users of a recreational social network are free to click away or delete their accounts at any time. College students, on the other hand, are committed. Earning a degree is crucial to their future success, and requires a significant investment of time and money.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So academics are scrambling to come up with rules and procedures for gathering and using student data--and manipulating student behavior.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"This is a huge opportunity for science, but it also brings very large ethical puzzles,\" says Dr. Mitchell Stevens, director of digital research and planning at Stanford University's Graduate School of Education. \"We are at an unprecedented moment in the history of the human sciences, in which massive streams of information about human activity are produced continuously through online interaction.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Experts say the ethical considerations are lagging behind the practice. \"There's a ton of research being done...[yet] if you do a search on ethics and analytics I think you'll get literally seven or eight articles,\" says Pistilli, who is the author of \u003ca href=\"http://www.educause.edu/ero/article/ethics-big-data-and-analytics-model-application\">one of them\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Large Ethical Puzzles\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In June, Stevens helped convene a gathering to produce a set of guidelines for this research. \u003ca href=\"http://asilomar-highered.info/\">The Asilomar Convention\u003c/a> was in the spirit of the Belmont Report of 1979, which created the rules in use today to evaluate research involving human subjects.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the existing human-subject rules fit the new data-driven world \"only awkwardly,\" Stevens says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Take the most basic principle: informed consent. It says that research subjects should be notified in advance of the nature and purposes of an experiment and be able to choose whether to participate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But what does informed consent really mean when data collection occurs invisibly, done along with an action like turning in your homework?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another catch: Often, scientists can't or don't want to specify the purposes of an experiment in advance, since they identify important patterns only after collecting a bunch of data.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yet another set of concerns arises because a lot of the new educational data collection is proprietary. Companies like Pearson, Blackboard and Coursera each have information on millions of learners.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"This is not a new problem for science,\" Stevens says, pointing to pharmaceutical and medical research. \"But it is a new fact in the field of education research.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A fact that raises big questions: Who owns this data? The student, the institution, the company or some combination? Who gets to decide what is done in whose best interest?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Asilomar came up with a set of broad principles that include \"openness,\" \"justice,\" and \"beneficence.\" The final one is \"continuous consideration,\" which, essentially, acknowledges that ethics remain a moving target in these situations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>'Stereotype Threat' And The 'Pygmalion Effect'\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The field of learning analytics isn't just about advancing the understanding of learning. It's also being applied in efforts to try to influence and predict student behavior.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It's here that the ethical rubber really meets the road.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With the Course Signals project, for example, an algorithm flags a certain group of students as being likely to struggle. The information it draws on includes a demographic profile of the student: his or her age, whether they live on campus, and how many credits they've attempted or already earned in college. Depending on the way that prediction is communicated to teachers and students, it could have troubling implications.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A big one would be if the predictions unduly influenced teachers' perceptions of their students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A body of research going back decades confirms that, if teachers are informed that students are gifted, the students will produce better outcomes, regardless of whether the students really are gifted. It's called the \u003ca href=\"http://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ092071\">Pygmalion Effect.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"One of the worst possibilities is that we stereotype students,\" says Justin Reich, who does learning analytics research for the MOOC platform HarvardX. \"Any day is the day a kid could turn things around.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And what about the impact of this information on the students themselves?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Research on \u003ca href=\"http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/psp/69/5/797/\">\"stereotype threat\"\u003c/a> shows that merely being reminded of one's minority status can be enough to depress test performance. Does telling them they have been \"red flagged\" make them more likely to fail or give up?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In some courses using Course Signals, students do, in fact, tend to withdraw earlier than they otherwise would. \"The self-fulfilling prophecy is a concern for a lot of folks,\" Pistilli says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most of these conversations are, for now, hypothetical. Learning analytics has yet to demonstrate its big beneficial breakthrough, its \"penicillin,\" in the words of Reich. Nor has there been a big ethical failure to creep lots of people out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But there's no reason to wait for a disaster to start setting some ground rules. \"There's a difference,\" Pistilli says, \"between what we can do and what we should do.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">\u003cem>This post first appeared on \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/ed/2014/07/04/327745863/big-data-comes-to-college\" target=\"_blank\">NPR\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp class=\"dropcap-serif\">\u003cimg class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-36675\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/07/eqm10110_f3-596b39a35d21d704b2148a39d766e7a19082b48e-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"The Course Signals dashboard tells professors how their students are doing at a glance.\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\">When students at Purdue University are reading their homework assignments, sometimes the assignments are reading them too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A software program called \u003ca href=\"http://www.itap.purdue.edu/learning/tools/signals/\">Course Signals \u003c/a> tracks various pieces of information, including the number of points earned in the course and the amount of time the student has spent logged in to the college's software platform.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Course Signals combines this data with knowledge about the student's background, such as her high school GPA, and generates a \"green,\" \"yellow,\" or \"red\" light representing her chances of doing well in the course.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Professors then have the option of sending students text messages or emails either warning them to buckle down or cheering them on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We work on sending tailored feedback--tips, tricks, hints,\" says Matt Pistilli, a \u003ca href=\"http://www.jngi.org/matt-pistilli/\">research scientist at Purdue \u003c/a>who helped develop Course Signals. \"It's giving students good information, so it doesn't come across as saying you're going to fail as much as, you're going to do better.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Course Signals has now been used by 24,000 students at various schools since its introduction in 2007, including about a fifth of Purdue's undergraduates in recent years. It has been shown to increase the number of students earning A's and B's and lower the number of D's and F's, and it significantly raises the chances that students will stick with college for an additional year, from 83% to 97%.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is one early real-world application of the new and rapidly expanding fields of research called learning analytics and educational data mining.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When students use software as part of the learning process, whether in online or blended courses or doing their own research, they generate massive amounts of data. Scholars are running large-scale experiments using this data to improve teaching; to help students stay motivated and succeed in college; and even to learn more about the brain and the process of learning itself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But with all this potential comes serious concerns. Facebook caused a furor over the past \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2014/06/30/326923945/lab-rats-one-and-all-that-unsettling-facebook-experiment\">couple of weeks \u003c/a>when the company's lead scientist published a research paper indicating that the social network had tinkered with the news feeds of hundreds of thousands of people in an experiment to see whether their emotions could be influenced.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As unsettling as that may have been, users of a recreational social network are free to click away or delete their accounts at any time. College students, on the other hand, are committed. Earning a degree is crucial to their future success, and requires a significant investment of time and money.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So academics are scrambling to come up with rules and procedures for gathering and using student data--and manipulating student behavior.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"This is a huge opportunity for science, but it also brings very large ethical puzzles,\" says Dr. Mitchell Stevens, director of digital research and planning at Stanford University's Graduate School of Education. \"We are at an unprecedented moment in the history of the human sciences, in which massive streams of information about human activity are produced continuously through online interaction.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Experts say the ethical considerations are lagging behind the practice. \"There's a ton of research being done...[yet] if you do a search on ethics and analytics I think you'll get literally seven or eight articles,\" says Pistilli, who is the author of \u003ca href=\"http://www.educause.edu/ero/article/ethics-big-data-and-analytics-model-application\">one of them\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Large Ethical Puzzles\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In June, Stevens helped convene a gathering to produce a set of guidelines for this research. \u003ca href=\"http://asilomar-highered.info/\">The Asilomar Convention\u003c/a> was in the spirit of the Belmont Report of 1979, which created the rules in use today to evaluate research involving human subjects.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the existing human-subject rules fit the new data-driven world \"only awkwardly,\" Stevens says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Take the most basic principle: informed consent. It says that research subjects should be notified in advance of the nature and purposes of an experiment and be able to choose whether to participate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But what does informed consent really mean when data collection occurs invisibly, done along with an action like turning in your homework?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another catch: Often, scientists can't or don't want to specify the purposes of an experiment in advance, since they identify important patterns only after collecting a bunch of data.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yet another set of concerns arises because a lot of the new educational data collection is proprietary. Companies like Pearson, Blackboard and Coursera each have information on millions of learners.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"This is not a new problem for science,\" Stevens says, pointing to pharmaceutical and medical research. \"But it is a new fact in the field of education research.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A fact that raises big questions: Who owns this data? The student, the institution, the company or some combination? Who gets to decide what is done in whose best interest?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Asilomar came up with a set of broad principles that include \"openness,\" \"justice,\" and \"beneficence.\" The final one is \"continuous consideration,\" which, essentially, acknowledges that ethics remain a moving target in these situations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>'Stereotype Threat' And The 'Pygmalion Effect'\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The field of learning analytics isn't just about advancing the understanding of learning. It's also being applied in efforts to try to influence and predict student behavior.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It's here that the ethical rubber really meets the road.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With the Course Signals project, for example, an algorithm flags a certain group of students as being likely to struggle. The information it draws on includes a demographic profile of the student: his or her age, whether they live on campus, and how many credits they've attempted or already earned in college. Depending on the way that prediction is communicated to teachers and students, it could have troubling implications.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A big one would be if the predictions unduly influenced teachers' perceptions of their students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A body of research going back decades confirms that, if teachers are informed that students are gifted, the students will produce better outcomes, regardless of whether the students really are gifted. It's called the \u003ca href=\"http://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ092071\">Pygmalion Effect.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"One of the worst possibilities is that we stereotype students,\" says Justin Reich, who does learning analytics research for the MOOC platform HarvardX. \"Any day is the day a kid could turn things around.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And what about the impact of this information on the students themselves?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Research on \u003ca href=\"http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/psp/69/5/797/\">\"stereotype threat\"\u003c/a> shows that merely being reminded of one's minority status can be enough to depress test performance. Does telling them they have been \"red flagged\" make them more likely to fail or give up?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In some courses using Course Signals, students do, in fact, tend to withdraw earlier than they otherwise would. \"The self-fulfilling prophecy is a concern for a lot of folks,\" Pistilli says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most of these conversations are, for now, hypothetical. Learning analytics has yet to demonstrate its big beneficial breakthrough, its \"penicillin,\" in the words of Reich. Nor has there been a big ethical failure to creep lots of people out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But there's no reason to wait for a disaster to start setting some ground rules. \"There's a difference,\" Pistilli says, \"between what we can do and what we should do.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">\u003cem>This post first appeared on \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/ed/2014/07/04/327745863/big-data-comes-to-college\" target=\"_blank\">NPR\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_36477\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/annie-b68349519cea2fb1e9fa145d56cb21ea5722f827.jpg\">\u003cimg class=\"size-large wp-image-36477\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/annie-b68349519cea2fb1e9fa145d56cb21ea5722f827-640x479.jpg\" alt=\"League of Legends is a video game with 70 million players a month. (Riot Games, Inc)\" width=\"640\" height=\"479\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">League of Legends is a video game with 70 million players a month. (Riot Games, Inc)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp class=\"dropcap-serif\">Imagine the lede in the campus newspaper:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Eagles swept to a win last night in 100 hours of tournament gameplay. Tabbz made the absolute best usage of the shields and heals that were available to him. Froggen went for utility and pushing power, while Nyph's black shields were near perfect, and he hit a bunch of bindings. Airwak's Lee Sin kick ended the encounter with a massive multicolor explosion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Monday morning quarterbacking will never be the same.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A private university in Chicago has become the first in the country to make video games a varsity sport. Robert Morris University-Illinois says it will offer between 45 and 50 athletic scholarships to competitive gamers who play an online, multiplayer battle-arena video game called \u003ca href=\"http://na.leagueoflegends.com/\">League of Legends\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kurt Melcher, the associate athletic director, has been a gamer himself. He says that in addition to the scholarships, which are worth about $19,000 each, the school will also be looking to hire a video game coach. (Unlike other team coaches, whose job is to get players to practice more and harder, Melcher told \u003ca href=\"http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/06/23/illinois-university-makes-league-legends-varsity-sport\">\u003cem>Inside Higher Ed\u003c/em> \u003c/a>that the job for a video game coach is to exhort the team to ease up on the all-night Red Bull marathons and actually include some balance in their lives.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Why League of Legends? The game has 70 million players per month and was the most popular video game in the U.S. and Europe in 2012 in terms of hours played. It's a six-year-old descendant of the game Warcraft, featuring a loose medieval/fantasy/Asian theme.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Players spent \u003ca href=\"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/19/league-of-legends-is-now-a-college-sport-and-one-university-is-offering-scholarships-for-its-team/\">$624 million\u003c/a> last year on in-game purchases like \"skins\" to modify the look and powers of their \"champions.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"LoL,\" as it's called by fans, is designed for large-scale competition, with players combining into teams to do virtual battle.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In many ways the move marks yet another step in the mainstreaming of video games, which in this context are also called e-sports, within education. There's already a \u003ca href=\"http://www.cstarleague.com/sc2/news\">Collegiate Star League\u003c/a> dedicated to video gaming, with teams at 100 universities including MIT and the University of California, Berkeley. At some schools these are official student clubs, while at others they are informal groups of gamers. The RMU Eagles will be part of this league.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They'll be competing in a \u003ca href=\"http://na.lolesports.com/articles/announcing-north-american-collegiate-championship\">North American Collegiate Championship\u003c/a> with $100,000 in scholarship prizes. The players are often drawn from a High School Star League, which includes 750 schools. And just as with other college sports, they will have a chance to join the major leagues--that is, Major League Gaming, which by coincidence, held its \u003ca href=\"http://www.majorleaguegaming.com/competitions/66\">national championships\u003c/a> in Anaheim, California this past weekend.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The connection to traditional sports raises some interesting questions. \u003ca href=\"https://edpsych.education.wisc.edu/people/faculty-staff/david-shaffer\">David Williamson Shaffer, \u003c/a>a professor of educational psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an expert in educational games, says this is a sign of games as a growing \"cultural phenomenon.\" He compares the move to what many high schools have done by turning debate into a letter 'sport.'\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"It seems to me this fulfills the goals of the university as much as any varsity sport does,\" he said. \"It provides support for students who have a passion and want to develop it toward mastery and excellence. It attracts students with talent to the university, and promotes the university through the achievements of those students.\" The promotional angle is clear here--Robert Morris University-Illinois, a school of 7000 students, reports it has received 70 applications and over 500 email inquiries since the announcement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The only qualm Shaffer has, he said, is the existence of varsity sports in the first place, and the millions of dollars spent on them by universities around the country. \"Whether it makes sense to award scholarships to an academic institution based on performance in a sport (whether electronic or not) is less clear.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In other words, if giving kids money to hit buttons on a controller seems strange, so is rewarding kids who are good at putting a ball through a hole.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">\u003cem>This post originally appeared on \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/ed/\" target=\"_blank\">NPR\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_36477\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/annie-b68349519cea2fb1e9fa145d56cb21ea5722f827.jpg\">\u003cimg class=\"size-large wp-image-36477\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/annie-b68349519cea2fb1e9fa145d56cb21ea5722f827-640x479.jpg\" alt=\"League of Legends is a video game with 70 million players a month. (Riot Games, Inc)\" width=\"640\" height=\"479\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">League of Legends is a video game with 70 million players a month. (Riot Games, Inc)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp class=\"dropcap-serif\">Imagine the lede in the campus newspaper:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Eagles swept to a win last night in 100 hours of tournament gameplay. Tabbz made the absolute best usage of the shields and heals that were available to him. Froggen went for utility and pushing power, while Nyph's black shields were near perfect, and he hit a bunch of bindings. Airwak's Lee Sin kick ended the encounter with a massive multicolor explosion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Monday morning quarterbacking will never be the same.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A private university in Chicago has become the first in the country to make video games a varsity sport. Robert Morris University-Illinois says it will offer between 45 and 50 athletic scholarships to competitive gamers who play an online, multiplayer battle-arena video game called \u003ca href=\"http://na.leagueoflegends.com/\">League of Legends\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kurt Melcher, the associate athletic director, has been a gamer himself. He says that in addition to the scholarships, which are worth about $19,000 each, the school will also be looking to hire a video game coach. (Unlike other team coaches, whose job is to get players to practice more and harder, Melcher told \u003ca href=\"http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/06/23/illinois-university-makes-league-legends-varsity-sport\">\u003cem>Inside Higher Ed\u003c/em> \u003c/a>that the job for a video game coach is to exhort the team to ease up on the all-night Red Bull marathons and actually include some balance in their lives.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Why League of Legends? The game has 70 million players per month and was the most popular video game in the U.S. and Europe in 2012 in terms of hours played. It's a six-year-old descendant of the game Warcraft, featuring a loose medieval/fantasy/Asian theme.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Players spent \u003ca href=\"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/19/league-of-legends-is-now-a-college-sport-and-one-university-is-offering-scholarships-for-its-team/\">$624 million\u003c/a> last year on in-game purchases like \"skins\" to modify the look and powers of their \"champions.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"LoL,\" as it's called by fans, is designed for large-scale competition, with players combining into teams to do virtual battle.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In many ways the move marks yet another step in the mainstreaming of video games, which in this context are also called e-sports, within education. There's already a \u003ca href=\"http://www.cstarleague.com/sc2/news\">Collegiate Star League\u003c/a> dedicated to video gaming, with teams at 100 universities including MIT and the University of California, Berkeley. At some schools these are official student clubs, while at others they are informal groups of gamers. The RMU Eagles will be part of this league.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They'll be competing in a \u003ca href=\"http://na.lolesports.com/articles/announcing-north-american-collegiate-championship\">North American Collegiate Championship\u003c/a> with $100,000 in scholarship prizes. The players are often drawn from a High School Star League, which includes 750 schools. And just as with other college sports, they will have a chance to join the major leagues--that is, Major League Gaming, which by coincidence, held its \u003ca href=\"http://www.majorleaguegaming.com/competitions/66\">national championships\u003c/a> in Anaheim, California this past weekend.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The connection to traditional sports raises some interesting questions. \u003ca href=\"https://edpsych.education.wisc.edu/people/faculty-staff/david-shaffer\">David Williamson Shaffer, \u003c/a>a professor of educational psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an expert in educational games, says this is a sign of games as a growing \"cultural phenomenon.\" He compares the move to what many high schools have done by turning debate into a letter 'sport.'\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"It seems to me this fulfills the goals of the university as much as any varsity sport does,\" he said. \"It provides support for students who have a passion and want to develop it toward mastery and excellence. It attracts students with talent to the university, and promotes the university through the achievements of those students.\" The promotional angle is clear here--Robert Morris University-Illinois, a school of 7000 students, reports it has received 70 applications and over 500 email inquiries since the announcement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The only qualm Shaffer has, he said, is the existence of varsity sports in the first place, and the millions of dollars spent on them by universities around the country. \"Whether it makes sense to award scholarships to an academic institution based on performance in a sport (whether electronic or not) is less clear.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In other words, if giving kids money to hit buttons on a controller seems strange, so is rewarding kids who are good at putting a ball through a hole.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">\u003cem>This post originally appeared on \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/ed/\" target=\"_blank\">NPR\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"disqusTitle": "Games In The Classroom: What the Research Says ",
"title": "Games In The Classroom: What the Research Says ",
"headTitle": "The MindShift Guide to Digital Games and Learning | MindShift | KQED News",
"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_36532\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-36532\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/6660098369_640ec3fb64_z-e1403817664851.jpg\" alt=\"Brad Flickinger\" width=\"640\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/6660098369_640ec3fb64_z-e1403817664851.jpg 640w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/6660098369_640ec3fb64_z-e1403817664851-400x250.jpg 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/6660098369_640ec3fb64_z-e1403817664851-320x200.jpg 320w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Brad Flickinger\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Part 9 of \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/series/guide-to-games-and-learning/\" target=\"_blank\">MindShift's Guide to Games and Learning\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"dropcap-serif\">The games-and-learning landscape is changing quickly. What's happening in classrooms now will look very different in a decade, so what really matters right now is how we frame the conversation. The way we understand the expectations and promises of today’s game-based approaches will have a long-term impact on how we imagine and implement them in the future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It's critical that teachers, parents, and administrators understand not only the research, but also the way corporations, foundations, and research organizations are thinking about games and learning. There are big players involved in researching the benefits of game-based learning in schools. Companies and foundations like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, the Educational Testing Service (ETS), Pearson, Inc., Electronic Arts (EA), and the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) are all involved. Each has a different role in the matter and teachers have different perceptions of what those roles are.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We have a sense of what research says about the\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/06/benefits-of-gaming-what-research-shows/\"> general benefits of gaming\u003c/a>, so now we'll look at summarizing a bit of the scant research that’s specific to the classroom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some of the most significant research on game-based learning is done by \u003ca href=\"http://glasslabgames.org/\" target=\"_blank\">GlassLab\u003c/a> (the Games and Learning Assessment Lab), which was established with a “significant investment” from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in cooperation with the MacArthur Foundation. GlassLab designs and implements game-based formative assessments which, \u003ca href=\"http://www.sri.com/work/projects/glasslab-research\" target=\"_blank\">according to SRI\u003c/a>, “are being developed in response to the climate of student disengagement that currently exists in many classrooms.” The concept is simple: kids like video games and the hope is that “by applying Evidence Centered Design (ECD), the game-based formative assessments address the needs of both students and teachers for reliable and valid real-time actionable data within a motivating learning environment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">The way students play and learn today is the way they will work tomorrow.\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>So far, the research seems to be showing success. The 2013 study, which is the most significant to date, \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2013/06/can-students-learn-better-with-digital-games/\" target=\"_blank\">found that \u003c/a>“when digital games were compared to other instruction conditions without digital games, there was a moderate to strong effect in favor of digital games in terms of broad cognitive competencies.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For a student sitting in the median who doesn’t have a game, his or her learning achievement would have increased by 12 percent if he or she had that game,” said Ed Dieterle, Senior Program Officer for Research, Measurement, and Evaluation for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2013/06/can-students-learn-better-with-digital-games/\">in a MindShift article last year\u003c/a>. In the world of education achievement, 12 percent is significant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the same study, SRI also looked at simulations, and in those studies, students improved by 25 percent. That’s huge. But how do they define a simulation? Think of something that’s more interactive than an animated anatomy lesson and less game-like than Nintendo’s Super Smash Brothers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"http://www.sri.com/sites/default/files/publications/simulations-for-stem-learning-executive-summary.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">SRI report describes it this way\u003c/a>: “A computer simulation is a tool used to explore a real-world or hypothetical phenomenon or system by approximating the behavior of the phenomenon or operation of the system.” According to the SRI study, a simulation differs from a game in that it does not employ a points or “currency” based reward system and it doesn’t have level based achievement goals. In addition, simulations have an “underlying model that is based on some real-world behavior.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=\"c6fda31c3c651ceecf3964b91c2485d6\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/04/tapping-into-the-potential-of-video-games-and-uninhibited-play-for-learning-education/\" target=\"_blank\">promise of game-based learning\u003c/a> lies in the premise that the technology provides an efficient and effective tool with which to replace a points-based extrinsic motivation system with a contextualized hands-on learning experience. Unlike this SRI study, which uses the word “simulation” to describe this kind of learning, I’ve made the distinction between “gamification” and “game-based learning.” As I've \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/03/forget-gold-coins-and-badges-the-real-value-of-video-games-for-learning/\"> argued before,\u003c/a> “we don’t need gamification if gamification is about competition and commodification of learning, there’s no need for more commodified motivation. We don’t need more gold coins or badges.” SRI’s findings provide evidence to support this claim.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The key point here is that games themselves are not necessarily competitive. Play is useful because it simulates real life experience -- physical, emotional, and/or intellectual -- in a safe, iterative and social environment, not because it has winners and losers. The achievement lies in the act of learning and understanding itself. Whether or not we make a distinction between “simulation” and “games” the SRI study shows that interactive digital tools can offer an efficient means to provide effective contextualized learning experiences.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For some of us, these findings are hardly surprising. Many teachers have already intuited how beneficial game-based learning can be. According to \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/06/surprising-insights-how-teachers-use-games-in-the-classroom/\">the recent teacher’s survey\u003c/a> undertaken by the \u003ca href=\"http://www.joanganzcooneycenter.org/\">Joan Ganz Cooney Center\u003c/a>, 55 percent of students play games at least weekly and 78 percent reported using games in the classroom at all.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These teachers are not newbies. The 694 K-8 teachers surveyed have an average of 14.5 years of experience in the classroom. And 30 percent of the teachers said the games are equally beneficial for all students. But there also seemed to be a trend that identified games as most beneficial for “low-performing students,” “students with emotional/behavioral issues,” “student with cognitive or developmental issues.” In other words, students who have been labeled and/or diagnosed because they struggle within the traditional school environment, benefit from game-based approaches. From the study: “65 percent of teachers note that lower-performing students show increased engagement with content, versus only 3 percent who show a decrease.” This is good news.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-35200 alignright\" style=\"border: 0\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/04/MindShiftGames-140x140.png\" alt=\"MindShiftGames\" width=\"140\" height=\"140\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition, 53 percent of teachers find that video games foster positive collaboration between students. Anyone who has watched kids play video games together has seen this trend: They give each other tips and advice, they share tricks. They teach each other to understand the games’ systems. No wonder \u003ca href=\"http://online.wsj.com/articles/youtube-star-plays-videogames-earns-4-million-a-year-1402939896\">gameplay YouTube videos are so popular\u003c/a>. Gaming inherently involves systems-thinking which is best taught through collaborative learning. Still, 52 percent of teachers assign digital games as independent activities for students. Only about a third (34 percent) “assign digital games to groups of 3-5 students.” And only 29 percent “direct the whole classroom to use digital games together.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What accounts for this preference toward independent gameplay among teachers? Perhaps it is leftover residue from an old paradigm that values individual achievement over collaboration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It's becoming more apparent that teachers will need to do more than just embrace new technologies. They will also need to embrace the epistemological foundations of these technologies. There are connected, networked ways of knowing that will dominate the digital future. Sharing and collaboration go hand-in-hand with integrating non-competitive and non-commodified ways of playing. The way students play and learn today is the way they will work tomorrow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/series/guide-to-games-and-learning/\" target=\"_blank\">MindShift Guide to Games and Learning\u003c/a> is made possible through the generous support of the \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/05/math-science-history-games-break-boundaries-between-subjects-interdisciplinary-learning/www.joanganzcooneycenter.org/\" target=\"_blank\">Joan Ganz Cooney Center\u003c/a> and is a project of the \u003ca href=\"http://www.joanganzcooneycenter.org/initiative/games-and-learning-publishing-council-analyzing-a-rising-sector/\" target=\"_blank\">Games and Learning Publishing Council\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_36532\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-36532\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/6660098369_640ec3fb64_z-e1403817664851.jpg\" alt=\"Brad Flickinger\" width=\"640\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/6660098369_640ec3fb64_z-e1403817664851.jpg 640w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/6660098369_640ec3fb64_z-e1403817664851-400x250.jpg 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/6660098369_640ec3fb64_z-e1403817664851-320x200.jpg 320w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Brad Flickinger\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Part 9 of \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/series/guide-to-games-and-learning/\" target=\"_blank\">MindShift's Guide to Games and Learning\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"dropcap-serif\">The games-and-learning landscape is changing quickly. What's happening in classrooms now will look very different in a decade, so what really matters right now is how we frame the conversation. The way we understand the expectations and promises of today’s game-based approaches will have a long-term impact on how we imagine and implement them in the future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It's critical that teachers, parents, and administrators understand not only the research, but also the way corporations, foundations, and research organizations are thinking about games and learning. There are big players involved in researching the benefits of game-based learning in schools. Companies and foundations like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, the Educational Testing Service (ETS), Pearson, Inc., Electronic Arts (EA), and the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) are all involved. Each has a different role in the matter and teachers have different perceptions of what those roles are.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We have a sense of what research says about the\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/06/benefits-of-gaming-what-research-shows/\"> general benefits of gaming\u003c/a>, so now we'll look at summarizing a bit of the scant research that’s specific to the classroom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some of the most significant research on game-based learning is done by \u003ca href=\"http://glasslabgames.org/\" target=\"_blank\">GlassLab\u003c/a> (the Games and Learning Assessment Lab), which was established with a “significant investment” from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in cooperation with the MacArthur Foundation. GlassLab designs and implements game-based formative assessments which, \u003ca href=\"http://www.sri.com/work/projects/glasslab-research\" target=\"_blank\">according to SRI\u003c/a>, “are being developed in response to the climate of student disengagement that currently exists in many classrooms.” The concept is simple: kids like video games and the hope is that “by applying Evidence Centered Design (ECD), the game-based formative assessments address the needs of both students and teachers for reliable and valid real-time actionable data within a motivating learning environment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">The way students play and learn today is the way they will work tomorrow.\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>So far, the research seems to be showing success. The 2013 study, which is the most significant to date, \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2013/06/can-students-learn-better-with-digital-games/\" target=\"_blank\">found that \u003c/a>“when digital games were compared to other instruction conditions without digital games, there was a moderate to strong effect in favor of digital games in terms of broad cognitive competencies.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For a student sitting in the median who doesn’t have a game, his or her learning achievement would have increased by 12 percent if he or she had that game,” said Ed Dieterle, Senior Program Officer for Research, Measurement, and Evaluation for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2013/06/can-students-learn-better-with-digital-games/\">in a MindShift article last year\u003c/a>. In the world of education achievement, 12 percent is significant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the same study, SRI also looked at simulations, and in those studies, students improved by 25 percent. That’s huge. But how do they define a simulation? Think of something that’s more interactive than an animated anatomy lesson and less game-like than Nintendo’s Super Smash Brothers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"http://www.sri.com/sites/default/files/publications/simulations-for-stem-learning-executive-summary.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">SRI report describes it this way\u003c/a>: “A computer simulation is a tool used to explore a real-world or hypothetical phenomenon or system by approximating the behavior of the phenomenon or operation of the system.” According to the SRI study, a simulation differs from a game in that it does not employ a points or “currency” based reward system and it doesn’t have level based achievement goals. In addition, simulations have an “underlying model that is based on some real-world behavior.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/04/tapping-into-the-potential-of-video-games-and-uninhibited-play-for-learning-education/\" target=\"_blank\">promise of game-based learning\u003c/a> lies in the premise that the technology provides an efficient and effective tool with which to replace a points-based extrinsic motivation system with a contextualized hands-on learning experience. Unlike this SRI study, which uses the word “simulation” to describe this kind of learning, I’ve made the distinction between “gamification” and “game-based learning.” As I've \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/03/forget-gold-coins-and-badges-the-real-value-of-video-games-for-learning/\"> argued before,\u003c/a> “we don’t need gamification if gamification is about competition and commodification of learning, there’s no need for more commodified motivation. We don’t need more gold coins or badges.” SRI’s findings provide evidence to support this claim.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The key point here is that games themselves are not necessarily competitive. Play is useful because it simulates real life experience -- physical, emotional, and/or intellectual -- in a safe, iterative and social environment, not because it has winners and losers. The achievement lies in the act of learning and understanding itself. Whether or not we make a distinction between “simulation” and “games” the SRI study shows that interactive digital tools can offer an efficient means to provide effective contextualized learning experiences.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For some of us, these findings are hardly surprising. Many teachers have already intuited how beneficial game-based learning can be. According to \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/06/surprising-insights-how-teachers-use-games-in-the-classroom/\">the recent teacher’s survey\u003c/a> undertaken by the \u003ca href=\"http://www.joanganzcooneycenter.org/\">Joan Ganz Cooney Center\u003c/a>, 55 percent of students play games at least weekly and 78 percent reported using games in the classroom at all.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These teachers are not newbies. The 694 K-8 teachers surveyed have an average of 14.5 years of experience in the classroom. And 30 percent of the teachers said the games are equally beneficial for all students. But there also seemed to be a trend that identified games as most beneficial for “low-performing students,” “students with emotional/behavioral issues,” “student with cognitive or developmental issues.” In other words, students who have been labeled and/or diagnosed because they struggle within the traditional school environment, benefit from game-based approaches. From the study: “65 percent of teachers note that lower-performing students show increased engagement with content, versus only 3 percent who show a decrease.” This is good news.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-35200 alignright\" style=\"border: 0\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/04/MindShiftGames-140x140.png\" alt=\"MindShiftGames\" width=\"140\" height=\"140\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition, 53 percent of teachers find that video games foster positive collaboration between students. Anyone who has watched kids play video games together has seen this trend: They give each other tips and advice, they share tricks. They teach each other to understand the games’ systems. No wonder \u003ca href=\"http://online.wsj.com/articles/youtube-star-plays-videogames-earns-4-million-a-year-1402939896\">gameplay YouTube videos are so popular\u003c/a>. Gaming inherently involves systems-thinking which is best taught through collaborative learning. Still, 52 percent of teachers assign digital games as independent activities for students. Only about a third (34 percent) “assign digital games to groups of 3-5 students.” And only 29 percent “direct the whole classroom to use digital games together.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What accounts for this preference toward independent gameplay among teachers? Perhaps it is leftover residue from an old paradigm that values individual achievement over collaboration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It's becoming more apparent that teachers will need to do more than just embrace new technologies. They will also need to embrace the epistemological foundations of these technologies. There are connected, networked ways of knowing that will dominate the digital future. Sharing and collaboration go hand-in-hand with integrating non-competitive and non-commodified ways of playing. The way students play and learn today is the way they will work tomorrow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/series/guide-to-games-and-learning/\" target=\"_blank\">MindShift Guide to Games and Learning\u003c/a> is made possible through the generous support of the \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/05/math-science-history-games-break-boundaries-between-subjects-interdisciplinary-learning/www.joanganzcooneycenter.org/\" target=\"_blank\">Joan Ganz Cooney Center\u003c/a> and is a project of the \u003ca href=\"http://www.joanganzcooneycenter.org/initiative/games-and-learning-publishing-council-analyzing-a-rising-sector/\" target=\"_blank\">Games and Learning Publishing Council\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"disqusTitle": "What's the Impact of Overzealous Internet Filtering in Schools?",
"title": "What's the Impact of Overzealous Internet Filtering in Schools?",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cimg class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-36510\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/483861483-e1403740781792.jpg\" alt=\"483861483\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/483861483-e1403740781792.jpg 640w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/483861483-e1403740781792-400x225.jpg 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/483861483-e1403740781792-320x180.jpg 320w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>By Kathy Baron\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"dropcap-serif\">Not too long ago, a proposal to give some Nebraska students access to a digital library of books and magazines through the school district’s website was thwarted by a district official who objected to students seeing those archetypal photos of naked breasts in \u003cem>National Geographic\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While that may seem quaint, a new report from the American Library Association warns it’s emblematic of an overzealous and damaging crackdown on websites by school districts that are misinterpreting the federal \u003ca href=\"http://www.e-ratecentral.com/CIPA/Childrens_Internet_Protection_Act.pdf\">Children’s Internet Protection Act\u003c/a> (CIPA) of 2000.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The over-filtering that occurs today affects not only what teachers can teach but also how they teach,” writes Kristen Batch in the ALA's report \u003ca href=\"http://www.ala.org/offices/sites/ala.org.offices/files/content/oitp/publications/issuebriefs/cipa_report.pdf\">Fencing Out Knowledge\u003c/a>, which examines the impact of CIPA 10 years after it was \u003ca href=\"https://www.aclu.org/technology-and-liberty/supreme-court-hears-web-blocking-case\">upheld\u003c/a> by the U.S. Supreme Court. It also “creates barriers to learning and acquiring digital literacy skills that are vital for college and career readiness, as well as for full participation in 21\u003csup>st\u003c/sup>-century society.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Batch doesn’t doubt that districts sincerely believe they’re protecting students, but says the law is based on an outmoded version of the Internet as a passive repository of printed information in a digital format.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The most striking change between CIPA when it was passed and CIPA today is the way we use the Internet,” Batch said. “It’s not a magazine, we’re not just consumers, we’re creators, we’re users.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Facebook, YouTube and Twitter didn’t exist when CIPA became law, but today millions of children use them to create online personas and interact with friends, strangers, even potential future employers. On Facebook alone, the typical teen has 300 \"friends,\" according to a 2013 \u003ca href=\"http://www.pewinternet.org/2013/05/21/teens-social-media-and-privacy/\">report\u003c/a> by the Pew Research Internet Project. Yet, the most popular social media sites are also the most commonly blocked by schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">“That’s really the gap; that students that have their own Internet connections at home have exposure, but those students who rely on Internet access at school, they are not getting access to the same sites that they should be.”\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>The folly lies in the fact that most students have unfettered access to these forbidden sites through the phones in their pockets and backpacks, on their home computers and in many public libraries – often with no adult guidance. Batch says it’s a missed opportunity to teach students the critical skills they’ll need to discern the good from the bad.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These critical thinking skills aren’t learned just by tinkering with technology, it has to be learned in context in a supportive environment,” said Batch. “Kids can learn and reflect, and it starts to shape behavior in terms of what’s appropriate on line.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>Varied Implementation\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>On the surface, CIPA is very clear about what schools and libraries must do to protect children from harmful material on the Internet. According to the \u003ca href=\"http://www.fcc.gov/guides/childrens-internet-protection-act\">Federal Communications Commission\u003c/a>, which oversees compliance with the law, they must put technology protection measures in place that “block or filter Internet access to pictures that are: (a) obscene; (b) child pornography; or (c) harmful to minors.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In practice, however, defining the three measures is up to each community, creating widely varied implementation from district to district and the sort of frustration that led U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart in the 1964 \u003ca href=\"getcase.pl%3Fcourt=us&vol=378&invol=184\">\u003cem>Jacobellis v. Ohio\u003c/em>\u003c/a> case, to exclaim about obscenity, “I know it when I see it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The FCC could order a district that’s out of compliance to repay tens of thousands of dollars in federal discounts to defray the cost of connecting to the Internet through the \u003ca href=\"http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/oii/nonpublic/erate.html\">E-rate program\u003c/a>. Although that hasn’t happened yet, the threat contributes to some districts’ attitude that it’s better to be safe than sorry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the same Nebraska school district that blocked \u003cem>National Geographic\u003c/em> magazine, neither students in an Advanced Placement government class, nor their teacher, could access websites containing the words China, Russia or Iran, making it a challenge to work on a project that required them to compare the different types of governments in those countries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The only people who could override the filter were in the technology department, which didn’t answer to anyone in the curriculum division, explained a former school staff member, who didn’t want her name used, and their answer to any requests was usually no. This was especially troubling when, in the wake of an attempted suicide, a school counselor wasn’t able to download information on suicide for students who came to her for help.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When she asked the tech department to unblock the site, she was rebuffed. “Their view was that if the filter is blocking it, there’s no reason for you to see it,” the former staff member said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=\"de5cee2950ff9e54bafedc7dd63c324a\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Nebraska district is in the midst of a sweeping philosophical and practical turnaround in filtering thanks to a newly elected – and much younger – school board, a new tech director and a new superintendent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the former staff member still wonders how the old policy impacted other students facing life-altering crises who hit a firewall while searching online for answers. How many dropped out of school or chose other risky behaviors because they couldn’t find any other options.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I have to assume that that happened,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>Filtering Out Equality\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>In their nascent days, filters were blunt instruments that worked by blocking any URL or website containing certain keywords: sex, drugs, guns. That’s still the gist of the operating system, but tech advances enable districts to be more nuanced about what gets blocked and for whom, and they’re taking advantage of that flexibility.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Between 2010 and 2013, the number of teachers who said Internet blocking was an obstacle in their classrooms fell from 45 to 32 percent, according to surveys by the nonprofit education group, \u003ca href=\"http://www.tomorrow.org/speakup/pdfs/SU09Unleashingthefuture.pdf\">Project Tomorrow\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When John Krull took over as Internet technology officer in Oakland Unified School District last summer, he said teachers’ biggest complaints were about not having access to the websites they needed. Because the district has a sophisticated filter, Krull implemented a teacher login system that lets staff override some blocked sites. He’s working on a similar system for students that would grant varying degrees of access depending on grade level.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But a more troubling concern raised in the ALA report is over unequal Internet access based on economic levels. Over-filtering in schools is creating two classes of students, Batch argues, by putting low-income students at an educational disadvantage because they’re less likely to have Internet access at home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That’s really the gap; that students that have their own Internet connections at home have exposure, but those students who rely on Internet access at school, they are not getting access to the same sites that they should be,” said Batch.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a survey released last year by the \u003ca href=\"http://www.pewinternet.org/2013/02/28/how-teachers-are-using-technology-at-home-and-in-their-classrooms/\" target=\"_blank\">Pew Research Internet Project\u003c/a>, nearly three times as many teachers of low-income students than those with middle- and high-income students said this lack of access was a “major challenge” in their ability “to incorporate more digital tools into their teaching.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The disparities will become more problematic as school implement Common Core State Standards, which require teachers to \u003ca href=\"http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/introduction/students-who-are-college-and-career-ready-in-reading-writing-speaking-listening-language/\">embed technology\u003c/a> throughout the curriculum and not treat it as a separate subject.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Under the new standards, it’s expected that students will learn to “employ technology thoughtfully to enhance their reading, writing, speaking, listening, and language use. They tailor their searches online to acquire useful information efficiently, and they integrate what they learn using technology with what they learn offline. They are familiar with the strengths and limitations of various technological tools and mediums and can select and use those best suited to their communication goals.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Finding the Right Balance\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Complying with CIPA is a time-consuming and expensive unfunded federal mandate. Filters can cost anywhere from $3-to-$40 per student, depending on the size and needs of the district, and like any software program, they require regular updates and training to make sure everyone knows how to use them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But eliminating filters isn’t the answer to debugging the problems with CIPA. For starters, there is no movement afoot to change law, let alone overturn it, according to FCC officials.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What’s more, even people who believe in full access to the Internet agree that there have to be protections in place for children.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s not a right or wrong; it’s a lot about community values and it’s a tough thing because the Internet can be a dangerous place,” said Denise Atkinson-Shorey, an IT consultant and former librarian.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wearing just her hat as an IT consultant, Atkinson-Shorey would rather that districts didn’t have to deal with the expense and bother of filters and could put that money and time into resources to directly improve education. Since that’s not going to happen anytime soon, she says there should be an ongoing conversation to review the impact of CIPA.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The need to improve communication about the issues that CIPA addresses is the “overarching” outcome of the ALA report. Once teachers, parents, administrators and students start talking about the good and bad consequences of the law, the hope is they can begin to develop some guidelines and resources for school districts and communities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s not if you have a filter or not, it’s really about to what degree do you filter, how do you filter?” said Atkinson-Shorey.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cimg class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-36510\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/483861483-e1403740781792.jpg\" alt=\"483861483\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/483861483-e1403740781792.jpg 640w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/483861483-e1403740781792-400x225.jpg 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/483861483-e1403740781792-320x180.jpg 320w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>By Kathy Baron\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"dropcap-serif\">Not too long ago, a proposal to give some Nebraska students access to a digital library of books and magazines through the school district’s website was thwarted by a district official who objected to students seeing those archetypal photos of naked breasts in \u003cem>National Geographic\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While that may seem quaint, a new report from the American Library Association warns it’s emblematic of an overzealous and damaging crackdown on websites by school districts that are misinterpreting the federal \u003ca href=\"http://www.e-ratecentral.com/CIPA/Childrens_Internet_Protection_Act.pdf\">Children’s Internet Protection Act\u003c/a> (CIPA) of 2000.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The over-filtering that occurs today affects not only what teachers can teach but also how they teach,” writes Kristen Batch in the ALA's report \u003ca href=\"http://www.ala.org/offices/sites/ala.org.offices/files/content/oitp/publications/issuebriefs/cipa_report.pdf\">Fencing Out Knowledge\u003c/a>, which examines the impact of CIPA 10 years after it was \u003ca href=\"https://www.aclu.org/technology-and-liberty/supreme-court-hears-web-blocking-case\">upheld\u003c/a> by the U.S. Supreme Court. It also “creates barriers to learning and acquiring digital literacy skills that are vital for college and career readiness, as well as for full participation in 21\u003csup>st\u003c/sup>-century society.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Batch doesn’t doubt that districts sincerely believe they’re protecting students, but says the law is based on an outmoded version of the Internet as a passive repository of printed information in a digital format.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The most striking change between CIPA when it was passed and CIPA today is the way we use the Internet,” Batch said. “It’s not a magazine, we’re not just consumers, we’re creators, we’re users.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Facebook, YouTube and Twitter didn’t exist when CIPA became law, but today millions of children use them to create online personas and interact with friends, strangers, even potential future employers. On Facebook alone, the typical teen has 300 \"friends,\" according to a 2013 \u003ca href=\"http://www.pewinternet.org/2013/05/21/teens-social-media-and-privacy/\">report\u003c/a> by the Pew Research Internet Project. Yet, the most popular social media sites are also the most commonly blocked by schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">“That’s really the gap; that students that have their own Internet connections at home have exposure, but those students who rely on Internet access at school, they are not getting access to the same sites that they should be.”\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>The folly lies in the fact that most students have unfettered access to these forbidden sites through the phones in their pockets and backpacks, on their home computers and in many public libraries – often with no adult guidance. Batch says it’s a missed opportunity to teach students the critical skills they’ll need to discern the good from the bad.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These critical thinking skills aren’t learned just by tinkering with technology, it has to be learned in context in a supportive environment,” said Batch. “Kids can learn and reflect, and it starts to shape behavior in terms of what’s appropriate on line.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>Varied Implementation\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>On the surface, CIPA is very clear about what schools and libraries must do to protect children from harmful material on the Internet. According to the \u003ca href=\"http://www.fcc.gov/guides/childrens-internet-protection-act\">Federal Communications Commission\u003c/a>, which oversees compliance with the law, they must put technology protection measures in place that “block or filter Internet access to pictures that are: (a) obscene; (b) child pornography; or (c) harmful to minors.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In practice, however, defining the three measures is up to each community, creating widely varied implementation from district to district and the sort of frustration that led U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart in the 1964 \u003ca href=\"getcase.pl%3Fcourt=us&vol=378&invol=184\">\u003cem>Jacobellis v. Ohio\u003c/em>\u003c/a> case, to exclaim about obscenity, “I know it when I see it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The FCC could order a district that’s out of compliance to repay tens of thousands of dollars in federal discounts to defray the cost of connecting to the Internet through the \u003ca href=\"http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/oii/nonpublic/erate.html\">E-rate program\u003c/a>. Although that hasn’t happened yet, the threat contributes to some districts’ attitude that it’s better to be safe than sorry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the same Nebraska school district that blocked \u003cem>National Geographic\u003c/em> magazine, neither students in an Advanced Placement government class, nor their teacher, could access websites containing the words China, Russia or Iran, making it a challenge to work on a project that required them to compare the different types of governments in those countries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The only people who could override the filter were in the technology department, which didn’t answer to anyone in the curriculum division, explained a former school staff member, who didn’t want her name used, and their answer to any requests was usually no. This was especially troubling when, in the wake of an attempted suicide, a school counselor wasn’t able to download information on suicide for students who came to her for help.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When she asked the tech department to unblock the site, she was rebuffed. “Their view was that if the filter is blocking it, there’s no reason for you to see it,” the former staff member said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Nebraska district is in the midst of a sweeping philosophical and practical turnaround in filtering thanks to a newly elected – and much younger – school board, a new tech director and a new superintendent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the former staff member still wonders how the old policy impacted other students facing life-altering crises who hit a firewall while searching online for answers. How many dropped out of school or chose other risky behaviors because they couldn’t find any other options.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I have to assume that that happened,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>Filtering Out Equality\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>In their nascent days, filters were blunt instruments that worked by blocking any URL or website containing certain keywords: sex, drugs, guns. That’s still the gist of the operating system, but tech advances enable districts to be more nuanced about what gets blocked and for whom, and they’re taking advantage of that flexibility.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Between 2010 and 2013, the number of teachers who said Internet blocking was an obstacle in their classrooms fell from 45 to 32 percent, according to surveys by the nonprofit education group, \u003ca href=\"http://www.tomorrow.org/speakup/pdfs/SU09Unleashingthefuture.pdf\">Project Tomorrow\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When John Krull took over as Internet technology officer in Oakland Unified School District last summer, he said teachers’ biggest complaints were about not having access to the websites they needed. Because the district has a sophisticated filter, Krull implemented a teacher login system that lets staff override some blocked sites. He’s working on a similar system for students that would grant varying degrees of access depending on grade level.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But a more troubling concern raised in the ALA report is over unequal Internet access based on economic levels. Over-filtering in schools is creating two classes of students, Batch argues, by putting low-income students at an educational disadvantage because they’re less likely to have Internet access at home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That’s really the gap; that students that have their own Internet connections at home have exposure, but those students who rely on Internet access at school, they are not getting access to the same sites that they should be,” said Batch.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a survey released last year by the \u003ca href=\"http://www.pewinternet.org/2013/02/28/how-teachers-are-using-technology-at-home-and-in-their-classrooms/\" target=\"_blank\">Pew Research Internet Project\u003c/a>, nearly three times as many teachers of low-income students than those with middle- and high-income students said this lack of access was a “major challenge” in their ability “to incorporate more digital tools into their teaching.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The disparities will become more problematic as school implement Common Core State Standards, which require teachers to \u003ca href=\"http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/introduction/students-who-are-college-and-career-ready-in-reading-writing-speaking-listening-language/\">embed technology\u003c/a> throughout the curriculum and not treat it as a separate subject.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Under the new standards, it’s expected that students will learn to “employ technology thoughtfully to enhance their reading, writing, speaking, listening, and language use. They tailor their searches online to acquire useful information efficiently, and they integrate what they learn using technology with what they learn offline. They are familiar with the strengths and limitations of various technological tools and mediums and can select and use those best suited to their communication goals.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Finding the Right Balance\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Complying with CIPA is a time-consuming and expensive unfunded federal mandate. Filters can cost anywhere from $3-to-$40 per student, depending on the size and needs of the district, and like any software program, they require regular updates and training to make sure everyone knows how to use them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But eliminating filters isn’t the answer to debugging the problems with CIPA. For starters, there is no movement afoot to change law, let alone overturn it, according to FCC officials.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What’s more, even people who believe in full access to the Internet agree that there have to be protections in place for children.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s not a right or wrong; it’s a lot about community values and it’s a tough thing because the Internet can be a dangerous place,” said Denise Atkinson-Shorey, an IT consultant and former librarian.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wearing just her hat as an IT consultant, Atkinson-Shorey would rather that districts didn’t have to deal with the expense and bother of filters and could put that money and time into resources to directly improve education. Since that’s not going to happen anytime soon, she says there should be an ongoing conversation to review the impact of CIPA.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The need to improve communication about the issues that CIPA addresses is the “overarching” outcome of the ALA report. Once teachers, parents, administrators and students start talking about the good and bad consequences of the law, the hope is they can begin to develop some guidelines and resources for school districts and communities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"disqusTitle": "Digital Games and the Future of Math Class: A Conversation With Keith Devlin",
"title": "Digital Games and the Future of Math Class: A Conversation With Keith Devlin",
"headTitle": "The MindShift Guide to Digital Games and Learning | MindShift | KQED News",
"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_36356\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 559px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-36356\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/Screen-Shot-2014-06-17-at-9.39.33-AM.png\" alt=\"Keith Devlin\" width=\"559\" height=\"257\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/Screen-Shot-2014-06-17-at-9.39.33-AM.png 559w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/Screen-Shot-2014-06-17-at-9.39.33-AM-400x184.png 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/Screen-Shot-2014-06-17-at-9.39.33-AM-320x147.png 320w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 559px) 100vw, 559px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Keith Devlin\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Part 8 of \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/series/guide-to-games-and-learning/\" target=\"_blank\">MindShift's Guide to Games and Learning\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"dropcap-serif\">\u003ca href=\"http://profkeithdevlin.com/\" target=\"_blank\">Keith Devlin\u003c/a> is a well-known mathematician and the author of many popular math books. He is co-founder and Executive Director of Stanford University’s Human-Sciences and Technologies Advanced Research Institute and is well known as the “\u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/2014/04/12/302166509/martin-gardner-a-genius-of-recreational-mathematics\" target=\"_blank\">NPR Math Guy\u003c/a>.” He’s also a big fan of using video games as a teaching tool and the founder of an education technology company called BrainQuake.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Devlin believes the future demands a substantial change in the way we think about math education. “So many people in the U.S. have never experienced good mathematics teaching. They have a totally false impression of what mathematics is,” he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In this conversation, he explains why we now need different mathematical skills than we once did, and points out that the math curriculum of the 20th century did not equip today’s adults to mentor children in the math skills of the 21st century.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Devlin argues that video games are the perfect tool for teaching math. He also sheds some light on those Common Core math problems that are so controversial.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jordan Shapiro: In 2011, you published a book entitled \u003c/b>\u003cb>\u003ci>\u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Mathematics-Education-New-Era-Learning/dp/1568814313\" target=\"_blank\">Mathematics Education For A New Era: Video Games As A Medium For Learning\u003c/a>.\u003c/i> W\u003c/b>\u003cb>hat inspired you to write that book? Do you play video games?\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Keith Devlin: \u003c/b>I not only play video games, I actually wrote one, way back in the early 1980s when personal home computers were just starting to appear. I wrote a math game where you use trigonometry to find buried pirates’ treasure on a desert island. I did it for use in the math class at the local elementary school my daughters attended. When I saw how my daughters were totally engaged by video games (professional ones, much better than mine!), I recognized at once their potential in mathematics education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I wrote the book to try to give teachers some sense of what it would take to build a good video game for mathematics learning and to explain to game designers what it would take to embed \u003ci>good\u003c/i> mathematics learning into a game. I was not thinking about building a video game myself (back then).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>JS: In the book, you argue that video games are the best way to teach math to middle school kids. We’ve spoken about this before and you’ve talked about the importance of learning through doing. Why is context so important? And how can thinking of video games as math simulations help to move the typical math class from an product based pedagogy to a process based pedagogy?\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>KD: \u003c/b>Video games are an ideal medium for developing mathematical thinking. It’s a classic case where a technology that renders old skills less relevant actually provides their replacement. Many people outside of the worlds of mathematics (particularly math as used in the world) and mathematics education are simply not aware of the dramatic shift that both disciplines have undergone as a result of digital technologies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When today’s parents were going through schools, the main focus in mathematics was on mastery of a collection of standard procedures for solving well-defined problems that have unique right answers. If you did well at that, you were pretty well guaranteed a good job. Learning mathematics had been that way for several thousand years. Math textbooks were essentially recipe books.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">\"The problems we need mathematics for today come in a messy, real-world context, and part of making progress is to figure out just what you need from that context.\"\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>But now all those math recipes have been coded into devices, some of which we carry round in our pockets. Suddenly, in a single generation, mastery of the procedural math skills that had ruled supreme for three thousand years has become largely irrelevant. In my book, I used the term “mathematical thinking” to distinguish the kind of math that is relevant today from the (procedural) “mathematics” most people are familiar with.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The skill that is in great demand today, and will continue to grow, is the ability to take a novel problem, possibly not well-defined, and likely not having a single “right” answer, and make progress on it, in some cases (but not all!) “solving” it (whatever that turns out to mean). The problems we need mathematics for today come in a messy, real-world context, and part of making progress is to figure out just what you need from that context.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=\"8e0286063995d3d5540997f09b77cdea\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Books and lectures (in a room or on a screen) are useful \u003ci>resources\u003c/i> for mathematical thinking, but they are no longer at the heart of math learning. The only way to acquire mathematical thinking ability is by a process of exploration – lots of trial-and-error and reflection. This is exactly what video games can deliver. They can provide small scale simulations of the kinds of open-ended, context-influenced, project-based, problem solving that is at such a premium in today’s world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>JS: I wrote about your game Wuzzit Trouble \u003c/b>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/05/how-games-based-learning-teaches-problem-solving-in-context/\">\u003cb>earlier in this series\u003c/b>\u003c/a>\u003cb>. I also sometimes show it when I’m doing workshops or public speaking. I’ve used your metaphor often: learning games should work like musical instruments. What does it mean to create a mathematical instrument? Can we do the equivalent for other subjects?\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>KD: \u003c/b>Yes, it’s fortunate that the word “play” applies both to musical instruments and video games. Everyone knows that the best way to learn an instrument is to start to play it. We don’t ask someone to learn to read music before they sit at a piano or pick up a guitar. But that’s exactly what we do in mathematics! The reason we do is that through most of its history, mathematics did not have any instruments. Video games can provide math instruments you can use to learn mathematics. Take a look at the \u003ca href=\"https://vimeo.com/89583763\">twenty-minute video\u003c/a> of the talk I gave recently. In it, I use \u003ci>Wuzzit Troubl\u003c/i>e to explain how this can be done.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We can do the same kind of thing in other subjects, but many of them already have instruments (e.g. laboratory equipment in the natural sciences). Before video game technologies, however, all we had for math were paper and pencil, augmented with ruler and compass for geometry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>JS: So, are you saying that kids don’t need to learn how to scribble numbers and equations on paper? Does that mean the symbolic Hindu-Arabic representation of mathematics is obsolete? \u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Keith: \u003c/b>No, kids need to master Hindu-Arithmetic \u003ci>representation\u003c/i> of numbers far more today than in the past. What they don’t need to do – and I think this is what you’re getting at with your question – is train themselves to do long computations, as was necessary when I was a child. No one calculates that way any more! What they (we) need in today’s world is a deeper understanding of how and why Hindu-Arabic arithmetic works.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In all four offerings of \u003ca href=\"https://www.coursera.org/course/maththink\">my mathematical thinking MOOC\u003c/a> to date, I have had as students, engineers with years of experience who suddenly found themselves out of a job when their employers replaced them with software systems (or sometimes overseas outsource services). Those engineers are now having to retool to learn this other skill of creative problem solving – \u003ci>mathematical thinking\u003c/i>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Incidentally, the Common Core State Standards that are so much in the news were designed to guide the shift to this new kind of mathematics, as \u003ca href=\"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-keith-devlin/common-core-math-standards_b_5369939.html\">I’ve tried to explain before\u003c/a>. Many of the parents who object to the basic goal of Common Core appear do so because they too have not realized how much the world has changed in its demands for mathematical skills. (There is a lot to argue about when it comes to the implementation of the Core, but that’s a separate issue.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-35200 alignleft\" style=\"border: 0\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/04/MindShiftGames-140x140.png\" alt=\"MindShiftGames\" width=\"140\" height=\"140\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>JS: In the past, you and I have discussed the “Symbol Barrier.” Now I think I misunderstood the concept. I always thought you meant that Hindu-Arabic representation was an obstacle to mathematical thinking. But clearly that’s not what you meant. Explain the “Symbol Barrier” and how video games can help to circumvent it.\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Keith: \u003c/b>The Symbol Barrier is the name I gave to a phenomenon first noticed in the early 1990s. If people need to use basic computational mathematics in their everyday lives or careers, they quickly pick it up and are able to perform at a 98 percent accuracy level. That’s not just some people, it’s ALL people (apart from around 3 percent who have a brain condition called dyscalculia). But if you ask those same people to solve the same math problems presented in a traditional, school, paper-and-pencil test format, their performance levels drops from 98 percent accuracy to a mere 37 percent correct. Those people (all of us) don’t have an inherent math problem, they (we) have a language problem! That’s the Symbol Barrier.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Symbol Barrier is a problem – i.e. a barrier to entry into mathematical thinking – because at the moment, learning mathematics and being tested in mathematics is all done by way of the symbolic representation! It’s as if we taught and tested people’s musical ability by instructing them in musical notation and testing how well they could write music using that notation. We don’t do that. We ask them to sit down and play an instrument!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Same with driving. Would you prefer to be driven by someone who had just passed the written part of the driving test, or would you want to know they had passed the road test?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Or an airline pilot. Which gives you more confidence, someone who has flown successfully in a simulator or a trainee pilot who has just passed a written test on how to fly a plane?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Likewise for mathematics. I would feel much more confident in the arithmetical ability of someone who had scored highly on my own game \u003ci>Wuzzit Trouble\u003c/i> than someone who had simply learned how to line up numbers in columns and apply the standard algorithms of arithmetic. The latter just requires rule following, the former makes you \u003ci>think\u003c/i>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>JS: What other types of learning products are you working on at your company, BrainQuake? Which mathematical concepts are you trying to tackle? \u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>KD: \u003c/b>Our basic platform is mobile games, though we intend to bring out Web-based PC versions for classroom use. The user data we obtained from the release of \u003ci>Wuzzit Trouble\u003c/i>, last fall was as good, if not better, than we had hoped. We were ranked highly in many general game categories, not just educational games, and we were appealing to people of all ages.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Once we knew \u003ci>Wuzzit Trouble\u003c/i> was succeeding as a general category video game, it made sense to develop that side more, so as to appeal to the widest possible audience. So we have been focusing on embedding that basic gears mechanic into a richer video game.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, to be honest, \u003ci>Wuzzit Trouble\u003c/i> is barely classified as a game. I would (and did) call it an entertaining and engaging math-based mobile app. To reach a much wider audience, we need to incorporate more of the elements of the highly successful video games that attract tens of millions of players. Teaming up with John Romero (the legendary creator of \u003ci>Doom\u003c/i> and \u003ci>Quake\u003c/i>) as our chief Game designer provided us an exciting opportunity to go after that elusive big audience.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We are also developing the assessment side. Students, parents, and teachers – and adult player-learners – want to know how well they are progressing in terms of math learning. Video-game learning provides extremely powerful mechanisms to track learning – potentially far better than the existing methods used in standardized tests. Doing that requires the development of powerful algorithms that take the raw player data (which goes right down to individual finger actions on the screen) and use it to infer the player’s thought processes behind those actions, so we can see \u003ci>how\u003c/i> a player is trying to solve the problem. This will take the old idea of “show your working” to a whole different level.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>JS: This sounds great. Should we be trying to do this for every part of the mathematics curriculum? \u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>KD: \u003c/b>BrainQuake is absolutely \u003cem>not\u003c/em> obsessed with trying to achieve “full curriculum coverage,” whatever that might mean. To my mind it makes no sense to try to use video games to provide learning for parts of mathematics where an alternative, interactive representation does not add anything significantly new.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Also, I think it will always be largely up to a good teacher to help learners master the symbolic approach necessary for more advanced mathematics. I think that people who see technology as a way to eliminate the need for good classroom teachers fundamentally misunderstand what it takes to help someone learn how to think a different way – in my case the mathematical way. Technology can help. It can help in significant ways. But it cannot replace a good teacher.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>JS: What do teachers and parents need to know about the future of game-based learning, the future of pedagogy, and the future of education in general?\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>KD: \u003c/b>Game-based learning \u003ci>is\u003c/i> the future. Games are just simulators with an internal incentive structure (often dopamine based). That means they tap into the way humans, and all living creatures, are hard-wired to learn: \u003ci>by doing\u003c/i>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But people are not machines. We are social creatures. If you want a child to develop into a useful citizen who can have a good life and contribute to society, you need to develop that child fully as a human being. That requires good parenting and great teaching. Doing it right requires close integration of the technologies with the human interactions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/series/guide-to-games-and-learning/\" target=\"_blank\">MindShift Guide to Games and Learning\u003c/a> is made possible through the generous support of the \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/05/math-science-history-games-break-boundaries-between-subjects-interdisciplinary-learning/www.joanganzcooneycenter.org/\" target=\"_blank\">Joan Ganz Cooney Center\u003c/a> and is a project of the \u003ca href=\"http://www.joanganzcooneycenter.org/initiative/games-and-learning-publishing-council-analyzing-a-rising-sector/\" target=\"_blank\">Games and Learning Publishing Council\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_36356\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 559px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-36356\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/Screen-Shot-2014-06-17-at-9.39.33-AM.png\" alt=\"Keith Devlin\" width=\"559\" height=\"257\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/Screen-Shot-2014-06-17-at-9.39.33-AM.png 559w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/Screen-Shot-2014-06-17-at-9.39.33-AM-400x184.png 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/Screen-Shot-2014-06-17-at-9.39.33-AM-320x147.png 320w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 559px) 100vw, 559px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Keith Devlin\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Part 8 of \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/series/guide-to-games-and-learning/\" target=\"_blank\">MindShift's Guide to Games and Learning\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"dropcap-serif\">\u003ca href=\"http://profkeithdevlin.com/\" target=\"_blank\">Keith Devlin\u003c/a> is a well-known mathematician and the author of many popular math books. He is co-founder and Executive Director of Stanford University’s Human-Sciences and Technologies Advanced Research Institute and is well known as the “\u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/2014/04/12/302166509/martin-gardner-a-genius-of-recreational-mathematics\" target=\"_blank\">NPR Math Guy\u003c/a>.” He’s also a big fan of using video games as a teaching tool and the founder of an education technology company called BrainQuake.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Devlin believes the future demands a substantial change in the way we think about math education. “So many people in the U.S. have never experienced good mathematics teaching. They have a totally false impression of what mathematics is,” he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In this conversation, he explains why we now need different mathematical skills than we once did, and points out that the math curriculum of the 20th century did not equip today’s adults to mentor children in the math skills of the 21st century.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Devlin argues that video games are the perfect tool for teaching math. He also sheds some light on those Common Core math problems that are so controversial.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jordan Shapiro: In 2011, you published a book entitled \u003c/b>\u003cb>\u003ci>\u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Mathematics-Education-New-Era-Learning/dp/1568814313\" target=\"_blank\">Mathematics Education For A New Era: Video Games As A Medium For Learning\u003c/a>.\u003c/i> W\u003c/b>\u003cb>hat inspired you to write that book? Do you play video games?\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Keith Devlin: \u003c/b>I not only play video games, I actually wrote one, way back in the early 1980s when personal home computers were just starting to appear. I wrote a math game where you use trigonometry to find buried pirates’ treasure on a desert island. I did it for use in the math class at the local elementary school my daughters attended. When I saw how my daughters were totally engaged by video games (professional ones, much better than mine!), I recognized at once their potential in mathematics education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I wrote the book to try to give teachers some sense of what it would take to build a good video game for mathematics learning and to explain to game designers what it would take to embed \u003ci>good\u003c/i> mathematics learning into a game. I was not thinking about building a video game myself (back then).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>JS: In the book, you argue that video games are the best way to teach math to middle school kids. We’ve spoken about this before and you’ve talked about the importance of learning through doing. Why is context so important? And how can thinking of video games as math simulations help to move the typical math class from an product based pedagogy to a process based pedagogy?\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>KD: \u003c/b>Video games are an ideal medium for developing mathematical thinking. It’s a classic case where a technology that renders old skills less relevant actually provides their replacement. Many people outside of the worlds of mathematics (particularly math as used in the world) and mathematics education are simply not aware of the dramatic shift that both disciplines have undergone as a result of digital technologies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When today’s parents were going through schools, the main focus in mathematics was on mastery of a collection of standard procedures for solving well-defined problems that have unique right answers. If you did well at that, you were pretty well guaranteed a good job. Learning mathematics had been that way for several thousand years. Math textbooks were essentially recipe books.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">\"The problems we need mathematics for today come in a messy, real-world context, and part of making progress is to figure out just what you need from that context.\"\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>But now all those math recipes have been coded into devices, some of which we carry round in our pockets. Suddenly, in a single generation, mastery of the procedural math skills that had ruled supreme for three thousand years has become largely irrelevant. In my book, I used the term “mathematical thinking” to distinguish the kind of math that is relevant today from the (procedural) “mathematics” most people are familiar with.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The skill that is in great demand today, and will continue to grow, is the ability to take a novel problem, possibly not well-defined, and likely not having a single “right” answer, and make progress on it, in some cases (but not all!) “solving” it (whatever that turns out to mean). The problems we need mathematics for today come in a messy, real-world context, and part of making progress is to figure out just what you need from that context.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Books and lectures (in a room or on a screen) are useful \u003ci>resources\u003c/i> for mathematical thinking, but they are no longer at the heart of math learning. The only way to acquire mathematical thinking ability is by a process of exploration – lots of trial-and-error and reflection. This is exactly what video games can deliver. They can provide small scale simulations of the kinds of open-ended, context-influenced, project-based, problem solving that is at such a premium in today’s world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>JS: I wrote about your game Wuzzit Trouble \u003c/b>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/05/how-games-based-learning-teaches-problem-solving-in-context/\">\u003cb>earlier in this series\u003c/b>\u003c/a>\u003cb>. I also sometimes show it when I’m doing workshops or public speaking. I’ve used your metaphor often: learning games should work like musical instruments. What does it mean to create a mathematical instrument? Can we do the equivalent for other subjects?\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>KD: \u003c/b>Yes, it’s fortunate that the word “play” applies both to musical instruments and video games. Everyone knows that the best way to learn an instrument is to start to play it. We don’t ask someone to learn to read music before they sit at a piano or pick up a guitar. But that’s exactly what we do in mathematics! The reason we do is that through most of its history, mathematics did not have any instruments. Video games can provide math instruments you can use to learn mathematics. Take a look at the \u003ca href=\"https://vimeo.com/89583763\">twenty-minute video\u003c/a> of the talk I gave recently. In it, I use \u003ci>Wuzzit Troubl\u003c/i>e to explain how this can be done.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We can do the same kind of thing in other subjects, but many of them already have instruments (e.g. laboratory equipment in the natural sciences). Before video game technologies, however, all we had for math were paper and pencil, augmented with ruler and compass for geometry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>JS: So, are you saying that kids don’t need to learn how to scribble numbers and equations on paper? Does that mean the symbolic Hindu-Arabic representation of mathematics is obsolete? \u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Keith: \u003c/b>No, kids need to master Hindu-Arithmetic \u003ci>representation\u003c/i> of numbers far more today than in the past. What they don’t need to do – and I think this is what you’re getting at with your question – is train themselves to do long computations, as was necessary when I was a child. No one calculates that way any more! What they (we) need in today’s world is a deeper understanding of how and why Hindu-Arabic arithmetic works.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In all four offerings of \u003ca href=\"https://www.coursera.org/course/maththink\">my mathematical thinking MOOC\u003c/a> to date, I have had as students, engineers with years of experience who suddenly found themselves out of a job when their employers replaced them with software systems (or sometimes overseas outsource services). Those engineers are now having to retool to learn this other skill of creative problem solving – \u003ci>mathematical thinking\u003c/i>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Incidentally, the Common Core State Standards that are so much in the news were designed to guide the shift to this new kind of mathematics, as \u003ca href=\"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-keith-devlin/common-core-math-standards_b_5369939.html\">I’ve tried to explain before\u003c/a>. Many of the parents who object to the basic goal of Common Core appear do so because they too have not realized how much the world has changed in its demands for mathematical skills. (There is a lot to argue about when it comes to the implementation of the Core, but that’s a separate issue.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-35200 alignleft\" style=\"border: 0\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/04/MindShiftGames-140x140.png\" alt=\"MindShiftGames\" width=\"140\" height=\"140\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>JS: In the past, you and I have discussed the “Symbol Barrier.” Now I think I misunderstood the concept. I always thought you meant that Hindu-Arabic representation was an obstacle to mathematical thinking. But clearly that’s not what you meant. Explain the “Symbol Barrier” and how video games can help to circumvent it.\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Keith: \u003c/b>The Symbol Barrier is the name I gave to a phenomenon first noticed in the early 1990s. If people need to use basic computational mathematics in their everyday lives or careers, they quickly pick it up and are able to perform at a 98 percent accuracy level. That’s not just some people, it’s ALL people (apart from around 3 percent who have a brain condition called dyscalculia). But if you ask those same people to solve the same math problems presented in a traditional, school, paper-and-pencil test format, their performance levels drops from 98 percent accuracy to a mere 37 percent correct. Those people (all of us) don’t have an inherent math problem, they (we) have a language problem! That’s the Symbol Barrier.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Symbol Barrier is a problem – i.e. a barrier to entry into mathematical thinking – because at the moment, learning mathematics and being tested in mathematics is all done by way of the symbolic representation! It’s as if we taught and tested people’s musical ability by instructing them in musical notation and testing how well they could write music using that notation. We don’t do that. We ask them to sit down and play an instrument!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Same with driving. Would you prefer to be driven by someone who had just passed the written part of the driving test, or would you want to know they had passed the road test?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Or an airline pilot. Which gives you more confidence, someone who has flown successfully in a simulator or a trainee pilot who has just passed a written test on how to fly a plane?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Likewise for mathematics. I would feel much more confident in the arithmetical ability of someone who had scored highly on my own game \u003ci>Wuzzit Trouble\u003c/i> than someone who had simply learned how to line up numbers in columns and apply the standard algorithms of arithmetic. The latter just requires rule following, the former makes you \u003ci>think\u003c/i>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>JS: What other types of learning products are you working on at your company, BrainQuake? Which mathematical concepts are you trying to tackle? \u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>KD: \u003c/b>Our basic platform is mobile games, though we intend to bring out Web-based PC versions for classroom use. The user data we obtained from the release of \u003ci>Wuzzit Trouble\u003c/i>, last fall was as good, if not better, than we had hoped. We were ranked highly in many general game categories, not just educational games, and we were appealing to people of all ages.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Once we knew \u003ci>Wuzzit Trouble\u003c/i> was succeeding as a general category video game, it made sense to develop that side more, so as to appeal to the widest possible audience. So we have been focusing on embedding that basic gears mechanic into a richer video game.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, to be honest, \u003ci>Wuzzit Trouble\u003c/i> is barely classified as a game. I would (and did) call it an entertaining and engaging math-based mobile app. To reach a much wider audience, we need to incorporate more of the elements of the highly successful video games that attract tens of millions of players. Teaming up with John Romero (the legendary creator of \u003ci>Doom\u003c/i> and \u003ci>Quake\u003c/i>) as our chief Game designer provided us an exciting opportunity to go after that elusive big audience.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We are also developing the assessment side. Students, parents, and teachers – and adult player-learners – want to know how well they are progressing in terms of math learning. Video-game learning provides extremely powerful mechanisms to track learning – potentially far better than the existing methods used in standardized tests. Doing that requires the development of powerful algorithms that take the raw player data (which goes right down to individual finger actions on the screen) and use it to infer the player’s thought processes behind those actions, so we can see \u003ci>how\u003c/i> a player is trying to solve the problem. This will take the old idea of “show your working” to a whole different level.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>JS: This sounds great. Should we be trying to do this for every part of the mathematics curriculum? \u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>KD: \u003c/b>BrainQuake is absolutely \u003cem>not\u003c/em> obsessed with trying to achieve “full curriculum coverage,” whatever that might mean. To my mind it makes no sense to try to use video games to provide learning for parts of mathematics where an alternative, interactive representation does not add anything significantly new.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Also, I think it will always be largely up to a good teacher to help learners master the symbolic approach necessary for more advanced mathematics. I think that people who see technology as a way to eliminate the need for good classroom teachers fundamentally misunderstand what it takes to help someone learn how to think a different way – in my case the mathematical way. Technology can help. It can help in significant ways. But it cannot replace a good teacher.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>JS: What do teachers and parents need to know about the future of game-based learning, the future of pedagogy, and the future of education in general?\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>KD: \u003c/b>Game-based learning \u003ci>is\u003c/i> the future. Games are just simulators with an internal incentive structure (often dopamine based). That means they tap into the way humans, and all living creatures, are hard-wired to learn: \u003ci>by doing\u003c/i>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But people are not machines. We are social creatures. If you want a child to develop into a useful citizen who can have a good life and contribute to society, you need to develop that child fully as a human being. That requires good parenting and great teaching. Doing it right requires close integration of the technologies with the human interactions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Learning computational thinking and its language, various forms of computer code, needs to be elevated to the same level of importance as reading as writing, lest we risk perpetuating inequality in public education, argues Tasneem Raja in her \u003ca href=\"http://www.motherjones.com/media/2014/06/computer-science-programming-code-diversity-sexism-education\" target=\"_blank\">Mother Jones article\u003c/a>.Raja writes:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"In other words, computational thinking opens doors. For while it may seem premature to claim that today every kid needs to code, it's clear that they're increasingly surrounded by opportunities to code—opportunities that the children of the privileged are already seizing. The parents of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg got him a private computer tutor when he was in middle school. Last year, 13,000 people chipped in more than $600,000 via Kickstarter for their own limited-edition copy of Robot Turtles, a board game that teaches programming basics to kids as young as three. There are plenty of free, kid-oriented code-learning sites—like Scratch, a programming language for children developed at MIT—but parents and kids in places like San Francisco or Austin are more likely to know they exist.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>http://www.motherjones.com/media/2014/06/computer-science-programming-code-diversity-sexism-education\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Learning computational thinking and its language, various forms of computer code, needs to be elevated to the same level of importance as reading as writing, lest we risk perpetuating inequality in public education, argues Tasneem Raja in her \u003ca href=\"http://www.motherjones.com/media/2014/06/computer-science-programming-code-diversity-sexism-education\" target=\"_blank\">Mother Jones article\u003c/a>.Raja writes:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"In other words, computational thinking opens doors. For while it may seem premature to claim that today every kid needs to code, it's clear that they're increasingly surrounded by opportunities to code—opportunities that the children of the privileged are already seizing. The parents of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg got him a private computer tutor when he was in middle school. Last year, 13,000 people chipped in more than $600,000 via Kickstarter for their own limited-edition copy of Robot Turtles, a board game that teaches programming basics to kids as young as three. There are plenty of free, kid-oriented code-learning sites—like Scratch, a programming language for children developed at MIT—but parents and kids in places like San Francisco or Austin are more likely to know they exist.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>http://www.motherjones.com/media/2014/06/computer-science-programming-code-diversity-sexism-education\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_36297\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-36297\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/img_4110-e1402697343967.jpg\" alt=\"Jason Haughton sings an original tune composed by the PS 177 Technology Band. Eric Westervelt \" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/img_4110-e1402697343967.jpg 640w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/img_4110-e1402697343967-400x225.jpg 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/img_4110-e1402697343967-320x180.jpg 320w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jason Haughton sings an original tune composed by the PS 177 Technology Band. Eric Westervelt\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>There's a steady stream of hype surrounding the pluses and pitfalls of classroom tablet computers. But for a growing number of special education students tablets and their apps are proving transformative. The tablets aren't merely novel and fun. With guidance from creative teachers, they are helping to deepen engagement, communication, and creativity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a typical red brick public school building in the Fresh Meadows section of Queens, New York, one creative and passionate music instructor is using tablet computers to help reach students with disabilities. In the process, he's opening doors for some kids with severe mental and physical challenges.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the surface, the PS 177 Technology Band looks like a typical high school orchestra. But there are two big differences. First, while they use traditional instruments, they also play iPads. And all of the band members have disabilities. Some have autism spectrum disorders.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"I'm Tobi Lakes, I'm 15 years old. I'm in ninth grade. I'm four grades away from college.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=\"2RY0PvaS5CowUF77f0zxhgk5ntjr6ME1\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Morning sunlight pushes through large, old windows into the school's well-worn and empty-seated auditorium. On the stage, iPads on small stands sit in a semicircle. It's rehearsal time. The students mingle and chat before practice starts. Tobi Lakes, a tall, wire-thin teen with thick glasses sits at an electric piano. He taught himself to play.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"I'm very good. I like the piano. I like the keyboard. Keyboard is the best. Number one!\" Tobi says with a wide smile. On his school-issued tablet computer, using a music app called Thumb Jam, Tobi also loves his iPad \"guitar.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As rehearsal heats up Tobi takes the lead on rock guitarist Jeff Beck's version of Puccini's \"Nesun Dorma.\" Tobi Lakes, iPad guitar shredder, is learning disabled. He's autistic. And he's also blind in one eye. Adam Goldberg, the creator of the PS 177 band, gets the music started.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"The first note of the second line please,\" he tells them. \"In blue. There ya go. That's the pizzicato.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The 53 year old teacher is a classically trained pianist with a degree from the Manhattan School of Music. About 20 years ago he began substitute-teaching here while playing freelance jazz and rock gigs. He was soon offered a job at PS 177, and he's been at the school ever since.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>'Sing, Sing, Sing!'\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Seventeen-year-old Jason Houghton walks in a little late for rehearsal. One of his teachers says Jason is \"classically severely autistic.\" His speech is often marked by echolalia, a communication disorder where he repeats back what you say to him. Before the band, Jason rarely spoke at all. But music helped change that. \"Some people were very surprised when they could see that he could sing because some people thought that he was non-verbal,\" Goldberg says. \"At first I kept saying 'sing, sing, sing.' And he wouldn't sing until I said 'Jason like this 'dah dah dah dah.' Then he would go 'dah dah dah dah.' And I would say 'no, do something of your own.' \"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Goldberg says several of the students were previously non-verbal or only occasionally verbal. He eventually got Jason to hum his own notes and soon built an original song \"Being Me\" around that phrase. These days Jason takes 'lead' vocals on that tune. And he doesn't just echo back lyrics. He even improvises – or scat sings – in his own way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"It was mostly persistence, you know, and the confidence that it was there inside of him. It goes back to that summer when we had some extra time. And I just kept pushing him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-36292\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/img_4085-15db04a3707c5e74fcac0603055e65add5bb5e57-300x224.jpg\" alt=\"Practice time for the PS 177 band.\" width=\"300\" height=\"224\">I admit sometimes I push them,\" Goldberg says. \"Not in a mean way. But I know inside there's something and I have the confidence in them that they can find a way to bring it out.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The teacher calls himself a hesitant technophile. \"I'm an acoustic guy,\" he says. He sits at the piano and starts playing jazz, his first musical love. \"I was always reluctant to get involved with technology but that was mostly because there was so much work involved to get the technology to work properly.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Goldberg says the iPad and its apps have allowed the band to produce complex orchestral-style arrangements. With the tablets, he says, kids can play all kinds of different virtual instruments by just tapping buttons on the touch screen, instead of getting bogged down in learning technique.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"All the technical stuff that, you know, is admittedly very worthwhile,\" he says. \"I'm coming from classical background. But for people who can't, and don't have the resources, if you give them something like this as a musical instrument you can really kind of break through barriers and teach so much of the art of the whole process of music-making. Which these guys do beautifully with that.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>A New Look\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Just what is it about a tablet, or the iPad in particular, that works so well with some students with disabilities and children on the autism spectrum?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Educators believe there's something about the combination of the big, bright, clear visual cues of some of the music apps, and the touchscreen that's easy to use without creating a sensory or visual overload. Beyond that, many teachers and parents aren't really sure. It's still a bit of a mystery.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We have some really, really low-functioning students who I could never really involve in the music activities,\" Goldberg says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"But the iPad has pretty much taken care of that. I can't say I have 100 percent involvement. But it's pretty close.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And educators say there's another way the tablets are proving to be game changers for special ed. They've begun to make obsolete those large and costly learning devices, allowing a student with disabilities to look like every other student.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"It has changed the way people look at people with disabilities,\" says Karen Gorman, the director of Assistive Technology for New York City's Public schools. For years, she said, many kids with severe autism, cerebral palsy or other serious challenges needed these large, clunky and expensive assistive-speaking devices. Some looked like small accordions, worn around students' necks. Gorman says they looked a little odd, and screamed \"disabled kid.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now the iPad and other tablets, she says, have helped level the playing field socially.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Parents thought for the first time my child with disabilities is using something that looks very cool, and modern and current. And other kids will come over to them now and interact with them.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Once, Gorman says, other students tended to see only the disability: \"Kid in a wheelchair, kid in a wheelchair,\" she explains. \"Kid in a wheelchair with an iPad? How interesting.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Game-Changer\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tobi Lakes stands and sways rhythmically back and forth on stage, the iPad braced in a stand as he summons his inner Jeff Beck. His thumbs furiously tap the music app's buttons as the song \"Nesun Dorma\" begins to crescendo. \"Really awesome. We're ninety-nine percent there,\" Goldberg tells the band with a grin. \"Very good. I love doing this!\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Apple, Samsung and other tech giants certainly didn't intend for their tablets to become essential tools for students with disabilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"I have a feeling they had no idea\" says Leslie Schect, the Director of Technology for New York City's Department of Education. \"The iPad is a game-changer because it's affordable and accessible. It really opens doors. At times we don't often know what's really inside because they're not speaking. This helps give them the voice.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Shecht says there's more to these students than many people realize.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Music is a natural way in. It just makes sense that it's something they'd gravitate to.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still Schect and other educators are quick to point out that the tablets are just tools, not some cure-all. Students still need a creative, engaged teacher – like Adam Goldberg - to make the devices transformative.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Goldberg says a key is getting students to open up and express themselves freely, \"instead of being afraid 'oh, that isn't going to sound good.' \"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Schect says her department and the city have no financial relationship or get any incentive from Apple for using their products. \"I wish,\" she says. The company is simply one of the city's vendors and suppliers, she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>'I Love Music'\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"My name is William Hernandez; I play the iPad and the piano. I love Mr. Goldberg so much.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The band works to get the sound right on the South African anti-apartheid song \"When You Come Back,\" which they perform as a tribute to the late Nelson Mandela.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Teenagers Rachel Rodriquez and Ulysses Rivers are on backing vocals. Nineteen year old Ryan Rodriquez takes the lead.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Perhaps even more important than the music, Goldberg says, is that the band has given students a sense of belonging, friendship and joint accomplishment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"They all support each other. It doesn't matter who is taking the solo. They're essential to making the whole thing work. That translates to a wider idea of socialization out in the general world. And I see a huge leap in their socialization and social abilities and the fact they say hello to each other. A couple of years ago that wasn't happening.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, band members dream of performing for a wider audience. 17-year-old Jaquan Bostick says he wants to try to make music his profession.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"You know when we graduate we should do all start a tour, like a world tour\" he tells the band. \"That's what I've been thinking about a lot. I've been thinking about that a lot. Like since yesterday.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His band mates and friends nod in agreement. \"Me too.\" \"Me three.\" Goldberg knows from experience how tough the professional musician road is and says he's straight with the students about it. Yet, he says he'd never strip them of their vision.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Some of these kids, you know, don't have a chance to dream,\" he says. \"Again, it comes from confidence. It may be a very difficult dream to achieve. But it's attached to reality. They really do play music. They're not dreaming of being Superman or Spiderman.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He says the students are dreaming of something they can do where they can say to themselves, \" 'I have this.' \"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Tobi Lakes – and many others here – playing in the iPad band has helped him socially and creatively. \"I feel excited. I feel happy. I love music,\" he says with a broad smile. \"It feels like I'm going crazy and all the audience was clapping!\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Listen to students making more music here:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[soundcloud url=\"https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/153008108\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/ed/2014/06/11/320882414/ipads-allow-kids-with-challenges-to-play-in-high-schools-band\" target=\"_blank\">This post originally appeared on NPR.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_36297\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-36297\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/img_4110-e1402697343967.jpg\" alt=\"Jason Haughton sings an original tune composed by the PS 177 Technology Band. Eric Westervelt \" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/img_4110-e1402697343967.jpg 640w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/img_4110-e1402697343967-400x225.jpg 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/img_4110-e1402697343967-320x180.jpg 320w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jason Haughton sings an original tune composed by the PS 177 Technology Band. Eric Westervelt\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>There's a steady stream of hype surrounding the pluses and pitfalls of classroom tablet computers. But for a growing number of special education students tablets and their apps are proving transformative. The tablets aren't merely novel and fun. With guidance from creative teachers, they are helping to deepen engagement, communication, and creativity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a typical red brick public school building in the Fresh Meadows section of Queens, New York, one creative and passionate music instructor is using tablet computers to help reach students with disabilities. In the process, he's opening doors for some kids with severe mental and physical challenges.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the surface, the PS 177 Technology Band looks like a typical high school orchestra. But there are two big differences. First, while they use traditional instruments, they also play iPads. And all of the band members have disabilities. Some have autism spectrum disorders.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"I'm Tobi Lakes, I'm 15 years old. I'm in ninth grade. I'm four grades away from college.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Morning sunlight pushes through large, old windows into the school's well-worn and empty-seated auditorium. On the stage, iPads on small stands sit in a semicircle. It's rehearsal time. The students mingle and chat before practice starts. Tobi Lakes, a tall, wire-thin teen with thick glasses sits at an electric piano. He taught himself to play.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"I'm very good. I like the piano. I like the keyboard. Keyboard is the best. Number one!\" Tobi says with a wide smile. On his school-issued tablet computer, using a music app called Thumb Jam, Tobi also loves his iPad \"guitar.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As rehearsal heats up Tobi takes the lead on rock guitarist Jeff Beck's version of Puccini's \"Nesun Dorma.\" Tobi Lakes, iPad guitar shredder, is learning disabled. He's autistic. And he's also blind in one eye. Adam Goldberg, the creator of the PS 177 band, gets the music started.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"The first note of the second line please,\" he tells them. \"In blue. There ya go. That's the pizzicato.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The 53 year old teacher is a classically trained pianist with a degree from the Manhattan School of Music. About 20 years ago he began substitute-teaching here while playing freelance jazz and rock gigs. He was soon offered a job at PS 177, and he's been at the school ever since.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>'Sing, Sing, Sing!'\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Seventeen-year-old Jason Houghton walks in a little late for rehearsal. One of his teachers says Jason is \"classically severely autistic.\" His speech is often marked by echolalia, a communication disorder where he repeats back what you say to him. Before the band, Jason rarely spoke at all. But music helped change that. \"Some people were very surprised when they could see that he could sing because some people thought that he was non-verbal,\" Goldberg says. \"At first I kept saying 'sing, sing, sing.' And he wouldn't sing until I said 'Jason like this 'dah dah dah dah.' Then he would go 'dah dah dah dah.' And I would say 'no, do something of your own.' \"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Goldberg says several of the students were previously non-verbal or only occasionally verbal. He eventually got Jason to hum his own notes and soon built an original song \"Being Me\" around that phrase. These days Jason takes 'lead' vocals on that tune. And he doesn't just echo back lyrics. He even improvises – or scat sings – in his own way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"It was mostly persistence, you know, and the confidence that it was there inside of him. It goes back to that summer when we had some extra time. And I just kept pushing him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-36292\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/img_4085-15db04a3707c5e74fcac0603055e65add5bb5e57-300x224.jpg\" alt=\"Practice time for the PS 177 band.\" width=\"300\" height=\"224\">I admit sometimes I push them,\" Goldberg says. \"Not in a mean way. But I know inside there's something and I have the confidence in them that they can find a way to bring it out.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The teacher calls himself a hesitant technophile. \"I'm an acoustic guy,\" he says. He sits at the piano and starts playing jazz, his first musical love. \"I was always reluctant to get involved with technology but that was mostly because there was so much work involved to get the technology to work properly.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Goldberg says the iPad and its apps have allowed the band to produce complex orchestral-style arrangements. With the tablets, he says, kids can play all kinds of different virtual instruments by just tapping buttons on the touch screen, instead of getting bogged down in learning technique.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"All the technical stuff that, you know, is admittedly very worthwhile,\" he says. \"I'm coming from classical background. But for people who can't, and don't have the resources, if you give them something like this as a musical instrument you can really kind of break through barriers and teach so much of the art of the whole process of music-making. Which these guys do beautifully with that.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>A New Look\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Just what is it about a tablet, or the iPad in particular, that works so well with some students with disabilities and children on the autism spectrum?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Educators believe there's something about the combination of the big, bright, clear visual cues of some of the music apps, and the touchscreen that's easy to use without creating a sensory or visual overload. Beyond that, many teachers and parents aren't really sure. It's still a bit of a mystery.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We have some really, really low-functioning students who I could never really involve in the music activities,\" Goldberg says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"But the iPad has pretty much taken care of that. I can't say I have 100 percent involvement. But it's pretty close.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And educators say there's another way the tablets are proving to be game changers for special ed. They've begun to make obsolete those large and costly learning devices, allowing a student with disabilities to look like every other student.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"It has changed the way people look at people with disabilities,\" says Karen Gorman, the director of Assistive Technology for New York City's Public schools. For years, she said, many kids with severe autism, cerebral palsy or other serious challenges needed these large, clunky and expensive assistive-speaking devices. Some looked like small accordions, worn around students' necks. Gorman says they looked a little odd, and screamed \"disabled kid.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now the iPad and other tablets, she says, have helped level the playing field socially.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Parents thought for the first time my child with disabilities is using something that looks very cool, and modern and current. And other kids will come over to them now and interact with them.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Once, Gorman says, other students tended to see only the disability: \"Kid in a wheelchair, kid in a wheelchair,\" she explains. \"Kid in a wheelchair with an iPad? How interesting.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Game-Changer\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tobi Lakes stands and sways rhythmically back and forth on stage, the iPad braced in a stand as he summons his inner Jeff Beck. His thumbs furiously tap the music app's buttons as the song \"Nesun Dorma\" begins to crescendo. \"Really awesome. We're ninety-nine percent there,\" Goldberg tells the band with a grin. \"Very good. I love doing this!\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Apple, Samsung and other tech giants certainly didn't intend for their tablets to become essential tools for students with disabilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"I have a feeling they had no idea\" says Leslie Schect, the Director of Technology for New York City's Department of Education. \"The iPad is a game-changer because it's affordable and accessible. It really opens doors. At times we don't often know what's really inside because they're not speaking. This helps give them the voice.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Shecht says there's more to these students than many people realize.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Music is a natural way in. It just makes sense that it's something they'd gravitate to.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still Schect and other educators are quick to point out that the tablets are just tools, not some cure-all. Students still need a creative, engaged teacher – like Adam Goldberg - to make the devices transformative.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Goldberg says a key is getting students to open up and express themselves freely, \"instead of being afraid 'oh, that isn't going to sound good.' \"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Schect says her department and the city have no financial relationship or get any incentive from Apple for using their products. \"I wish,\" she says. The company is simply one of the city's vendors and suppliers, she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>'I Love Music'\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"My name is William Hernandez; I play the iPad and the piano. I love Mr. Goldberg so much.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The band works to get the sound right on the South African anti-apartheid song \"When You Come Back,\" which they perform as a tribute to the late Nelson Mandela.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Teenagers Rachel Rodriquez and Ulysses Rivers are on backing vocals. Nineteen year old Ryan Rodriquez takes the lead.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Perhaps even more important than the music, Goldberg says, is that the band has given students a sense of belonging, friendship and joint accomplishment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"They all support each other. It doesn't matter who is taking the solo. They're essential to making the whole thing work. That translates to a wider idea of socialization out in the general world. And I see a huge leap in their socialization and social abilities and the fact they say hello to each other. A couple of years ago that wasn't happening.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, band members dream of performing for a wider audience. 17-year-old Jaquan Bostick says he wants to try to make music his profession.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"You know when we graduate we should do all start a tour, like a world tour\" he tells the band. \"That's what I've been thinking about a lot. I've been thinking about that a lot. Like since yesterday.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His band mates and friends nod in agreement. \"Me too.\" \"Me three.\" Goldberg knows from experience how tough the professional musician road is and says he's straight with the students about it. Yet, he says he'd never strip them of their vision.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Some of these kids, you know, don't have a chance to dream,\" he says. \"Again, it comes from confidence. It may be a very difficult dream to achieve. But it's attached to reality. They really do play music. They're not dreaming of being Superman or Spiderman.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He says the students are dreaming of something they can do where they can say to themselves, \" 'I have this.' \"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Tobi Lakes – and many others here – playing in the iPad band has helped him socially and creatively. \"I feel excited. I feel happy. I love music,\" he says with a broad smile. \"It feels like I'm going crazy and all the audience was clapping!\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Listen to students making more music here:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cdiv class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__shortcodes__shortcodeWrapper'>\n \u003ciframe width='undefined' height='undefined'\n scrolling='no' frameborder='no'\n src='https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/153008108&visual=true&undefined'\n title='https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/153008108'>\n \u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/div>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"tagline": "Where conversation and cultura meet",
"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
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"info": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown brings listeners the wisdom of the former Governor, Mayor, and presidential candidate. Scott Shafer interviewed Brown for more than 40 hours, covering the former governor's life and half-century in the political game – and Brown has some lessons he'd like to share. ",
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"marketplace": {
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"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 4pm-4:30pm, MON-WED 6:30pm-7pm",
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"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
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"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
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"info": "Our weekly podcast explores how the media 'sausage' is made, casts an incisive eye on fluctuations in the marketplace of ideas, and examines threats to the freedom of information and expression in America and abroad. For one hour a week, the show tries to lift the veil from the process of \"making media,\" especially news media, because it's through that lens that we see the world and the world sees us",
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"info": "The economy explained. Imagine you could call up a friend and say, Meet me at the bar and tell me what's going on with the economy. Now imagine that's actually a fun evening.",
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"politicalbreakdown": {
"id": "politicalbreakdown",
"title": "Political Breakdown",
"tagline": "Politics from a personal perspective",
"info": "Political Breakdown is a new series that explores the political intersection of California and the nation. Each week hosts Scott Shafer and Marisa Lagos are joined with a new special guest to unpack politics -- with personality — and offer an insider’s glimpse at how politics happens.",
"airtime": "THU 6:30pm-7pm",
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"possible": {
"id": "possible",
"title": "Possible",
"info": "Possible is hosted by entrepreneur Reid Hoffman and writer Aria Finger. Together in Possible, Hoffman and Finger lead enlightening discussions about building a brighter collective future. The show features interviews with visionary guests like Trevor Noah, Sam Altman and Janette Sadik-Khan. Possible paints an optimistic portrait of the world we can create through science, policy, business, art and our shared humanity. It asks: What if everything goes right for once? How can we get there? Each episode also includes a short fiction story generated by advanced AI GPT-4, serving as a thought-provoking springboard to speculate how humanity could leverage technology for good.",
"airtime": "SUN 2pm",
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"pri-the-world": {
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"title": "PRI's The World: Latest Edition",
"info": "Each weekday, host Marco Werman and his team of producers bring you the world's most interesting stories in an hour of radio that reminds us just how small our planet really is.",
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"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-World-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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},
"radiolab": {
"id": "radiolab",
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"info": "A two-time Peabody Award-winner, Radiolab is an investigation told through sounds and stories, and centered around one big idea. In the Radiolab world, information sounds like music and science and culture collide. Hosted by Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich, the show is designed for listeners who demand skepticism, but appreciate wonder. WNYC Studios is the producer of other leading podcasts including Freakonomics Radio, Death, Sex & Money, On the Media and many more.",
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"reveal": {
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"info": "Created by The Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX, Reveal is public radios first one-hour weekly radio show and podcast dedicated to investigative reporting. Credible, fact based and without a partisan agenda, Reveal combines the power and artistry of driveway moment storytelling with data-rich reporting on critically important issues. The result is stories that inform and inspire, arming our listeners with information to right injustices, hold the powerful accountable and improve lives.Reveal is hosted by Al Letson and showcases the award-winning work of CIR and newsrooms large and small across the nation. In a radio and podcast market crowded with choices, Reveal focuses on important and often surprising stories that illuminate the world for our listeners.",
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},
"rightnowish": {
"id": "rightnowish",
"title": "Rightnowish",
"tagline": "Art is where you find it",
"info": "Rightnowish digs into life in the Bay Area right now… ish. Journalist Pendarvis Harshaw takes us to galleries painted on the sides of liquor stores in West Oakland. We'll dance in warehouses in the Bayview, make smoothies with kids in South Berkeley, and listen to classical music in a 1984 Cutlass Supreme in Richmond. Every week, Pen talks to movers and shakers about how the Bay Area shapes what they create, and how they shape the place we call home.",
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},
"science-friday": {
"id": "science-friday",
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"info": "Science Friday is a weekly science talk show, broadcast live over public radio stations nationwide. Each week, the show focuses on science topics that are in the news and tries to bring an educated, balanced discussion to bear on the scientific issues at hand. Panels of expert guests join host Ira Flatow, a veteran science journalist, to discuss science and to take questions from listeners during the call-in portion of the program.",
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"snap-judgment": {
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"title": "Snap Judgment",
"tagline": "Real stories with killer beats",
"info": "The Snap Judgment radio show and podcast mixes real stories with killer beats to produce cinematic, dramatic radio. Snap's musical brand of storytelling dares listeners to see the world through the eyes of another. This is storytelling... with a BEAT!! Snap first aired on public radio stations nationwide in July 2010. Today, Snap Judgment airs on over 450 public radio stations and is brought to the airwaves by KQED & PRX.",
"airtime": "SAT 1pm-2pm, 9pm-10pm",
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},
"soldout": {
"id": "soldout",
"title": "SOLD OUT: Rethinking Housing in America",
"tagline": "A new future for housing",
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