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"headTitle": "The MindShift Guide to Digital Games and Learning | MindShift | KQED News",
"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_36273\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-36273\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/4975313325_1168f12b5b_z-e1402670196428.jpg\" alt=\"Doug Kline\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/4975313325_1168f12b5b_z-e1402670196428.jpg 640w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/4975313325_1168f12b5b_z-e1402670196428-400x225.jpg 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/4975313325_1168f12b5b_z-e1402670196428-320x180.jpg 320w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Doug Kline\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Part 7 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\">Games and learning advocates often come up against the video game stigma. Despite the fact that we’ve now seen decades of game play, and that \u003ca href=\"http://www.forbes.com/sites/jordanshapiro/2014/02/05/how-video-games-nurtured-a-generation-of-entrepreneurs/\" target=\"_blank\">a generation of gamers\u003c/a> has grown up without a civilization collapsing, the bad reputation persists -- and it's mostly based around fear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>News stories abound: games make kids hyper, violent, stupid, anti-social. It's not only that people are generally wary of the unfamiliar, we also live in a culture of heroism and progress that casts every innovation as a revolution. Rather than celebrating modification and iteration, we divide the world into what’s cutting-edge and what’s obsolete. We’re always afraid that the new school will completely displace an old school that we’re not quite ready to abandon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the introduction of video games in the classroom does not need to mean the end of books. Blended learning will not necessarily replace the lecture. Games, however, can supplement time-tested pedagogical practices with new technological solutions to long-term problems. We can have the best of both the new and the old. Other posts in this series have already discussed the way games can help educators answer the ongoing \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/05/can-games-make-high-stakes-tests-obsolete/\">assessment\u003c/a> question, the way games can help develop kid’s \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/05/social-and-emotional-benefits-of-video-games-metacognition-and-relationships/\">metacognitive skills and empathy\u003c/a>, and the way they can help to \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/05/math-science-history-games-break-boundaries-between-subjects-interdisciplinary-learning/\">break down the boundaries between academic subjects\u003c/a>. Still, not everyone’s convinced.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Recently, researchers have begun to look at the positive impact of games both in a general way and for learning in particular. The data is still sparse, but there are already some important takeaways. Here, I’ll summarize some of the general research on the positive impact of gameplay. In a future post, I’ll look at the research specific to games in school, education, and learning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=\"6c41feb69d0a4029c27f00ab9f8bef8e\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The\u003ca href=\"http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/amp-a0034857.pdf\"> recent APA (American Psychological Association) article\u003c/a> entitled, “The Benefits of Playing Video Games” by authors Isabela Granic, Adam Lobel, and Rutger C. M. E. Engels surveyed the landscape of video games. They identified four types of positive impact that video games have on the kids who play them: cognitive, motivational, emotional, and social.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gameplay has cognitive benefit because games have been shown to improve attention, focus, and reaction time. Games have motivational benefit because they encourage an \u003ci>incremental\u003c/i>, rather than an \u003ci>entity\u003c/i> theory of intelligence. Games have emotional benefit because they induce positive mood states; in addition, there is speculative evidence that games may help kids develop adaptive emotion regulation. Games have social benefit because gamers are able to translate the prosocial skills that they learn from co-playing or multiplayer gameplay to “peer and family relations outside the gaming environment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thinking about cognitive, motivational, emotional, and social skills reminds us that educators are not just responsible for the transmission of content and facts. Of course, this is one of the reasons that there is so much controversy over testing. Standardized tests measure only quantifiable outcomes. Educators, however, are also responsible for the non-quantifiable well-being of our students. Some of these skills are taken into account in some schools when folks talk about “character education.” But mostly, there is little curricular systematization in these areas. Still, teachers are accountable for conflict resolution and other interpersonal skills. Video games can help.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A survey done in Ireland\u003ca href=\"http://www.integrationcentre.ie/getattachment/3728d764-143f-4ece-bf9a-a0134ceda102/Online-Gaming-and-Youth-Cultural-Perceptions.aspx\">, \u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"http://www.integrationcentre.ie/getattachment/3728d764-143f-4ece-bf9a-a0134ceda102/Online-Gaming-and-Youth-Cultural-Perceptions.aspx\" target=\"_blank\">Online Gaming and Youth Cultural Perceptions\u003c/a> by Killian Forde and Catherine Kenny, suggests that kids who play multi-player games online are more likely to have a positive attitude toward people from another country: 62 percent of online gamers hold a favorable view of people from different cultures compared to 50 percent of non-gamers. Unlike school, where the diversity of the institution is rarely reflected by individuals’ peer groups, interactive online gaming correlates with a more diverse group of friends. Might the same principle be applied to the classroom? Could multi-player learning games help eliminate bullying and build camaraderie among classmates?\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>Studies like these are generally held at face value, but critics of games are quick to point out that the violent ones are morally reprehensible. Though I’m not a fan of violent video games, studies have shown that there are even positive benefits from playing these types of games. One study, published \u003ca href=\"http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/v12/n5/full/nn0509-527.html\">in \u003ci>Nature\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>, \u003c/i>showed that playing fast-paced “action based” video games improves “attentional processing” and also “induces long-lasting improvements in contrast sensitivity, a basic visual function that commonly deteriorates with age.” Of course, the violent narrative content is not likely responsible for these benefits. It seems more likely that it has something to do with the fast pace which demands quick reflexes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The most convincing neurological \u003ca href=\"http://www.nature.com/mp/journal/v19/n2/full/mp2013120a.html\">research shows\u003c/a> that video games contribute to neural plasticity because games provide “a multitude of complex motor and cognitive demands.” In this study, players played platformers such as \u003ci>Super Mario Brothers \u003c/i>for at least 30 minutes a day for 2 months. They showed \"significant gray matter (GM) increase in right hippocampal formation (HC), right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and bilateral cerebellum.” These are the areas of the brain “crucial for spatial navigation, strategic planning, working memory and motor performance.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>DIFFERENT GAMES FOR DIFFERENT GOALS\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But it's a little disingenuous to say that games are “good for kids.” Games are not like vegetables. Don’t imagine them as if they were packed with vitamins and nutrients that help kids grow into healthy adults. Like all forms of media, it depends on the particular games and how they are used.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“One can no more say what the effects of video games are, than one can say what the effects of food are. There are millions of individual games, hundreds of distinct genres and sub-genres, and they can be played on computers, consoles, hand-held devices and cell phones. Simply put, if one wants to know what the effects of video games are, the devil is in the details.” Say Daphne Bavelier & C. Shawn Green, in \u003ca href=\"http://www.nature.com/nrn/journal/v12/n12/full/nrn3135.html\">\u003ci>Nature Reviews Neuroscience.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The details include, among other things, the narrative content: the story of the game. Games with very similar mechanics could have drastically different stories. For example, replace PacMan and the Space-Ghosts with Theseus and the Minotaur and it is a very different game. I can imagine a game called \u003ci>Steve the Fracker\u003c/i> that might look very similar to Minecraft, but the implications are altogether different. Understanding how shifting the narrative can change the game gives developers a clue about how they might build learning games and also helps teachers imagine how they might use existing commercial games to reinforce learning outcomes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Imagine if we could build learning games that provided the same kinds of complex motor and cognitive demands as fast paced action games while featuring narrative content that was curricularly relevant. Games all feature stories laid atop interactive mechanics. One approach to learning games might be to build narratives that reinforce educational content while employing the same familiar game mechanics. Teachers could also have students imagine how existing commercial game narratives might be retold to be relevant to class content.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The studies summarized here identify some of the ways that games, considered in a general way, can have positive impact on the people that play them. To get the most out of games, however, the facilitation and mentoring that adults can provide children is absolutely essential. Teachers should design curriculum that not only uses game-based instruction, but also makes kids aware of the way games are designed. Parents should play games with their kids at home.\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_36273\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-36273\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/4975313325_1168f12b5b_z-e1402670196428.jpg\" alt=\"Doug Kline\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/4975313325_1168f12b5b_z-e1402670196428.jpg 640w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/4975313325_1168f12b5b_z-e1402670196428-400x225.jpg 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/4975313325_1168f12b5b_z-e1402670196428-320x180.jpg 320w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Doug Kline\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Part 7 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\">Games and learning advocates often come up against the video game stigma. Despite the fact that we’ve now seen decades of game play, and that \u003ca href=\"http://www.forbes.com/sites/jordanshapiro/2014/02/05/how-video-games-nurtured-a-generation-of-entrepreneurs/\" target=\"_blank\">a generation of gamers\u003c/a> has grown up without a civilization collapsing, the bad reputation persists -- and it's mostly based around fear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>News stories abound: games make kids hyper, violent, stupid, anti-social. It's not only that people are generally wary of the unfamiliar, we also live in a culture of heroism and progress that casts every innovation as a revolution. Rather than celebrating modification and iteration, we divide the world into what’s cutting-edge and what’s obsolete. We’re always afraid that the new school will completely displace an old school that we’re not quite ready to abandon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the introduction of video games in the classroom does not need to mean the end of books. Blended learning will not necessarily replace the lecture. Games, however, can supplement time-tested pedagogical practices with new technological solutions to long-term problems. We can have the best of both the new and the old. Other posts in this series have already discussed the way games can help educators answer the ongoing \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/05/can-games-make-high-stakes-tests-obsolete/\">assessment\u003c/a> question, the way games can help develop kid’s \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/05/social-and-emotional-benefits-of-video-games-metacognition-and-relationships/\">metacognitive skills and empathy\u003c/a>, and the way they can help to \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/05/math-science-history-games-break-boundaries-between-subjects-interdisciplinary-learning/\">break down the boundaries between academic subjects\u003c/a>. Still, not everyone’s convinced.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Recently, researchers have begun to look at the positive impact of games both in a general way and for learning in particular. The data is still sparse, but there are already some important takeaways. Here, I’ll summarize some of the general research on the positive impact of gameplay. In a future post, I’ll look at the research specific to games in school, education, and learning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The\u003ca href=\"http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/amp-a0034857.pdf\"> recent APA (American Psychological Association) article\u003c/a> entitled, “The Benefits of Playing Video Games” by authors Isabela Granic, Adam Lobel, and Rutger C. M. E. Engels surveyed the landscape of video games. They identified four types of positive impact that video games have on the kids who play them: cognitive, motivational, emotional, and social.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gameplay has cognitive benefit because games have been shown to improve attention, focus, and reaction time. Games have motivational benefit because they encourage an \u003ci>incremental\u003c/i>, rather than an \u003ci>entity\u003c/i> theory of intelligence. Games have emotional benefit because they induce positive mood states; in addition, there is speculative evidence that games may help kids develop adaptive emotion regulation. Games have social benefit because gamers are able to translate the prosocial skills that they learn from co-playing or multiplayer gameplay to “peer and family relations outside the gaming environment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thinking about cognitive, motivational, emotional, and social skills reminds us that educators are not just responsible for the transmission of content and facts. Of course, this is one of the reasons that there is so much controversy over testing. Standardized tests measure only quantifiable outcomes. Educators, however, are also responsible for the non-quantifiable well-being of our students. Some of these skills are taken into account in some schools when folks talk about “character education.” But mostly, there is little curricular systematization in these areas. Still, teachers are accountable for conflict resolution and other interpersonal skills. Video games can help.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A survey done in Ireland\u003ca href=\"http://www.integrationcentre.ie/getattachment/3728d764-143f-4ece-bf9a-a0134ceda102/Online-Gaming-and-Youth-Cultural-Perceptions.aspx\">, \u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"http://www.integrationcentre.ie/getattachment/3728d764-143f-4ece-bf9a-a0134ceda102/Online-Gaming-and-Youth-Cultural-Perceptions.aspx\" target=\"_blank\">Online Gaming and Youth Cultural Perceptions\u003c/a> by Killian Forde and Catherine Kenny, suggests that kids who play multi-player games online are more likely to have a positive attitude toward people from another country: 62 percent of online gamers hold a favorable view of people from different cultures compared to 50 percent of non-gamers. Unlike school, where the diversity of the institution is rarely reflected by individuals’ peer groups, interactive online gaming correlates with a more diverse group of friends. Might the same principle be applied to the classroom? Could multi-player learning games help eliminate bullying and build camaraderie among classmates?\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>Studies like these are generally held at face value, but critics of games are quick to point out that the violent ones are morally reprehensible. Though I’m not a fan of violent video games, studies have shown that there are even positive benefits from playing these types of games. One study, published \u003ca href=\"http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/v12/n5/full/nn0509-527.html\">in \u003ci>Nature\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>, \u003c/i>showed that playing fast-paced “action based” video games improves “attentional processing” and also “induces long-lasting improvements in contrast sensitivity, a basic visual function that commonly deteriorates with age.” Of course, the violent narrative content is not likely responsible for these benefits. It seems more likely that it has something to do with the fast pace which demands quick reflexes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The most convincing neurological \u003ca href=\"http://www.nature.com/mp/journal/v19/n2/full/mp2013120a.html\">research shows\u003c/a> that video games contribute to neural plasticity because games provide “a multitude of complex motor and cognitive demands.” In this study, players played platformers such as \u003ci>Super Mario Brothers \u003c/i>for at least 30 minutes a day for 2 months. They showed \"significant gray matter (GM) increase in right hippocampal formation (HC), right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and bilateral cerebellum.” These are the areas of the brain “crucial for spatial navigation, strategic planning, working memory and motor performance.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>DIFFERENT GAMES FOR DIFFERENT GOALS\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But it's a little disingenuous to say that games are “good for kids.” Games are not like vegetables. Don’t imagine them as if they were packed with vitamins and nutrients that help kids grow into healthy adults. Like all forms of media, it depends on the particular games and how they are used.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“One can no more say what the effects of video games are, than one can say what the effects of food are. There are millions of individual games, hundreds of distinct genres and sub-genres, and they can be played on computers, consoles, hand-held devices and cell phones. Simply put, if one wants to know what the effects of video games are, the devil is in the details.” Say Daphne Bavelier & C. Shawn Green, in \u003ca href=\"http://www.nature.com/nrn/journal/v12/n12/full/nrn3135.html\">\u003ci>Nature Reviews Neuroscience.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The details include, among other things, the narrative content: the story of the game. Games with very similar mechanics could have drastically different stories. For example, replace PacMan and the Space-Ghosts with Theseus and the Minotaur and it is a very different game. I can imagine a game called \u003ci>Steve the Fracker\u003c/i> that might look very similar to Minecraft, but the implications are altogether different. Understanding how shifting the narrative can change the game gives developers a clue about how they might build learning games and also helps teachers imagine how they might use existing commercial games to reinforce learning outcomes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Imagine if we could build learning games that provided the same kinds of complex motor and cognitive demands as fast paced action games while featuring narrative content that was curricularly relevant. Games all feature stories laid atop interactive mechanics. One approach to learning games might be to build narratives that reinforce educational content while employing the same familiar game mechanics. Teachers could also have students imagine how existing commercial game narratives might be retold to be relevant to class content.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The studies summarized here identify some of the ways that games, considered in a general way, can have positive impact on the people that play them. To get the most out of games, however, the facilitation and mentoring that adults can provide children is absolutely essential. Teachers should design curriculum that not only uses game-based instruction, but also makes kids aware of the way games are designed. Parents should play games with their kids at home.\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": "Can Parents Protect Their Kids' School-Collected Data?",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_36256\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-36256\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/8169560070_290a4e1fc4_z1-e1402596139671.jpg\" alt=\"Katie Hiscock\" width=\"640\" height=\"355\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/8169560070_290a4e1fc4_z1-e1402596139671.jpg 640w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/8169560070_290a4e1fc4_z1-e1402596139671-400x222.jpg 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/8169560070_290a4e1fc4_z1-e1402596139671-320x178.jpg 320w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Katie Hiscock\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp class=\"dropcap-serif\">Gone are the days when parents could tuck all their children’s homework in a drawer or rest assured that their child’s complete records were under lock and key, on paper, in the school’s main office. For the past few years, most American public schools have been moving student records online and many teachers have been assigning homework online. Children are logging on to school assignments in class, at home and on the go, generating a deluge of data.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With all this accumulation of data comes a \u003ca href=\"http://www.politico.com/story/2014/06/internet-data-mining-children-107461.html\" target=\"_blank\">distinct feeling of consternation\u003c/a> on the part of some parents. The thought of losing control of a child’s personal information can be unnerving. Arielle Piastunovich, a social worker in San Francisco is concerned her kids’ data could be captured by a marketer or a predator, although the chances of the latter have proven to be almost negligible. “It’s a scary thought,” she says. “As a parent you want to protect your kids and make them safe in the world, and the world gets less and less safe.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But some parents who work in the tech industry have more comfort with the idea of online data. “There is no problem aside from us adults having a very old-fashioned perspective on our privacy,” says Tomo Moriwaki, a father and video game developer in Los Angeles. “The most sinister thing they can try and do is profit from the information. Even spying on our kids because they might be terrorists is no big deal to me, aside from how much a waste of time and effort it represents.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s futile to try and keep track of student data according to Simon Jones, a father of three and a marketer in Burlingame, Calif. “Privacy efforts are sort of like TSA agents. They make you feel better but you can’t protect your privacy in today’s world.” Jones finds comfort in believing that everyone is being tracked somehow and, “if it’s everybody, it’s nobody, you disappear into an ocean of names and numbers.” He says he doesn’t worry about privacy, because he believes there’s nothing he can do about it.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>Laws Protecting Student Data\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Not everyone is resigned to handing over student data to the wilds and will of the internet. “Privacy rules may well be the seatbelts of this generation,” said Arne Duncan in a \u003ca href=\"http://www.ed.gov/news/speeches/technology-education-privacy-and-progress\">recent speech\u003c/a> on privacy. The Data Quality Campaign found that 80 student-data-privacy bills have been considered in 32 states in 2014 alone. In addition to the state laws under consideration, there are at least three federal laws already on the books designed to protect student data, FERPA, PPRA and COPPA.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The 1974 \u003ca href=\"http://www.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/fpco/ferpa/index.html\">Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act\u003c/a> or FERPA, mandates that schools must keep educational records confidential and that student data can only be used for educational purposes. Using student data to sell or market products is prohibited. But there is an exception: schools can share “personally identifiable” student information with a contracted third party, for example, an educational software company, provided that information is only used for the purpose the school requested.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=\"d627ac8dc5dd4ebfce512214deecb03c\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another statute, the \u003ca href=\"http://ptac.ed.gov/sites/default/files/Student%20Privacy%20and%20Online%20Educational%20Services%20%28February%202014%29.pdf\">Protection Pupil Rights Amendment\u003c/a> or PPRA deals directly with sharing K-12 student data for marketing purposes. Under this amendment, “a school district must, with exceptions, directly notify parents of students who are scheduled to participate in activities involving the collection, disclosure, or use of personal information collected from students for marketing purposes, or to sell or otherwise provide that information to others for marketing purposes, and to give parents the opportunity to opt-out of these activities.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Neither FERPA nor the PPRA is airtight. According to the Department of Education “student information collected or maintained as part of an online educational service may be protected under FERPA, under PPRA, under both statutes, or not protected by either. Which statute applies depends on the content of the information, how it is collected or disclosed, and the purposes for which it is used.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Finally, the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act or \u003ca href=\"http://www.business.ftc.gov/documents/0493-Complying-with-COPPA-Frequently-Asked-Questions\">COPPA \u003c/a>is directed at operators of websites or online services directed at children under 13. Under COPPA, these operators have to get verifiable parental consent before collecting or using the personal information about children under 13. Under some circumstances, schools can act as a parent’s agent and consent to the collection of kids’ information, as long as that information is used for educational, not commercial purposes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Federal law provides only some of the guard rails for data and privacy practice. Much of the control over these issues lies in the policies of states and districts,” Duncan said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>How Parents Can Protect Their Child’s Data\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Parents can play a significant role in protecting their kids’ information. Kathleen Styles, Chief Privacy Officer at the U.S. Dept. of Education, says parents must educate kids about where they share their information online. “Our children are now citizens in an online world, and conversations about privacy need to happen in schools but they need to happen at home as well,” Styles says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Joni Lupovitz of Common Sense Media takes a more aggressive approach, advocating for careful parent scrutiny of a child’s online activity. “There’s no substitute for P-O-S. Parent Over Shoulder,” Lupovitz says. \u003ca href=\"https://www.commonsensemedia.org/school-privacy-zone\">Common Sense Media\u003c/a> has created a list of principles governing student privacy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At school, parents concerned about privacy are encouraged to ask administrators how they’re collecting, storing and sharing data. “Make sure schools have self-awareness,” Styles says. “I would be looking for the currency of the privacy policy, evidence that the district is aware of what kind of data the schools and district are capturing and evidence that the data is classified by sensitivity -- that more sensitive data is being protected in a more stringent fashion.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While some privacy advocates call for more intense policing of adults who deal with student data, Richard Culatta, Director of the Office of Educational Technology takes a more moderate approach. “I think it’s really important to ask good questions – but we need to be careful that we don’t get swayed by hype.” He adds, “I wouldn’t expect every parent to understand what 'encryption at rest' means… I think the question is, do they trust their schools? Is the school providing evidence that they are being stewards of data?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If the school can show that it’s being responsible with data, then Culatta says parents can focus on leveraging student data to improve their child’s education.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_36256\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-36256\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/8169560070_290a4e1fc4_z1-e1402596139671.jpg\" alt=\"Katie Hiscock\" width=\"640\" height=\"355\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/8169560070_290a4e1fc4_z1-e1402596139671.jpg 640w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/8169560070_290a4e1fc4_z1-e1402596139671-400x222.jpg 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/8169560070_290a4e1fc4_z1-e1402596139671-320x178.jpg 320w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Katie Hiscock\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp class=\"dropcap-serif\">Gone are the days when parents could tuck all their children’s homework in a drawer or rest assured that their child’s complete records were under lock and key, on paper, in the school’s main office. For the past few years, most American public schools have been moving student records online and many teachers have been assigning homework online. Children are logging on to school assignments in class, at home and on the go, generating a deluge of data.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With all this accumulation of data comes a \u003ca href=\"http://www.politico.com/story/2014/06/internet-data-mining-children-107461.html\" target=\"_blank\">distinct feeling of consternation\u003c/a> on the part of some parents. The thought of losing control of a child’s personal information can be unnerving. Arielle Piastunovich, a social worker in San Francisco is concerned her kids’ data could be captured by a marketer or a predator, although the chances of the latter have proven to be almost negligible. “It’s a scary thought,” she says. “As a parent you want to protect your kids and make them safe in the world, and the world gets less and less safe.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But some parents who work in the tech industry have more comfort with the idea of online data. “There is no problem aside from us adults having a very old-fashioned perspective on our privacy,” says Tomo Moriwaki, a father and video game developer in Los Angeles. “The most sinister thing they can try and do is profit from the information. Even spying on our kids because they might be terrorists is no big deal to me, aside from how much a waste of time and effort it represents.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s futile to try and keep track of student data according to Simon Jones, a father of three and a marketer in Burlingame, Calif. “Privacy efforts are sort of like TSA agents. They make you feel better but you can’t protect your privacy in today’s world.” Jones finds comfort in believing that everyone is being tracked somehow and, “if it’s everybody, it’s nobody, you disappear into an ocean of names and numbers.” He says he doesn’t worry about privacy, because he believes there’s nothing he can do about it.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>Laws Protecting Student Data\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Not everyone is resigned to handing over student data to the wilds and will of the internet. “Privacy rules may well be the seatbelts of this generation,” said Arne Duncan in a \u003ca href=\"http://www.ed.gov/news/speeches/technology-education-privacy-and-progress\">recent speech\u003c/a> on privacy. The Data Quality Campaign found that 80 student-data-privacy bills have been considered in 32 states in 2014 alone. In addition to the state laws under consideration, there are at least three federal laws already on the books designed to protect student data, FERPA, PPRA and COPPA.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The 1974 \u003ca href=\"http://www.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/fpco/ferpa/index.html\">Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act\u003c/a> or FERPA, mandates that schools must keep educational records confidential and that student data can only be used for educational purposes. Using student data to sell or market products is prohibited. But there is an exception: schools can share “personally identifiable” student information with a contracted third party, for example, an educational software company, provided that information is only used for the purpose the school requested.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another statute, the \u003ca href=\"http://ptac.ed.gov/sites/default/files/Student%20Privacy%20and%20Online%20Educational%20Services%20%28February%202014%29.pdf\">Protection Pupil Rights Amendment\u003c/a> or PPRA deals directly with sharing K-12 student data for marketing purposes. Under this amendment, “a school district must, with exceptions, directly notify parents of students who are scheduled to participate in activities involving the collection, disclosure, or use of personal information collected from students for marketing purposes, or to sell or otherwise provide that information to others for marketing purposes, and to give parents the opportunity to opt-out of these activities.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Neither FERPA nor the PPRA is airtight. According to the Department of Education “student information collected or maintained as part of an online educational service may be protected under FERPA, under PPRA, under both statutes, or not protected by either. Which statute applies depends on the content of the information, how it is collected or disclosed, and the purposes for which it is used.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Finally, the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act or \u003ca href=\"http://www.business.ftc.gov/documents/0493-Complying-with-COPPA-Frequently-Asked-Questions\">COPPA \u003c/a>is directed at operators of websites or online services directed at children under 13. Under COPPA, these operators have to get verifiable parental consent before collecting or using the personal information about children under 13. Under some circumstances, schools can act as a parent’s agent and consent to the collection of kids’ information, as long as that information is used for educational, not commercial purposes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Federal law provides only some of the guard rails for data and privacy practice. Much of the control over these issues lies in the policies of states and districts,” Duncan said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>How Parents Can Protect Their Child’s Data\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Parents can play a significant role in protecting their kids’ information. Kathleen Styles, Chief Privacy Officer at the U.S. Dept. of Education, says parents must educate kids about where they share their information online. “Our children are now citizens in an online world, and conversations about privacy need to happen in schools but they need to happen at home as well,” Styles says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Joni Lupovitz of Common Sense Media takes a more aggressive approach, advocating for careful parent scrutiny of a child’s online activity. “There’s no substitute for P-O-S. Parent Over Shoulder,” Lupovitz says. \u003ca href=\"https://www.commonsensemedia.org/school-privacy-zone\">Common Sense Media\u003c/a> has created a list of principles governing student privacy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At school, parents concerned about privacy are encouraged to ask administrators how they’re collecting, storing and sharing data. “Make sure schools have self-awareness,” Styles says. “I would be looking for the currency of the privacy policy, evidence that the district is aware of what kind of data the schools and district are capturing and evidence that the data is classified by sensitivity -- that more sensitive data is being protected in a more stringent fashion.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While some privacy advocates call for more intense policing of adults who deal with student data, Richard Culatta, Director of the Office of Educational Technology takes a more moderate approach. “I think it’s really important to ask good questions – but we need to be careful that we don’t get swayed by hype.” He adds, “I wouldn’t expect every parent to understand what 'encryption at rest' means… I think the question is, do they trust their schools? Is the school providing evidence that they are being stewards of data?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_35927\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"https://edshelf.com//profile/qzufyn3/edwebet47-the-a-list\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-35927\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/05/edshelf.jpg\" alt=\"Michelle Luhtala/Edshelf\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/05/edshelf.jpg 640w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/05/edshelf-400x225.jpg 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/05/edshelf-320x180.jpg 320w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Michelle Luhtala/Edshelf\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp class=\"dropcap-serif\">With the thousands of educational apps vying for the attention of busy teachers, it can be hard to sift for the gold. Michelle Luhtala, a savvy librarian from \u003ca href=\"http://www2.newcanaan.k12.ct.us/education/school/school.php?sectionid=20\" target=\"_blank\">New Canaan High School\u003c/a> in Connecticut has crowd-sourced the best, most\u003ca href=\"https://edshelf.com/shelf/qzufyn3-edwebet47-the-a-list/\" target=\"_blank\"> extensive list \u003c/a>of\u003ca href=\"https://edshelf.com/shelf/qzufyn3-edwebet47-the-a-list/\" target=\"_blank\"> apps\u003c/a> voted on by educators around the country.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I wanted to make sure we had some flexibility because there’s no one app that’s better than all the others,” Luhtala said. Some apps are best for younger students, others are more complicated, better suited for high school students. Many apps do one thing really well, but aren’t great at everything. Still others are bought, redesigned or just disappear -- so it’s always good to know about an array of tools to suit the need at hand.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>DIGITAL STORYTELLING AND PRESENTATION TOOLS\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.30hands.net/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>30Hands\u003c/strong> \u003c/a>allows a user to make pictures, annotate them, record a voice explainer and then packages it all into a video. Luhtala likes it because it’s intuitive and easy to use with no training. Its simple interface and ease of use make it great for young students, like kindergarteners. One downside is that the teacher has to manually enter individual student accounts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://getvoice.adobe.com/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>Adobe Voice\u003c/strong> \u003c/a>is a recently released education product from Adobe that allows students to narrate a story over an array of digital images. It doesn’t require any video, rather the tool moves images forward in a cinematic fashion. “It has gorgeous templates in terms of storytelling and a huge library of copyright friendly music and images,” Luhtala said. While schools often want to teach students about good digital citizenship, including copyright laws, having a pre-reviewed library can be useful for quicker projects. It can be seen on any platform since it is web based.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.redjumper.net/bookcreator/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>Book Creator\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> is only available for iPads, allowing kids to easily create their own iBook by importing images, multimedia, text, and audio. Its simplicity makes it good for kids of all ages. Even though it has been around for quite some time, some educators still call it their number-one tool. One downside is that the output can only be viewed on iOS devices.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://tellagami.com/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>Tellagami\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> is a tool to share quick animated messages. Users pick a character, record an audio message or type text and send it to someone else. It can be used in conjunction with other tools to make it even more powerful.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.morriscooke.com/?p=134\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>ExplainEverything\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> is another tool for creating video like tutorials. Students or teachers can take photos or images, annotate them, record voices over them and explain different concepts that way. It could be good for giving students directions or for having students explain what they’ve learned.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=\"8f262a7638eb609dabfa9120ff4c22aa\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.haikudeck.com/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>Haiku Desk\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> is a free presentation tool with many themes and Creative Commons images to choose from. Users can import photos, make charts, and generally tailor a presentation to their own style.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://slideidea.com/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>SlideIdea\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> is another tool that allows teachers and students to make presentations come alive. The tool allows users to embed polls, annotate slides, and add audio recordings over images or text on a slide. “The thing about iPads and iPhones is they have cameras and microphones so we should use them,” Luhtala said. “The idea is to embed the world you are experiencing in your presentation.” This app is free.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.knowmia.com/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>Knowmia\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> is a free presentation tool alternative to \u003ca href=\"http://www.showme.com/\" target=\"_blank\">ShowMe\u003c/a> or \u003ca href=\"https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/explain-everything/id431493086?mt=8\" target=\"_blank\">ExplainEverything\u003c/a>. While these tools have similar functionalities, some teachers see them as progressing in sophistication with \u003ca href=\"https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/screenchomp/id442415881?mt=8\" target=\"_blank\">ScreenChomp\u003c/a> best for elementary school teachers, ShowMe a good choice for middle school, and ExplainEverything a better option for high school students. Knowmia includes a class roster list and some learning management system functions in addition to the presentation tools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/student-interactives/timeline-30007.html\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>ReadWriteThink Timeline\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> allows students to arrange work sequentially. “It used to be that you would have to finish your task online before you could stop or you would lose it and now you can store it,” Luhtala said of the updated version.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>VIDEO TOOLS\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.apple.com/mac/imovie/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>iMovie\u003c/strong> \u003c/a>is still the preferred tool for many teachers using school issued iPads or other Apple products in their classrooms. It comes preloaded on the devices, is a powerful tool and can be used in conjunction with other apps like Green Screen or Tellagami.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlH3h19ablI\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>Green Screen\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> is an app that allows students to combine recorded video footage with a background of their choice ($2.99). The weatherman standing in front of a map is a good example of the green screen effect. Many educators report using it in conjunction with other video apps.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.boinx.com/istopmotion/mac/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>iStopMotion\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> is a fairly simple tool for creating animated videos. Students can record or import audio and match it up to their visuals. One teacher used this app in conjunction with Aurasma to create a live diorama in the library. It’s pricier than most education apps at $9.99\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://crowdflik.com/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>CrowdFlik\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> is a free app that allows a group of people observing the same event from multiple perspectives to combine all their photos or video footage together. Users upload all the collected footage and CrowdFlik stores it in the cloud. Then users can edit the media clips together into a video containing multiple viewpoints or perspectives of the same event.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/koma-koma-for-ipad/id635794784?mt=8\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>Koma Koma\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> is a simple stop-motion animation tool. It only has four commands -- shoot, delete, play and save -- so kids can focus on the content without having to worry about complicated controls. One teacher asked her students to use the app to record music videos that include claymation and collage. The simplicity allows for lots of creativity, and it’s free.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.videoscribe.co/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>VideoScribe\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> is another, more expensive, way to create animated videos. It replicates the stop motion fast note taking style that has become popular in advertisements or when explaining things. The British app is available under a licensing fee of 16 pounds per month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>PHOTO EDITING\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://pixlr.com/editor/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>Pixlr Editor\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"http://pixlr.com/express/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>Pixlr Express\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> allow for free, easy photo editing and fun filters and overlays respectively.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://iphonephotographyschool.com/snapseed-tutorial/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>SnapSpeed\u003c/strong> \u003c/a>is a free photo editing tool which, in conjunction with a camera phone, lets a user select a part of a photo and highlight that without discoloring the rest of the person. It’s a good way to call attention to different parts of a photo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>AUGMENTED REALITY\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.aurasma.com/#/whats-your-aura\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>Aurasma\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> is one of the most popular augmented reality tools and it's free. It allows teachers to “tag” physical objects with videos, animations or 3D scenes so that if a student hovers over the object with their mobile device they’ll see the attachment. In Luhtala’s school students record videos of their excitement about different books in the library and attach them to different books. Students looking for something to read can get a direct recommendation from a classmate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another librarian made a claymation video and attached it to a diorama in the library. When students scanned the diorama using Aurasma, they watched it come to life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://chromville.com/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>Chromville\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> is a free app that is part augmented reality experience and part game. Focused on younger students, it’s centered around a world in a galaxy far away where the colors are fading. Students download a blank coloring page, fill it in with color and then hover over the images to make them come to life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>READING ENGAGEMENT\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.biblionasium.com/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>BiblioNasium\u003c/strong> \u003c/a>is not a mobile app (yet) but Luhtala finds it to be a great way for younger kids to engage socially around reading. Similar to GoodReads, but aimed at a younger audience, the platform allows teachers to pose reading challenges in a set time period. Students can add books they’ve read and post reviews. Some librarians have found this gamification approach can make reading more fun and can inspire young readers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.renaissance.com/products/subtext\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>Subtext\u003c/strong> \u003c/a>allows teachers to upload PDFs and embed questions to help students be close readers and understand point of view: “This has been the one thing that has wowed our English department to get them on board with iPads,” Luhtala said. The department is using it in single articles, to compare to articles and with e-books. It also prompts readers to write comments at the end of each chapter, creating a reading journal. It is free.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.mexircus.com/Strip_Designer/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>StripDesigner\u003c/strong> \u003c/a>lets students become comic book writers using their own photos and templates available within the app. Student can write text bubbles, place them in the frame and create color gradients for added effect. The app costs $2.99.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://kidblog.org/home/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong> Kidblog\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> offers a free, safe place for younger students to blog. Teachers have control over all the publishing features and student blog entries are private by default. Despite the sanitized environment, many teachers feel their student write better for the larger class audience than they do when they know only a teacher will read their work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.poemsbyheart.org/poems_by_heart/Poems_by_Heart.html\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>Poems By Heart\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> is a game to help students memorize classic poetry. While many teachers are moving away from memorization as the most important skill in the classroom, it can be fun for brain training.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.poetryfoundation.org/mobile/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong> Poetry\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>, a free app made by the Poetry Foundation, is a wheel that spits out a poem. Luhtala likes it because it’s a way to broaden students’ thinking about what kinds of poetry they like and gives them access to a wide range of poetry in different styles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>COMMENTING TOOLS\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://ask3.me/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong> Ask3\u003c/strong> \u003c/a>is a tool for quickly sharing text and audio between teachers and students. It allows a user to turn an iPad into a whiteboard, record voice and text to either ask a question or get feedback. It’s a good way to have an interactive conversation with another student in the class. Students sometimes send Luhtala an Ask3 video and she can record comments or annotate and send it right back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.join.me/howitworks\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>Join.me\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> allows educators to screen share with students so both parties can control the same desktop. “We’re trying to offer online services to students at night when they’re doing they’re homework,” Luhtala said. This tool has allowed her easy access to the problem a student is working through. She also likes it because it’s easy to set up accounts for students. There are free and pro versions, but for education uses free offers lots of useful tools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://readdle.com/products/pdfexpert5/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>PDF Expert\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> is an app that allows students to annotate, highlight, place bookmarks and in other ways mark up digital texts. Luhtala recommends using it with smaller classes. One frustration is that it doesn’t integrate well with Google drive, which many schools are now using for student work. It’s also a bit pricey at $9.99.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>CODING\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.gethopscotch.com/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>Hopscotch\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> is a simple, free app to teach rudimentary coding ideas to younger students. Students can make characters of their choosing do actions using a visual coding language consisting of blocks of code.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://light-bot.com/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>LightBot\u003c/strong> \u003c/a>is another programming tool for slightly older children. Rather than trying to make a character move or create an animation, this app is more of a game, with students using a visual programming language to move through various levels. The \"lite\" version is free, but the version with codeable puzzles costs $2.99.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>NOTE TAKING AND ORGANIZATION\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/clear-tasks-reminders-to-do/id493136154?mt=8\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>Clear\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> is a simple, gesture-based to-do manager. It’s easy to stay organized, take notes, make different to-do lists and delete things.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://evernote.com/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>Evernote\u003c/strong> \u003c/a>is a note-taking and organizational app that has become common in and outside of education. One nice feature allows users to upload handwritten notes to better enable users to keep all their thoughts in one place. Luhtala suggests that the more users tag their notes the more effective this tool can be.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.gingerlabs.com/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>Notability\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> is favored by many schools for note taking. It allows teachers and students to share notes and annotate PDFs. Luhtala wishes it allowed her to grab a document out of a student’s document folder, comment on it with her voice and send it back. But using the app so fluidly is a bit tricky. The app costs $1.99\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.paperportnotes.com/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>PaperPort Notes\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> offers a free alternative note taking tool to Notability. Luhtala likes it because she almost never writes text notes to students, preferring to record herself explaining comments and attaching the recording to specific parts of a document. This app does allow for text notes too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.fiftythree.com/paper\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>Paper\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> allows for more creative note taking for those who like sketches, diagrams and other non-textual notes. It has clean, simple visuals. “This is a beautiful application,” Luhtala said. “The problem is that it has in-app purchasing, which is always a problem for iPads that are circulating.” In other words, it’s free to try, but if a user wants more functionality he can click over the app store and go wild -- not something schools want students doing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>DIGITAL CITIZENSHIP\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.digitalpassport.org/educator-registration\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>Digital PassPort\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> is one of Luhtala’s favorite tools for teaching digital citizenship lessons. Created by Common Sense Media, a non-profit that has been creating digital citizenship content and curriculum for schools, it comes highly recommended.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.nearpod.com/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>Nearpod\u003c/strong> \u003c/a>is a participatory presentation tool that allows students to interact with the content while keeping control with the teacher. Luhtala says it’s as a good tool to transition middle-schoolers into appropriate behavior online. They can practice by interacting with the teacher first.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>BIBLIOGRAPHY\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.easybib.com/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>EasyBib\u003c/strong> \u003c/a>and \u003ca href=\"http://www.noodletools.com/\" target=\"_blank\">NoodleTools\u003c/a> are both bibliography tools that can help students stay organized and track their research online. Once a student signs in for the first time these apps connect him or her to other online resources they’ve stored.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>SOCIAL MEDIA\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Educators have been using \u003ca href=\"https://www.pinterest.com/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>Pinterest\u003c/strong> \u003c/a>for a long time to share ideas with one another. Now some educators are finding it to be a simple portal to parents who want to support their learners at home. Teachers can stash resources on different subject areas on boards so parents can further learning at home. It can be a great way to bolster the school to home connection in some communities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://instagram.com/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>Instagram\u003c/strong> \u003c/a>is best known as a social media tool, but some educators are using it to help students document their experiences. “The next big thing is Instagram,” Luhtala said. Hashtags can help keep photos of the same topic together and students can use it in the field to take notes. Later their ‘grams and tweets from the field can be pulled into something more cohesive using Storify.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://storify.com/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>Storify\u003c/strong> \u003c/a>is a way to archive social media. Some educators are finding it to be a good way to archive a school’s backchannel over a day or week. There’s no app yet, but this could be another powerful tool for adding transparency to the discussions taking place online.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>APPS FOR EDUCATORS/LIBRARIANS\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://home.edweb.net/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>edWeb.net\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> is a community of educators discussing tips and trends through online discussions. While the site hosts webinars that teachers can attend for continuing education credits, Luhtala uses the mobile app to keep tabs on different evolving conversations with her professional learning community throughout the day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.follettsoftware.com/library-automation-software\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>Follett Destiny\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> is a powerful tool for active librarians who spend more time visiting classrooms than sitting in the library -- librarians like Luhtala. When she does an activity in a classroom, she can check out books to students on the spot using this mobile app. It’s a handy way to make sure a student gets the resource he needs at the moment it is suggested to him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://destiny.sccresa.org/quest/servlet/presentquestform.do?site=100&context=peckcs\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>DestinyQuest\u003c/strong> \u003c/a>is a free app that allows students and teachers to access the library catalogue from a mobile device. Students can search for resources, leave reviews, and check account information.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.titlewave.com/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>Follet TitleWave\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> gives librarians an easy way to order new books. When out and about, if an educators sees a book that would make a good addition to the library she can take a picture of the cover and the app will automatically start populating a cart.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.gvconnect.com/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong> Google Voice Connects\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> is a call forwarding service. Luhtala uses the app to make herself available to students after hours without releasing her personal phone number. Text messages can be collected through the app or in an email, making it less intrusive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>MISCELLANEOUS\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://educlipper.net/main.html\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>EduClipper\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> is a popular portfolio tool that allows teachers to manage the portfolio for a secure environment, but still allows kids to work independently. Students create their own content, use online resources and mash it all together to create projects.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.thinglink.com/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>ThingLink\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> is a free app that lets a user tag images with audio or video and share them widely. “It’s one of my favorite go-to things,” Luhtala said. She uses it to feature book awards or other things she wants students and staff to notice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.remind.com/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>Remind101\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> is an easy way to text students through a distribution list. They can see the message, but have no access to the teacher’s cell phone number. “I’m all about finding ways to reach out to your kids,” Luhtala said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.socrative.com/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>Socrative\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> offers free versions of its app for \u003ca href=\"https://edshelf.com/tool/socrative-student\" target=\"_blank\">students\u003c/a> and for\u003ca href=\"https://edshelf.com/tool/socrative-teacher\" target=\"_blank\"> teachers\u003c/a>. It's an easy polling app that gives teachers an instant assessment of whether students are understanding concepts in class. Teachers can also create short answer questions in the app. \u003ca href=\"http://www.polleverywhere.com/\" target=\"_blank\">Polleverywhere\u003c/a> is a similar tool.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/symphonizer/id828535391?mt=8\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>Symphonizer\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> is great for music classes. Teachers or students upload sheet music and can then turn the page by smiling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.voicedream.com/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>Voice Dream Reader\u003c/strong> \u003c/a>will take any text, like an online article, and read it aloud. It has a much nicer computer voice than many computer assisted devices and could be a good alternative.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.questvisual.wordlens.demo&hl=en\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>WordLens\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> is the free app to go to for a quick translation from one language to another. Just hold a mobile device over the text and scan it for a translation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.whatwasthere.com/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>WhatWasThere\u003c/strong> \u003c/a>is a free, interactive app that tells users the history of the spot where he or she is standing. It could be a good tool for history teachers.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_35927\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"https://edshelf.com//profile/qzufyn3/edwebet47-the-a-list\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-35927\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/05/edshelf.jpg\" alt=\"Michelle Luhtala/Edshelf\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/05/edshelf.jpg 640w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/05/edshelf-400x225.jpg 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/05/edshelf-320x180.jpg 320w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Michelle Luhtala/Edshelf\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp class=\"dropcap-serif\">With the thousands of educational apps vying for the attention of busy teachers, it can be hard to sift for the gold. Michelle Luhtala, a savvy librarian from \u003ca href=\"http://www2.newcanaan.k12.ct.us/education/school/school.php?sectionid=20\" target=\"_blank\">New Canaan High School\u003c/a> in Connecticut has crowd-sourced the best, most\u003ca href=\"https://edshelf.com/shelf/qzufyn3-edwebet47-the-a-list/\" target=\"_blank\"> extensive list \u003c/a>of\u003ca href=\"https://edshelf.com/shelf/qzufyn3-edwebet47-the-a-list/\" target=\"_blank\"> apps\u003c/a> voted on by educators around the country.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I wanted to make sure we had some flexibility because there’s no one app that’s better than all the others,” Luhtala said. Some apps are best for younger students, others are more complicated, better suited for high school students. Many apps do one thing really well, but aren’t great at everything. Still others are bought, redesigned or just disappear -- so it’s always good to know about an array of tools to suit the need at hand.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>DIGITAL STORYTELLING AND PRESENTATION TOOLS\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.30hands.net/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>30Hands\u003c/strong> \u003c/a>allows a user to make pictures, annotate them, record a voice explainer and then packages it all into a video. Luhtala likes it because it’s intuitive and easy to use with no training. Its simple interface and ease of use make it great for young students, like kindergarteners. One downside is that the teacher has to manually enter individual student accounts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://getvoice.adobe.com/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>Adobe Voice\u003c/strong> \u003c/a>is a recently released education product from Adobe that allows students to narrate a story over an array of digital images. It doesn’t require any video, rather the tool moves images forward in a cinematic fashion. “It has gorgeous templates in terms of storytelling and a huge library of copyright friendly music and images,” Luhtala said. While schools often want to teach students about good digital citizenship, including copyright laws, having a pre-reviewed library can be useful for quicker projects. It can be seen on any platform since it is web based.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.redjumper.net/bookcreator/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>Book Creator\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> is only available for iPads, allowing kids to easily create their own iBook by importing images, multimedia, text, and audio. Its simplicity makes it good for kids of all ages. Even though it has been around for quite some time, some educators still call it their number-one tool. One downside is that the output can only be viewed on iOS devices.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://tellagami.com/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>Tellagami\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> is a tool to share quick animated messages. Users pick a character, record an audio message or type text and send it to someone else. It can be used in conjunction with other tools to make it even more powerful.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.morriscooke.com/?p=134\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>ExplainEverything\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> is another tool for creating video like tutorials. Students or teachers can take photos or images, annotate them, record voices over them and explain different concepts that way. It could be good for giving students directions or for having students explain what they’ve learned.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.haikudeck.com/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>Haiku Desk\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> is a free presentation tool with many themes and Creative Commons images to choose from. Users can import photos, make charts, and generally tailor a presentation to their own style.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://slideidea.com/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>SlideIdea\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> is another tool that allows teachers and students to make presentations come alive. The tool allows users to embed polls, annotate slides, and add audio recordings over images or text on a slide. “The thing about iPads and iPhones is they have cameras and microphones so we should use them,” Luhtala said. “The idea is to embed the world you are experiencing in your presentation.” This app is free.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.knowmia.com/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>Knowmia\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> is a free presentation tool alternative to \u003ca href=\"http://www.showme.com/\" target=\"_blank\">ShowMe\u003c/a> or \u003ca href=\"https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/explain-everything/id431493086?mt=8\" target=\"_blank\">ExplainEverything\u003c/a>. While these tools have similar functionalities, some teachers see them as progressing in sophistication with \u003ca href=\"https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/screenchomp/id442415881?mt=8\" target=\"_blank\">ScreenChomp\u003c/a> best for elementary school teachers, ShowMe a good choice for middle school, and ExplainEverything a better option for high school students. Knowmia includes a class roster list and some learning management system functions in addition to the presentation tools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/student-interactives/timeline-30007.html\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>ReadWriteThink Timeline\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> allows students to arrange work sequentially. “It used to be that you would have to finish your task online before you could stop or you would lose it and now you can store it,” Luhtala said of the updated version.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>VIDEO TOOLS\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.apple.com/mac/imovie/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>iMovie\u003c/strong> \u003c/a>is still the preferred tool for many teachers using school issued iPads or other Apple products in their classrooms. It comes preloaded on the devices, is a powerful tool and can be used in conjunction with other apps like Green Screen or Tellagami.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlH3h19ablI\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>Green Screen\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> is an app that allows students to combine recorded video footage with a background of their choice ($2.99). The weatherman standing in front of a map is a good example of the green screen effect. Many educators report using it in conjunction with other video apps.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.boinx.com/istopmotion/mac/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>iStopMotion\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> is a fairly simple tool for creating animated videos. Students can record or import audio and match it up to their visuals. One teacher used this app in conjunction with Aurasma to create a live diorama in the library. It’s pricier than most education apps at $9.99\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://crowdflik.com/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>CrowdFlik\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> is a free app that allows a group of people observing the same event from multiple perspectives to combine all their photos or video footage together. Users upload all the collected footage and CrowdFlik stores it in the cloud. Then users can edit the media clips together into a video containing multiple viewpoints or perspectives of the same event.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/koma-koma-for-ipad/id635794784?mt=8\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>Koma Koma\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> is a simple stop-motion animation tool. It only has four commands -- shoot, delete, play and save -- so kids can focus on the content without having to worry about complicated controls. One teacher asked her students to use the app to record music videos that include claymation and collage. The simplicity allows for lots of creativity, and it’s free.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.videoscribe.co/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>VideoScribe\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> is another, more expensive, way to create animated videos. It replicates the stop motion fast note taking style that has become popular in advertisements or when explaining things. The British app is available under a licensing fee of 16 pounds per month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>PHOTO EDITING\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://pixlr.com/editor/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>Pixlr Editor\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"http://pixlr.com/express/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>Pixlr Express\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> allow for free, easy photo editing and fun filters and overlays respectively.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://iphonephotographyschool.com/snapseed-tutorial/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>SnapSpeed\u003c/strong> \u003c/a>is a free photo editing tool which, in conjunction with a camera phone, lets a user select a part of a photo and highlight that without discoloring the rest of the person. It’s a good way to call attention to different parts of a photo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>AUGMENTED REALITY\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.aurasma.com/#/whats-your-aura\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>Aurasma\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> is one of the most popular augmented reality tools and it's free. It allows teachers to “tag” physical objects with videos, animations or 3D scenes so that if a student hovers over the object with their mobile device they’ll see the attachment. In Luhtala’s school students record videos of their excitement about different books in the library and attach them to different books. Students looking for something to read can get a direct recommendation from a classmate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another librarian made a claymation video and attached it to a diorama in the library. When students scanned the diorama using Aurasma, they watched it come to life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://chromville.com/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>Chromville\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> is a free app that is part augmented reality experience and part game. Focused on younger students, it’s centered around a world in a galaxy far away where the colors are fading. Students download a blank coloring page, fill it in with color and then hover over the images to make them come to life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>READING ENGAGEMENT\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.biblionasium.com/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>BiblioNasium\u003c/strong> \u003c/a>is not a mobile app (yet) but Luhtala finds it to be a great way for younger kids to engage socially around reading. Similar to GoodReads, but aimed at a younger audience, the platform allows teachers to pose reading challenges in a set time period. Students can add books they’ve read and post reviews. Some librarians have found this gamification approach can make reading more fun and can inspire young readers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.renaissance.com/products/subtext\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>Subtext\u003c/strong> \u003c/a>allows teachers to upload PDFs and embed questions to help students be close readers and understand point of view: “This has been the one thing that has wowed our English department to get them on board with iPads,” Luhtala said. The department is using it in single articles, to compare to articles and with e-books. It also prompts readers to write comments at the end of each chapter, creating a reading journal. It is free.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.mexircus.com/Strip_Designer/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>StripDesigner\u003c/strong> \u003c/a>lets students become comic book writers using their own photos and templates available within the app. Student can write text bubbles, place them in the frame and create color gradients for added effect. The app costs $2.99.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://kidblog.org/home/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong> Kidblog\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> offers a free, safe place for younger students to blog. Teachers have control over all the publishing features and student blog entries are private by default. Despite the sanitized environment, many teachers feel their student write better for the larger class audience than they do when they know only a teacher will read their work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.poemsbyheart.org/poems_by_heart/Poems_by_Heart.html\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>Poems By Heart\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> is a game to help students memorize classic poetry. While many teachers are moving away from memorization as the most important skill in the classroom, it can be fun for brain training.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.poetryfoundation.org/mobile/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong> Poetry\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>, a free app made by the Poetry Foundation, is a wheel that spits out a poem. Luhtala likes it because it’s a way to broaden students’ thinking about what kinds of poetry they like and gives them access to a wide range of poetry in different styles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>COMMENTING TOOLS\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://ask3.me/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong> Ask3\u003c/strong> \u003c/a>is a tool for quickly sharing text and audio between teachers and students. It allows a user to turn an iPad into a whiteboard, record voice and text to either ask a question or get feedback. It’s a good way to have an interactive conversation with another student in the class. Students sometimes send Luhtala an Ask3 video and she can record comments or annotate and send it right back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.join.me/howitworks\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>Join.me\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> allows educators to screen share with students so both parties can control the same desktop. “We’re trying to offer online services to students at night when they’re doing they’re homework,” Luhtala said. This tool has allowed her easy access to the problem a student is working through. She also likes it because it’s easy to set up accounts for students. There are free and pro versions, but for education uses free offers lots of useful tools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://readdle.com/products/pdfexpert5/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>PDF Expert\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> is an app that allows students to annotate, highlight, place bookmarks and in other ways mark up digital texts. Luhtala recommends using it with smaller classes. One frustration is that it doesn’t integrate well with Google drive, which many schools are now using for student work. It’s also a bit pricey at $9.99.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>CODING\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.gethopscotch.com/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>Hopscotch\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> is a simple, free app to teach rudimentary coding ideas to younger students. Students can make characters of their choosing do actions using a visual coding language consisting of blocks of code.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://light-bot.com/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>LightBot\u003c/strong> \u003c/a>is another programming tool for slightly older children. Rather than trying to make a character move or create an animation, this app is more of a game, with students using a visual programming language to move through various levels. The \"lite\" version is free, but the version with codeable puzzles costs $2.99.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>NOTE TAKING AND ORGANIZATION\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/clear-tasks-reminders-to-do/id493136154?mt=8\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>Clear\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> is a simple, gesture-based to-do manager. It’s easy to stay organized, take notes, make different to-do lists and delete things.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://evernote.com/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>Evernote\u003c/strong> \u003c/a>is a note-taking and organizational app that has become common in and outside of education. One nice feature allows users to upload handwritten notes to better enable users to keep all their thoughts in one place. Luhtala suggests that the more users tag their notes the more effective this tool can be.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.gingerlabs.com/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>Notability\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> is favored by many schools for note taking. It allows teachers and students to share notes and annotate PDFs. Luhtala wishes it allowed her to grab a document out of a student’s document folder, comment on it with her voice and send it back. But using the app so fluidly is a bit tricky. The app costs $1.99\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.paperportnotes.com/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>PaperPort Notes\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> offers a free alternative note taking tool to Notability. Luhtala likes it because she almost never writes text notes to students, preferring to record herself explaining comments and attaching the recording to specific parts of a document. This app does allow for text notes too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.fiftythree.com/paper\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>Paper\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> allows for more creative note taking for those who like sketches, diagrams and other non-textual notes. It has clean, simple visuals. “This is a beautiful application,” Luhtala said. “The problem is that it has in-app purchasing, which is always a problem for iPads that are circulating.” In other words, it’s free to try, but if a user wants more functionality he can click over the app store and go wild -- not something schools want students doing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>DIGITAL CITIZENSHIP\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.digitalpassport.org/educator-registration\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>Digital PassPort\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> is one of Luhtala’s favorite tools for teaching digital citizenship lessons. Created by Common Sense Media, a non-profit that has been creating digital citizenship content and curriculum for schools, it comes highly recommended.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.nearpod.com/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>Nearpod\u003c/strong> \u003c/a>is a participatory presentation tool that allows students to interact with the content while keeping control with the teacher. Luhtala says it’s as a good tool to transition middle-schoolers into appropriate behavior online. They can practice by interacting with the teacher first.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>BIBLIOGRAPHY\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.easybib.com/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>EasyBib\u003c/strong> \u003c/a>and \u003ca href=\"http://www.noodletools.com/\" target=\"_blank\">NoodleTools\u003c/a> are both bibliography tools that can help students stay organized and track their research online. Once a student signs in for the first time these apps connect him or her to other online resources they’ve stored.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>SOCIAL MEDIA\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Educators have been using \u003ca href=\"https://www.pinterest.com/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>Pinterest\u003c/strong> \u003c/a>for a long time to share ideas with one another. Now some educators are finding it to be a simple portal to parents who want to support their learners at home. Teachers can stash resources on different subject areas on boards so parents can further learning at home. It can be a great way to bolster the school to home connection in some communities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://instagram.com/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>Instagram\u003c/strong> \u003c/a>is best known as a social media tool, but some educators are using it to help students document their experiences. “The next big thing is Instagram,” Luhtala said. Hashtags can help keep photos of the same topic together and students can use it in the field to take notes. Later their ‘grams and tweets from the field can be pulled into something more cohesive using Storify.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://storify.com/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>Storify\u003c/strong> \u003c/a>is a way to archive social media. Some educators are finding it to be a good way to archive a school’s backchannel over a day or week. There’s no app yet, but this could be another powerful tool for adding transparency to the discussions taking place online.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>APPS FOR EDUCATORS/LIBRARIANS\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://home.edweb.net/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>edWeb.net\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> is a community of educators discussing tips and trends through online discussions. While the site hosts webinars that teachers can attend for continuing education credits, Luhtala uses the mobile app to keep tabs on different evolving conversations with her professional learning community throughout the day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.follettsoftware.com/library-automation-software\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>Follett Destiny\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> is a powerful tool for active librarians who spend more time visiting classrooms than sitting in the library -- librarians like Luhtala. When she does an activity in a classroom, she can check out books to students on the spot using this mobile app. It’s a handy way to make sure a student gets the resource he needs at the moment it is suggested to him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://destiny.sccresa.org/quest/servlet/presentquestform.do?site=100&context=peckcs\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>DestinyQuest\u003c/strong> \u003c/a>is a free app that allows students and teachers to access the library catalogue from a mobile device. Students can search for resources, leave reviews, and check account information.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.titlewave.com/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>Follet TitleWave\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> gives librarians an easy way to order new books. When out and about, if an educators sees a book that would make a good addition to the library she can take a picture of the cover and the app will automatically start populating a cart.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.gvconnect.com/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong> Google Voice Connects\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> is a call forwarding service. Luhtala uses the app to make herself available to students after hours without releasing her personal phone number. Text messages can be collected through the app or in an email, making it less intrusive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>MISCELLANEOUS\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://educlipper.net/main.html\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>EduClipper\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> is a popular portfolio tool that allows teachers to manage the portfolio for a secure environment, but still allows kids to work independently. Students create their own content, use online resources and mash it all together to create projects.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.thinglink.com/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>ThingLink\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> is a free app that lets a user tag images with audio or video and share them widely. “It’s one of my favorite go-to things,” Luhtala said. She uses it to feature book awards or other things she wants students and staff to notice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.remind.com/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>Remind101\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> is an easy way to text students through a distribution list. They can see the message, but have no access to the teacher’s cell phone number. “I’m all about finding ways to reach out to your kids,” Luhtala said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.socrative.com/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>Socrative\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> offers free versions of its app for \u003ca href=\"https://edshelf.com/tool/socrative-student\" target=\"_blank\">students\u003c/a> and for\u003ca href=\"https://edshelf.com/tool/socrative-teacher\" target=\"_blank\"> teachers\u003c/a>. It's an easy polling app that gives teachers an instant assessment of whether students are understanding concepts in class. Teachers can also create short answer questions in the app. \u003ca href=\"http://www.polleverywhere.com/\" target=\"_blank\">Polleverywhere\u003c/a> is a similar tool.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/symphonizer/id828535391?mt=8\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>Symphonizer\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> is great for music classes. Teachers or students upload sheet music and can then turn the page by smiling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.voicedream.com/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>Voice Dream Reader\u003c/strong> \u003c/a>will take any text, like an online article, and read it aloud. It has a much nicer computer voice than many computer assisted devices and could be a good alternative.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.questvisual.wordlens.demo&hl=en\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>WordLens\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> is the free app to go to for a quick translation from one language to another. Just hold a mobile device over the text and scan it for a translation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_34057\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/02/erinscott_-71592.jpg\">\u003cimg class=\"wp-image-34057 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/02/erinscott_-71592.jpg\" alt=\"Math teacher Michael Doroquez works with students.\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/02/erinscott_-71592.jpg 640w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/02/erinscott_-71592-400x225.jpg 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/02/erinscott_-71592-320x180.jpg 320w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Math teacher Michael Doroquez works with students.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>By Matt Levinson\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the school year heads into the final days and weeks, now's the perfect opportunity to gather feedback from students about their use of iPads. Taking the time to construct a thoughtful survey that will elicit helpful feedback can help set the stage for professional development, program enhancements, and more thoughtful steps into using the devices.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here are eight key questions to ask:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>1. Mobility:\u003c/strong> How often did you use the iPad indoor versus outdoor? Apple's \u003ca href=\"https://www.apple.com/your-verse/\" target=\"_blank\">Your Verse Ad campaign\u003c/a> makes a compelling case for the outdoor use of the iPad. How did your school take advantage of indoor and outdoor spaces with the iPad?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>2. Gaming: \u003c/strong> What types of games did you play? How much time did you spend gaming? Kids love to play games, and learning can be part-and-parcel of playing games.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>3. Classes:\u003c/strong> In which classes did you use the iPad the most? Get specific data and feedback. This can serve as your focal point for professional development efforts with teachers. Without this key data, schools are left guessing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>4. Email:\u003c/strong> How often did you use your school email? Did you check your email every day? Kids don't use email. They prefer texting and social media and schools have to create a reason for kids to check and use email. Find out how often and why kids used their school email.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>5. Engagement:\u003c/strong> What was the best assignment you had this year involving the use of the iPad? What made the assignment so strong? Read more about how educators are using iPads to foster \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2013/08/how-tablets-can-enable-meaningful-connections-for-students-and-teachers/\" target=\"_blank\">collaboration\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2013/07/potential-and-reality-the-ipad-as-a-tool-for-creation/\" target=\"_blank\">creation\u003c/a> -- \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2013/05/the-future-of-tablets-in-education-potential-vs-reality/\" target=\"_blank\">not just consumption\u003c/a> -- and using the devices for \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2013/06/to-get-the-best-out-of-tablets-for-education-classrooms-use-smart-curation/\" target=\"_blank\">curation\u003c/a> and See this \u003ca href=\"http://www.teachthought.com/teaching/46-students-explain-assignments-got-attention-year/\" target=\"_blank\">post by Grant Wiggins\u003c/a> on student engagement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>6. Screen time:\u003c/strong> How many hours per day did you spend on a screen at (a) school and at (b) home? There is often a perception in 1-1 iPad schools that kids are on screens all the time. Gathering specific data is important to framing a useful conversation with families about balance both at school and at home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>7. Personalization:\u003c/strong> What was the most interesting thing you learned on your own on the iPad? Kids can learn a lot on their own, when driven by their interests and passions. Finding out what motivates students can be great information to collect in determining clubs and activities to offer for the following school year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>8. Creation vs. consumption:\u003c/strong> What percent of your time on the iPad was devoted to \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2013/05/the-future-of-tablets-in-education-potential-vs-reality/\" target=\"_blank\">creating vs. consuming content\u003c/a>? Drawing this distinction can serve as a wonderful way to frame teaching and learning with the iPad for both students and teachers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_34057\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/02/erinscott_-71592.jpg\">\u003cimg class=\"wp-image-34057 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/02/erinscott_-71592.jpg\" alt=\"Math teacher Michael Doroquez works with students.\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/02/erinscott_-71592.jpg 640w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/02/erinscott_-71592-400x225.jpg 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/02/erinscott_-71592-320x180.jpg 320w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Math teacher Michael Doroquez works with students.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>By Matt Levinson\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the school year heads into the final days and weeks, now's the perfect opportunity to gather feedback from students about their use of iPads. Taking the time to construct a thoughtful survey that will elicit helpful feedback can help set the stage for professional development, program enhancements, and more thoughtful steps into using the devices.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here are eight key questions to ask:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>1. Mobility:\u003c/strong> How often did you use the iPad indoor versus outdoor? Apple's \u003ca href=\"https://www.apple.com/your-verse/\" target=\"_blank\">Your Verse Ad campaign\u003c/a> makes a compelling case for the outdoor use of the iPad. How did your school take advantage of indoor and outdoor spaces with the iPad?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>2. Gaming: \u003c/strong> What types of games did you play? How much time did you spend gaming? Kids love to play games, and learning can be part-and-parcel of playing games.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>3. Classes:\u003c/strong> In which classes did you use the iPad the most? Get specific data and feedback. This can serve as your focal point for professional development efforts with teachers. Without this key data, schools are left guessing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>4. Email:\u003c/strong> How often did you use your school email? Did you check your email every day? Kids don't use email. They prefer texting and social media and schools have to create a reason for kids to check and use email. Find out how often and why kids used their school email.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>5. Engagement:\u003c/strong> What was the best assignment you had this year involving the use of the iPad? What made the assignment so strong? Read more about how educators are using iPads to foster \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2013/08/how-tablets-can-enable-meaningful-connections-for-students-and-teachers/\" target=\"_blank\">collaboration\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2013/07/potential-and-reality-the-ipad-as-a-tool-for-creation/\" target=\"_blank\">creation\u003c/a> -- \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2013/05/the-future-of-tablets-in-education-potential-vs-reality/\" target=\"_blank\">not just consumption\u003c/a> -- and using the devices for \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2013/06/to-get-the-best-out-of-tablets-for-education-classrooms-use-smart-curation/\" target=\"_blank\">curation\u003c/a> and See this \u003ca href=\"http://www.teachthought.com/teaching/46-students-explain-assignments-got-attention-year/\" target=\"_blank\">post by Grant Wiggins\u003c/a> on student engagement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>6. Screen time:\u003c/strong> How many hours per day did you spend on a screen at (a) school and at (b) home? There is often a perception in 1-1 iPad schools that kids are on screens all the time. Gathering specific data is important to framing a useful conversation with families about balance both at school and at home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>7. Personalization:\u003c/strong> What was the most interesting thing you learned on your own on the iPad? Kids can learn a lot on their own, when driven by their interests and passions. Finding out what motivates students can be great information to collect in determining clubs and activities to offer for the following school year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>8. Creation vs. consumption:\u003c/strong> What percent of your time on the iPad was devoted to \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2013/05/the-future-of-tablets-in-education-potential-vs-reality/\" target=\"_blank\">creating vs. consuming content\u003c/a>? Drawing this distinction can serve as a wonderful way to frame teaching and learning with the iPad for both students and teachers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cimg class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-36165\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/6660134265_88e8afab92_z-e1402325724588.jpg\" alt=\"6660134265_88e8afab92_z\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/6660134265_88e8afab92_z-e1402325724588.jpg 640w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/6660134265_88e8afab92_z-e1402325724588-400x225.jpg 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/6660134265_88e8afab92_z-e1402325724588-320x180.jpg 320w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"dropcap-serif\">More teachers are using digital games in the classroom, and they're using them more frequently, according to a new teacher survey just released by the \u003ca href=\"http://www.joanganzcooneycenter.org/\">Joan Ganz Cooney Center\u003c/a>. But more surprisingly, the study reveals that teachers are finding that one of the most impactful use of games is for motivating and rewarding students, specifically those who are low-performing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The survey, which interviewed 694 K-8 teachers with an average of 14.5 years of teaching experience, aims to understand how and why teachers are using digital games in the classroom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More than three-quarters of teachers surveyed -- 78 percent -- report using digital games in class, and that's up from 50 percent who \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2012/05/new-survey-half-of-teachers-use-digital-games-in-class/\">reported using them in a different survey\u003c/a> two years ago. “Teachers say they want to use digital games to deliver standards-based content and assess student knowledge and skills,” said Cooney Center’s Senior Director and Research Scientist (and survey designer) Lori Takeuchi. “But they're mixed on how effective games have been in doing these things.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Of those who do use games in the classroom, 53 percent said they use video game devices to motivate and reward students, and 41 percent said they use non-digital games for that same reason. Teachers also said they offer games to their students as a way of giving them a break.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Almost half the teachers surveyed -- 47 percent -- said low-performing students who've been struggling in traditional school settings\u003ca href=\"http://www.gamesandlearning.org/2014/06/09/teachers-on-using-games-in-class/\" target=\"_blank\"> benefited the most from using games.\u003c/a> Conversely, only 15 percent of teachers said that high-performing students benefited from playing games.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Of those who use games in the classroom, more teachers (41 percent) are using them to cover content mandated by state or national standards than for formative assessment (29 percent).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With more findings to be released in a later report, it’s still too soon to find an overarching theme other than the fact that games are becoming more commonplace in classrooms, Takeuchi said. Yet the first half of the survey released Monday does include important information about the future of digital gaming in the classroom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Teachers report the greatest barriers to using more digital games in the classroom to be time (45 percent) and cost (44 percent), but researchers found that teachers who play digital games themselves are less likely to be unsure of how to integrate games into the classroom (20 percent) as compared to teachers who don’t play digital games outside the classroom (29 percent).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Perhaps most surprising is the strong use of non-digital games, more than video games, to connect students to one another: 41 percent of teachers use non-digital games to practice material already learned, 41 percent for motivation and reward, and 26 percent use them to “connect students to one another.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_36168\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-medium wp-image-36168\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/Screen-Shot-2014-06-09-at-8.02.30-AM-300x300.png\" alt=\"Gamesandlearning.org\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Gamesandlearning.org\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>What is it about a game of Scrabble or Sorry that fosters connection? Takeuchi said that it’s more than just the individual nature of digital games -- in fact, the survey suggests that most digital game-playing students play in twos or small groups. “What's interesting about the board game findings is that they're still being used quite a lot - more than video games,” said Takeuchi. “And there is something about the face-to-face orientation of board game play, and the fact that you have to play board games with other people that make ‘connection’ a frequent purpose of this medium in K-8 classrooms.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The release of the Gates Foundation-funded survey is seen as a timely conversation due to a convergence of factors surrounding games in the classroom. “There are demographic, policy, and empirical circumstances that make this survey particularly timely,” Takeuchi said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2014, 91 percent of 2–17-year-olds play video games (NPD, 2013), and 58 percent of American adults also play, according to the Entertainment Software Association’s 2013 estimates. \"And since teachers are adults, it stands to reason that today’s teachers would be more open to the notion of using games to teach,” Takeuchi said. In addition, the Common Core implementation has teachers searching for ways to deliver content set by the new standards, and two recent meta-analyses published by \u003ca href=\"http://www.instituteofplay.org/work/projects/glasslab/\">GlassLab\u003c/a>, according to Takeuchi, “have unequivocally ruled in DGBL’s (Digital Game-Based Learning’s) favor.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>DIFFERENT DEVICES\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As expected, teachers are using tech in the classroom regularly: 81 percent of teachers report using laptops and desktops on a weekly basis. The technology teachers rely on most to deliver new material to students are projectors (72 percent) and digital white boards (73 percent). While this conjures the image of a traditional lecture model on nothing more than fancier devices, Takeuchi said that digital white boards and projectors offer much more: both can be used for multiple purposes, including group digital game play. When it comes to assessment, teachers appear to be split, but most do not currently use technology to assess students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>About half of teachers (55 percent) report using digital games in classrooms, most commonly on Mac or PC desktops and laptops, on a weekly basis -- though Takeuchi said they defined “digital games” for the survey quite broadly.* With thousands of games to choose from, finding the most appropriate ones for their class is teachers' biggest complaint, according to the study. For the most part, teachers choose which games to use by talking with other teachers, playing with the games themselves, and asking students their opinions about the games.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=\"5577d573453aa6096f94ba5c1e933d9b\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other factors in drawing teachers toward games include whether they track students' performance (43 percent) and whether they find evidence that the game is effective (37 percent). Perhaps surprisingly, only 15 percent of teachers noted the reviews the game received and only a quarter cited the cost of the games as factors that influenced their decisions to use a game in the classroom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The use of video gaming devices in particular in classrooms remains low. Nearly 80 percent of teachers report they “never” use video gaming devices in the classroom, and only 13 percent report use these devices to cover new material. But when it comes to motivating or rewarding students for a job well done, 53 percent of teachers allow students to play video games on gaming devices as motivation or reward. (Nearly half of teachers surveyed use TV, DVDs and DVR for the same purpose.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More information on teachers and games, including gaming teacher profiles and the kinds of students who seem to benefit most from digital games, is coming when the second half of the survey is released in the fall of 2014. At that time, researches will get a more complete view of where classrooms are when it comes to game-based learning, and how far they have to go.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>* Update June 10, 2014: This version of the article reflects the removal of a reference to games that were not part of the initial release of the study.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cimg class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-36165\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/6660134265_88e8afab92_z-e1402325724588.jpg\" alt=\"6660134265_88e8afab92_z\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/6660134265_88e8afab92_z-e1402325724588.jpg 640w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/6660134265_88e8afab92_z-e1402325724588-400x225.jpg 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/6660134265_88e8afab92_z-e1402325724588-320x180.jpg 320w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"dropcap-serif\">More teachers are using digital games in the classroom, and they're using them more frequently, according to a new teacher survey just released by the \u003ca href=\"http://www.joanganzcooneycenter.org/\">Joan Ganz Cooney Center\u003c/a>. But more surprisingly, the study reveals that teachers are finding that one of the most impactful use of games is for motivating and rewarding students, specifically those who are low-performing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The survey, which interviewed 694 K-8 teachers with an average of 14.5 years of teaching experience, aims to understand how and why teachers are using digital games in the classroom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More than three-quarters of teachers surveyed -- 78 percent -- report using digital games in class, and that's up from 50 percent who \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2012/05/new-survey-half-of-teachers-use-digital-games-in-class/\">reported using them in a different survey\u003c/a> two years ago. “Teachers say they want to use digital games to deliver standards-based content and assess student knowledge and skills,” said Cooney Center’s Senior Director and Research Scientist (and survey designer) Lori Takeuchi. “But they're mixed on how effective games have been in doing these things.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Of those who do use games in the classroom, 53 percent said they use video game devices to motivate and reward students, and 41 percent said they use non-digital games for that same reason. Teachers also said they offer games to their students as a way of giving them a break.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Almost half the teachers surveyed -- 47 percent -- said low-performing students who've been struggling in traditional school settings\u003ca href=\"http://www.gamesandlearning.org/2014/06/09/teachers-on-using-games-in-class/\" target=\"_blank\"> benefited the most from using games.\u003c/a> Conversely, only 15 percent of teachers said that high-performing students benefited from playing games.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Of those who use games in the classroom, more teachers (41 percent) are using them to cover content mandated by state or national standards than for formative assessment (29 percent).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With more findings to be released in a later report, it’s still too soon to find an overarching theme other than the fact that games are becoming more commonplace in classrooms, Takeuchi said. Yet the first half of the survey released Monday does include important information about the future of digital gaming in the classroom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Teachers report the greatest barriers to using more digital games in the classroom to be time (45 percent) and cost (44 percent), but researchers found that teachers who play digital games themselves are less likely to be unsure of how to integrate games into the classroom (20 percent) as compared to teachers who don’t play digital games outside the classroom (29 percent).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Perhaps most surprising is the strong use of non-digital games, more than video games, to connect students to one another: 41 percent of teachers use non-digital games to practice material already learned, 41 percent for motivation and reward, and 26 percent use them to “connect students to one another.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_36168\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-medium wp-image-36168\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/Screen-Shot-2014-06-09-at-8.02.30-AM-300x300.png\" alt=\"Gamesandlearning.org\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Gamesandlearning.org\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>What is it about a game of Scrabble or Sorry that fosters connection? Takeuchi said that it’s more than just the individual nature of digital games -- in fact, the survey suggests that most digital game-playing students play in twos or small groups. “What's interesting about the board game findings is that they're still being used quite a lot - more than video games,” said Takeuchi. “And there is something about the face-to-face orientation of board game play, and the fact that you have to play board games with other people that make ‘connection’ a frequent purpose of this medium in K-8 classrooms.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The release of the Gates Foundation-funded survey is seen as a timely conversation due to a convergence of factors surrounding games in the classroom. “There are demographic, policy, and empirical circumstances that make this survey particularly timely,” Takeuchi said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2014, 91 percent of 2–17-year-olds play video games (NPD, 2013), and 58 percent of American adults also play, according to the Entertainment Software Association’s 2013 estimates. \"And since teachers are adults, it stands to reason that today’s teachers would be more open to the notion of using games to teach,” Takeuchi said. In addition, the Common Core implementation has teachers searching for ways to deliver content set by the new standards, and two recent meta-analyses published by \u003ca href=\"http://www.instituteofplay.org/work/projects/glasslab/\">GlassLab\u003c/a>, according to Takeuchi, “have unequivocally ruled in DGBL’s (Digital Game-Based Learning’s) favor.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>DIFFERENT DEVICES\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As expected, teachers are using tech in the classroom regularly: 81 percent of teachers report using laptops and desktops on a weekly basis. The technology teachers rely on most to deliver new material to students are projectors (72 percent) and digital white boards (73 percent). While this conjures the image of a traditional lecture model on nothing more than fancier devices, Takeuchi said that digital white boards and projectors offer much more: both can be used for multiple purposes, including group digital game play. When it comes to assessment, teachers appear to be split, but most do not currently use technology to assess students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>About half of teachers (55 percent) report using digital games in classrooms, most commonly on Mac or PC desktops and laptops, on a weekly basis -- though Takeuchi said they defined “digital games” for the survey quite broadly.* With thousands of games to choose from, finding the most appropriate ones for their class is teachers' biggest complaint, according to the study. For the most part, teachers choose which games to use by talking with other teachers, playing with the games themselves, and asking students their opinions about the games.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other factors in drawing teachers toward games include whether they track students' performance (43 percent) and whether they find evidence that the game is effective (37 percent). Perhaps surprisingly, only 15 percent of teachers noted the reviews the game received and only a quarter cited the cost of the games as factors that influenced their decisions to use a game in the classroom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The use of video gaming devices in particular in classrooms remains low. Nearly 80 percent of teachers report they “never” use video gaming devices in the classroom, and only 13 percent report use these devices to cover new material. But when it comes to motivating or rewarding students for a job well done, 53 percent of teachers allow students to play video games on gaming devices as motivation or reward. (Nearly half of teachers surveyed use TV, DVDs and DVR for the same purpose.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More information on teachers and games, including gaming teacher profiles and the kinds of students who seem to benefit most from digital games, is coming when the second half of the survey is released in the fall of 2014. At that time, researches will get a more complete view of where classrooms are when it comes to game-based learning, and how far they have to go.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>* Update June 10, 2014: This version of the article reflects the removal of a reference to games that were not part of the initial release of the study.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"disqusTitle": "Making Games: The Ultimate Project-Based Learning",
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"headTitle": "The MindShift Guide to Digital Games and Learning | MindShift | KQED News",
"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_36118\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-36118\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/Screen-Shot-2014-06-06-at-9.30.59-AM-e1402072334517.png\" alt=\"Gamestar Mechanic\" width=\"640\" height=\"339\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/Screen-Shot-2014-06-06-at-9.30.59-AM-e1402072334517.png 640w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/Screen-Shot-2014-06-06-at-9.30.59-AM-e1402072334517-400x212.png 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/Screen-Shot-2014-06-06-at-9.30.59-AM-e1402072334517-320x170.png 320w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Gamestar Mechanic\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Part 6 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\">As game-based learning increases in popularity, it's easy to get pigeon-holed into one particular way of thinking about it or one way of employing it. This is true regardless of how teachers feel about gaming in the classroom, whether they’re for or against it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One common objection to game-based learning is that students will sit in front of screens being taught \u003ci>at. \u003c/i>Sure, games are interactive, but on some level, don’t they still just replace the sage on the stage with the sage on the screen? Does a joystick really change the nature of pedagogy?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In previous posts in this series, I’ve argued that because games involve systems thinking, they \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/05/how-games-based-learning-teaches-problem-solving-in-context/\" target=\"_blank\">contextualize learning\u003c/a>. Game-based learning could bring us a step closer to John Dewey’s call for “learning by doing.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>“\u003c/b>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>” says Keith Devlin, author of \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>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, virtual simulations of hands-on experience are not the same as tangibly engaging with the world. Simulating doing is, by definition, not the real thing. Plus, some of game-based learning’s strengths can also be seen as weaknesses. Games provide sequenced instruction blended with practice, feedback, and assessment. But even adaptive games have a finite number of sequential variations. Structures, and therefore, frameworks and perspectives, all remain fixed in a game. Certainly it is part of an educator’s job to frame content, but we don’t want to do it in a way that prevents students from figuring out their own way to make meaning out of the material. In order to model a respect for diverse perspectives, we need to employ a variety of teaching methods.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fortunately, few people are calling for games to replace school as we know it. Kids shouldn’t sit in front of screens all day. Games are just one of the many tools that teachers can use in the classroom. In addition, there is more than one way to teach using games. It's not just about playing the games, it's also about \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/06/three-awesome-apps-that-help-kids-make-games/\" target=\"_blank\">making them\u003c/a>. Game making is one way to create a space where students are empowered to freely experiment with their own way of framing ideas and choosing perspectives. In this way, game making is tantamount to project-based learning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Just as there are many apps and platforms designed to teach kids coding, there are also many apps and platforms that make it easy for kids to design their own games. \u003ca href=\"https://gamestarmechanic.com/\">Gamestar Mechanic\u003c/a> is one of the better examples.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Created by \u003ca href=\"http://elinemedia.com/\">E-Line Media\u003c/a> and the \u003ca href=\"http://www.instituteofplay.org/\">Institute of Play\u003c/a>, with initial funding from the \u003ca href=\"http://www.macfound.org/\">MacArthur Foundation\u003c/a>, Gamestar Mechanic is currently used in more than 7,000 schools, with over 600,000 youth-created games published and played over 20 million times in 100+ countries. It was created, the company states, “with the understanding that game design is an activity that allows learners to build technical, technological, artistic, cognitive, social, and linguistic skills suitable for our current and future world.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gamestar Mechanic is a web-based software platform with a drag and drop interface that makes it simple for kids to make their own games. Successfully manipulating Gamestar Mechanic requires that students learn pretty sophisticated “systems thinking,” or systems-based problem solving. “Game mechanics” learn to adjust settings and manipulate the relationship between components within a particular framework.\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>Brian Alspach, Executive Vice President at E-Line Media, explains that “a game is a system designed to create a fun, challenging experience for the player. Within the systems they design, kids get to set how things work, and their rules can be very different from the real world. Kids have to understand how all the pieces of the system they design will fit together. This system based thinking -- which can let you create a really fun, well-designed and unique game -- is also vital in understanding how systems in the real world work.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Just fiddling with Gamestar Mechanic, or some other game design platform is a great way to get students thinking about how separate components relate to one another within a fixed system. On a general level, it might serve as a way to convey the nature of bio-systems or economic systems. By constructing their own games, students get a tangible project-based introduction to the big abstract concept of systems thinking. But there’s no reason to be so philosophical. It can also be concrete. Teachers have also created \u003ca href=\"https://gamestarmechanic.com/teachers/sample_lesson_petty\">game-making exercises\u003c/a> that “provide reinforcement and review of concepts related to ratios, proportions and percents.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Additionally, game design \u003ca href=\"http://www.forbes.com/sites/jordanshapiro/2013/02/18/how-game-based-learning-can-save-the-humanities/\">is one way\u003c/a> that the arts and humanities can benefit from game-based learning. In a world of non-linear networked communication, modes of self-expression take on new forms. The personal essay, the autobiography, and the self-portrait are no longer sufficient by themselves. Intelligent educational models need to consider how to provide meaningful creative and interpretive skills that embrace interactive social technologies. Forward thinking teachers in so-called “soft” subjects might begin to see video games as a new narrative genre. Perhaps we can reimagine some of our creative writing assignments so that students design games, exploring nonlinear narrative conventions in addition to linear ones. Both are forms of self-expression.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://scratch.mit.edu/\">Scratch\u003c/a>, from MIT media lab, is another simple platform that allows students to build their own “interactive stories, games, and animations.” Based on basic coding, or algorithmic thinking, “Scratch helps young people learn to think creatively, reason systematically, and work collaboratively — essential skills for life in the 21st century.” Scratch emphasizes the way coding can break down the boundary between STEM and ELA education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=\"78ed92004d34abc748ace644abc35c55\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although coding, as a skill, is usually classified as a STEM subject, game design shows kids that it is ultimately a semiotic system. That is, it is about language. Through design-thinking, coding allows folks to put together specific metaphors, signs, and systems in ways that enable the articulation of experiences through a shared system of meaning-making. Whether they belong to STEM or ELA, metaphors are all we have. We represent the universe through analogies that make social, technological, and medical accomplishments possible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The great thing about any kind of project based learning -- whether it involves game design or not -- is that when students make meaning through creative articulations, they have to make active and intentional choices. Just as students need to choose paint colors or media in a fine arts class, they need to choose components in order to make a game. While these might seems like simple aesthetic choices, the right mentoring can show students how they are constructing their framework, how constructing a system is like constructing a viewpoint. When we challenge students to consider and explain why they make each choice, a sophisticated lesson in perspective is learned in a fun, engaging, hands-on way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’ve written a lot about \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/05/social-and-emotional-benefits-of-video-games-metacognition-and-relationships/\">metacognition\u003c/a> in this series, emphasizing the importance of teaching kids to think about their own thinking. With game design students take metacognition to the next level, learning that ideas are \u003ci>constructed\u003c/i>. They understand that knowledge is always framed from a particular perspective, with a particular kind of intention. The benefits of this kind of reflexive consideration are intellectual, social, and emotional.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Intellectually, students learn that all information is presented in \u003ci>some\u003c/i> way -- a lesson in methodology and epistemology. Socially, they become cognizant of the ways in which others construct knowledge -- a lesson in tolerance and empathy. Emotionally, they understand that feelings are part of a complex meaning system within which individuals are empowered to make their own decisions -- they have emotions rather than emotions having them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Imagine a classroom where you swap back and forth between books, essays, lectures, and games. Imagine if your students sometimes demonstrated understanding and retention by expressing themselves using game design platforms. Students might even begin to design their own learning games, constructing game-based curriculum for other students. Every teacher knows that the best way to learn is to teach. If an individual can create a game that delivers the content, you can be pretty sure that he or she understands it in a comprehensive way.\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_36118\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-36118\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/Screen-Shot-2014-06-06-at-9.30.59-AM-e1402072334517.png\" alt=\"Gamestar Mechanic\" width=\"640\" height=\"339\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/Screen-Shot-2014-06-06-at-9.30.59-AM-e1402072334517.png 640w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/Screen-Shot-2014-06-06-at-9.30.59-AM-e1402072334517-400x212.png 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/Screen-Shot-2014-06-06-at-9.30.59-AM-e1402072334517-320x170.png 320w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Gamestar Mechanic\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Part 6 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\">As game-based learning increases in popularity, it's easy to get pigeon-holed into one particular way of thinking about it or one way of employing it. This is true regardless of how teachers feel about gaming in the classroom, whether they’re for or against it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One common objection to game-based learning is that students will sit in front of screens being taught \u003ci>at. \u003c/i>Sure, games are interactive, but on some level, don’t they still just replace the sage on the stage with the sage on the screen? Does a joystick really change the nature of pedagogy?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In previous posts in this series, I’ve argued that because games involve systems thinking, they \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/05/how-games-based-learning-teaches-problem-solving-in-context/\" target=\"_blank\">contextualize learning\u003c/a>. Game-based learning could bring us a step closer to John Dewey’s call for “learning by doing.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>“\u003c/b>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>” says Keith Devlin, author of \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>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, virtual simulations of hands-on experience are not the same as tangibly engaging with the world. Simulating doing is, by definition, not the real thing. Plus, some of game-based learning’s strengths can also be seen as weaknesses. Games provide sequenced instruction blended with practice, feedback, and assessment. But even adaptive games have a finite number of sequential variations. Structures, and therefore, frameworks and perspectives, all remain fixed in a game. Certainly it is part of an educator’s job to frame content, but we don’t want to do it in a way that prevents students from figuring out their own way to make meaning out of the material. In order to model a respect for diverse perspectives, we need to employ a variety of teaching methods.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fortunately, few people are calling for games to replace school as we know it. Kids shouldn’t sit in front of screens all day. Games are just one of the many tools that teachers can use in the classroom. In addition, there is more than one way to teach using games. It's not just about playing the games, it's also about \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/06/three-awesome-apps-that-help-kids-make-games/\" target=\"_blank\">making them\u003c/a>. Game making is one way to create a space where students are empowered to freely experiment with their own way of framing ideas and choosing perspectives. In this way, game making is tantamount to project-based learning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Just as there are many apps and platforms designed to teach kids coding, there are also many apps and platforms that make it easy for kids to design their own games. \u003ca href=\"https://gamestarmechanic.com/\">Gamestar Mechanic\u003c/a> is one of the better examples.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Created by \u003ca href=\"http://elinemedia.com/\">E-Line Media\u003c/a> and the \u003ca href=\"http://www.instituteofplay.org/\">Institute of Play\u003c/a>, with initial funding from the \u003ca href=\"http://www.macfound.org/\">MacArthur Foundation\u003c/a>, Gamestar Mechanic is currently used in more than 7,000 schools, with over 600,000 youth-created games published and played over 20 million times in 100+ countries. It was created, the company states, “with the understanding that game design is an activity that allows learners to build technical, technological, artistic, cognitive, social, and linguistic skills suitable for our current and future world.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gamestar Mechanic is a web-based software platform with a drag and drop interface that makes it simple for kids to make their own games. Successfully manipulating Gamestar Mechanic requires that students learn pretty sophisticated “systems thinking,” or systems-based problem solving. “Game mechanics” learn to adjust settings and manipulate the relationship between components within a particular framework.\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>Brian Alspach, Executive Vice President at E-Line Media, explains that “a game is a system designed to create a fun, challenging experience for the player. Within the systems they design, kids get to set how things work, and their rules can be very different from the real world. Kids have to understand how all the pieces of the system they design will fit together. This system based thinking -- which can let you create a really fun, well-designed and unique game -- is also vital in understanding how systems in the real world work.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Just fiddling with Gamestar Mechanic, or some other game design platform is a great way to get students thinking about how separate components relate to one another within a fixed system. On a general level, it might serve as a way to convey the nature of bio-systems or economic systems. By constructing their own games, students get a tangible project-based introduction to the big abstract concept of systems thinking. But there’s no reason to be so philosophical. It can also be concrete. Teachers have also created \u003ca href=\"https://gamestarmechanic.com/teachers/sample_lesson_petty\">game-making exercises\u003c/a> that “provide reinforcement and review of concepts related to ratios, proportions and percents.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Additionally, game design \u003ca href=\"http://www.forbes.com/sites/jordanshapiro/2013/02/18/how-game-based-learning-can-save-the-humanities/\">is one way\u003c/a> that the arts and humanities can benefit from game-based learning. In a world of non-linear networked communication, modes of self-expression take on new forms. The personal essay, the autobiography, and the self-portrait are no longer sufficient by themselves. Intelligent educational models need to consider how to provide meaningful creative and interpretive skills that embrace interactive social technologies. Forward thinking teachers in so-called “soft” subjects might begin to see video games as a new narrative genre. Perhaps we can reimagine some of our creative writing assignments so that students design games, exploring nonlinear narrative conventions in addition to linear ones. Both are forms of self-expression.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://scratch.mit.edu/\">Scratch\u003c/a>, from MIT media lab, is another simple platform that allows students to build their own “interactive stories, games, and animations.” Based on basic coding, or algorithmic thinking, “Scratch helps young people learn to think creatively, reason systematically, and work collaboratively — essential skills for life in the 21st century.” Scratch emphasizes the way coding can break down the boundary between STEM and ELA education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although coding, as a skill, is usually classified as a STEM subject, game design shows kids that it is ultimately a semiotic system. That is, it is about language. Through design-thinking, coding allows folks to put together specific metaphors, signs, and systems in ways that enable the articulation of experiences through a shared system of meaning-making. Whether they belong to STEM or ELA, metaphors are all we have. We represent the universe through analogies that make social, technological, and medical accomplishments possible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The great thing about any kind of project based learning -- whether it involves game design or not -- is that when students make meaning through creative articulations, they have to make active and intentional choices. Just as students need to choose paint colors or media in a fine arts class, they need to choose components in order to make a game. While these might seems like simple aesthetic choices, the right mentoring can show students how they are constructing their framework, how constructing a system is like constructing a viewpoint. When we challenge students to consider and explain why they make each choice, a sophisticated lesson in perspective is learned in a fun, engaging, hands-on way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’ve written a lot about \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/05/social-and-emotional-benefits-of-video-games-metacognition-and-relationships/\">metacognition\u003c/a> in this series, emphasizing the importance of teaching kids to think about their own thinking. With game design students take metacognition to the next level, learning that ideas are \u003ci>constructed\u003c/i>. They understand that knowledge is always framed from a particular perspective, with a particular kind of intention. The benefits of this kind of reflexive consideration are intellectual, social, and emotional.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Intellectually, students learn that all information is presented in \u003ci>some\u003c/i> way -- a lesson in methodology and epistemology. Socially, they become cognizant of the ways in which others construct knowledge -- a lesson in tolerance and empathy. Emotionally, they understand that feelings are part of a complex meaning system within which individuals are empowered to make their own decisions -- they have emotions rather than emotions having them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Imagine a classroom where you swap back and forth between books, essays, lectures, and games. Imagine if your students sometimes demonstrated understanding and retention by expressing themselves using game design platforms. Students might even begin to design their own learning games, constructing game-based curriculum for other students. Every teacher knows that the best way to learn is to teach. If an individual can create a game that delivers the content, you can be pretty sure that he or she understands it in a comprehensive way.\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": "\u003ch5>By Tanner Higgin, \u003ca href=\"http://www.graphite.org\">Graphite\u003c/a>\u003c/h5>\n\u003cp>Some of the best games for learning aren't developed with schools in mind. But these more commercial games can be tough to wedge into a classroom. Even the most motivated teachers have to sideline these games because of scarce technology, budget, and/or time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Summer break presents the perfect opportunity for students to dig into games and build skills that'll reap huge rewards when they return in the fall. Game making can be one of the best ways to get students thinking creatively while cultivating useful technical literacies, and there's a ton of absorbing tools that students won't tire of over the long break. Here are three options to choose from depending on the type of technology students have at home.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>\u003ca href=\"http://littlebigplanet.playstation.com/en/games/littlebigplanet-2\" target=\"_blank\">1. LittleBigPlanet 2\u003c/a>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>LittleBigPlanet 2 (\u003c/em>PlayStation 3) on the one hand, is a side-scrolling platformer in the \u003cem>Super Mario Bros.\u003c/em> mold. On the other hand, it's an accessible but complex tool for making a variety of games just like the ones featured in the game. This second feature-set is where it really excels; the developers basically hand over the keys to the workshop and let players run wild. The DIY, handmade aesthetic appeals to students of any age, and the supportive and vibrant community encourages players to play and critique each other's levels constructively.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_36073\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 497px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-36073\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/LittleBigPlanet-e1401842506361.jpg\" alt=\"LittleBigPlanet\" width=\"497\" height=\"290\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">LittleBigPlanet\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>2. \u003ca href=\"http://projectpixelpress.com/floors/\" target=\"_blank\">Pixel Press Floors\u003c/a>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>For those students that love games but are a bit intimidated by the technological chops it takes to make one, \u003cem>Pixel Press Floors \u003c/em>(iPad) is perfect. Users hand draw their levels using a pencil, grid paper, and specific markings called \"glyphs,\" and then \u003cem>Pixel Press\u003c/em> transforms that schematic into a modifiable, playable, and sharable digital version. As Graphite reviewer and arts educator Megan Leppla puts it, \u003ca href=\"http://www.graphite.org/app/pixel-press-floors\">the whole physical to digital transformation is \"pretty magical\"\u003c/a> and opens doorways to game making for kids more analogically inclined.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_36074\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 480px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-36074\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/PixelPressFloors-e1401842581646.jpeg\" alt=\"PixelPressFloors\" width=\"480\" height=\"302\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/PixelPressFloors-e1401842581646.jpeg 480w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/PixelPressFloors-e1401842581646-400x252.jpeg 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/PixelPressFloors-e1401842581646-320x201.jpeg 320w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">PixelPressFloors\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>3. \u003ca href=\"https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Portal_2_Puzzle_Maker\" target=\"_blank\">Portal 2 Puzzle Maker\u003c/a>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Many students will likely be familiar with \u003cem>Portal 2 \u003c/em>(PC and Mac), a joke-filled, brain-breaking physics puzzler that has sold millions of copies. What students might not know is that there's a tool bundled with the game that lets players build levels (or, as they're called in-game, \"test chambers\"). Be aware though that the intellectual challenge of making a properly puzzling \u003cem>Portal 2\u003c/em> level is best tackled by middle and high school students. And while it'll likely appeal to students who already love math and science, level building might be a means for students who struggle in STEM subjects to build confidence and ignite interest. In fact, JK Sooja, who reviewed this tool for Graphite, thinks \u003cem>Portal 2 Puzzle Maker\u003c/em> covers \u003ca href=\"http://www.graphite.org/game/portal-2-puzzle-maker\">\"just about every introductory [physics] concept,\"\u003c/a> making it a great option for students ready to tackle upper level science.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_36075\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 476px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-36075\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/portal2puzzlemaker-e1401842623990.jpg\" alt=\"Portal2Puzzlemaker\" width=\"476\" height=\"272\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/portal2puzzlemaker-e1401842623990.jpg 476w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/portal2puzzlemaker-e1401842623990-400x229.jpg 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/portal2puzzlemaker-e1401842623990-320x183.jpg 320w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 476px) 100vw, 476px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Portal2Puzzlemaker\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>What's particularly great about all of these tools is that they achieve something that's hard to do: connecting the classroom to the home. Ideally, we'd like learning to extend out from the classroom, adapting to students' different contexts as they move from school to home to wherever. Unfortunately, a lot of what students are doing in school or for homework just doesn't make sense when not tied to a desk, and can't compete with other things like, well, games. When students ditch class or ignore homework, it's tools like the ones listed above that they tinker with for hours on end. So this summer let's try something out; let's encourage students to forget about school, slack off, make some games, and learn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Tanner Higgin is Senior Manager, Education Content, at \u003ca href=\"http://www.commonsensemedia.org/educators\">Common Sense Media\u003c/a>, creator of \u003ca href=\"http://www.graphite.org\">Graphite ™\u003c/a>, a free service for educators in search of the best apps, games, and websites rated for learning. This post is one in a series collaboration. Games included here have received high ratings on Graphite by educators and by the editorial staff at Common Sense Media. Go to \u003ca href=\"http://www.graphite.org\">Graphite\u003c/a> to read full reviews of games and how teachers use them for learning in class.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg class=\"alignleft\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2016/04/Podcast-Square-e1463002696628.jpg\" alt=\"\">\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>\u003ca href=\"https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/id1078765985\">Subscribe in iTunes\u003c/a>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Don't miss an episode of \u003cem>Stories Teachers Share\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Also available via \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/category/stories-teachers-share/feed/\">RSS\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Summer break presents the perfect opportunity for students to dig into games and build skills that'll reap huge rewards when they return in the fall. Game making can be one of the best ways to get students thinking creatively while cultivating useful technical literacies, and there's a ton of absorbing tools that students won't tire of over the long break. Here are three options to choose from depending on the type of technology students have at home.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003ch5>By Tanner Higgin, \u003ca href=\"http://www.graphite.org\">Graphite\u003c/a>\u003c/h5>\n\u003cp>Some of the best games for learning aren't developed with schools in mind. But these more commercial games can be tough to wedge into a classroom. Even the most motivated teachers have to sideline these games because of scarce technology, budget, and/or time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Summer break presents the perfect opportunity for students to dig into games and build skills that'll reap huge rewards when they return in the fall. Game making can be one of the best ways to get students thinking creatively while cultivating useful technical literacies, and there's a ton of absorbing tools that students won't tire of over the long break. Here are three options to choose from depending on the type of technology students have at home.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>\u003ca href=\"http://littlebigplanet.playstation.com/en/games/littlebigplanet-2\" target=\"_blank\">1. LittleBigPlanet 2\u003c/a>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>LittleBigPlanet 2 (\u003c/em>PlayStation 3) on the one hand, is a side-scrolling platformer in the \u003cem>Super Mario Bros.\u003c/em> mold. On the other hand, it's an accessible but complex tool for making a variety of games just like the ones featured in the game. This second feature-set is where it really excels; the developers basically hand over the keys to the workshop and let players run wild. The DIY, handmade aesthetic appeals to students of any age, and the supportive and vibrant community encourages players to play and critique each other's levels constructively.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_36073\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 497px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-36073\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/LittleBigPlanet-e1401842506361.jpg\" alt=\"LittleBigPlanet\" width=\"497\" height=\"290\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">LittleBigPlanet\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>2. \u003ca href=\"http://projectpixelpress.com/floors/\" target=\"_blank\">Pixel Press Floors\u003c/a>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>For those students that love games but are a bit intimidated by the technological chops it takes to make one, \u003cem>Pixel Press Floors \u003c/em>(iPad) is perfect. Users hand draw their levels using a pencil, grid paper, and specific markings called \"glyphs,\" and then \u003cem>Pixel Press\u003c/em> transforms that schematic into a modifiable, playable, and sharable digital version. As Graphite reviewer and arts educator Megan Leppla puts it, \u003ca href=\"http://www.graphite.org/app/pixel-press-floors\">the whole physical to digital transformation is \"pretty magical\"\u003c/a> and opens doorways to game making for kids more analogically inclined.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_36074\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 480px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-36074\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/PixelPressFloors-e1401842581646.jpeg\" alt=\"PixelPressFloors\" width=\"480\" height=\"302\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/PixelPressFloors-e1401842581646.jpeg 480w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/PixelPressFloors-e1401842581646-400x252.jpeg 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/PixelPressFloors-e1401842581646-320x201.jpeg 320w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">PixelPressFloors\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>3. \u003ca href=\"https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Portal_2_Puzzle_Maker\" target=\"_blank\">Portal 2 Puzzle Maker\u003c/a>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Many students will likely be familiar with \u003cem>Portal 2 \u003c/em>(PC and Mac), a joke-filled, brain-breaking physics puzzler that has sold millions of copies. What students might not know is that there's a tool bundled with the game that lets players build levels (or, as they're called in-game, \"test chambers\"). Be aware though that the intellectual challenge of making a properly puzzling \u003cem>Portal 2\u003c/em> level is best tackled by middle and high school students. And while it'll likely appeal to students who already love math and science, level building might be a means for students who struggle in STEM subjects to build confidence and ignite interest. In fact, JK Sooja, who reviewed this tool for Graphite, thinks \u003cem>Portal 2 Puzzle Maker\u003c/em> covers \u003ca href=\"http://www.graphite.org/game/portal-2-puzzle-maker\">\"just about every introductory [physics] concept,\"\u003c/a> making it a great option for students ready to tackle upper level science.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_36075\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 476px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-36075\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/portal2puzzlemaker-e1401842623990.jpg\" alt=\"Portal2Puzzlemaker\" width=\"476\" height=\"272\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/portal2puzzlemaker-e1401842623990.jpg 476w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/portal2puzzlemaker-e1401842623990-400x229.jpg 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/06/portal2puzzlemaker-e1401842623990-320x183.jpg 320w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 476px) 100vw, 476px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Portal2Puzzlemaker\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>What's particularly great about all of these tools is that they achieve something that's hard to do: connecting the classroom to the home. Ideally, we'd like learning to extend out from the classroom, adapting to students' different contexts as they move from school to home to wherever. Unfortunately, a lot of what students are doing in school or for homework just doesn't make sense when not tied to a desk, and can't compete with other things like, well, games. When students ditch class or ignore homework, it's tools like the ones listed above that they tinker with for hours on end. So this summer let's try something out; let's encourage students to forget about school, slack off, make some games, and learn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Tanner Higgin is Senior Manager, Education Content, at \u003ca href=\"http://www.commonsensemedia.org/educators\">Common Sense Media\u003c/a>, creator of \u003ca href=\"http://www.graphite.org\">Graphite ™\u003c/a>, a free service for educators in search of the best apps, games, and websites rated for learning. This post is one in a series collaboration. Games included here have received high ratings on Graphite by educators and by the editorial staff at Common Sense Media. Go to \u003ca href=\"http://www.graphite.org\">Graphite\u003c/a> to read full reviews of games and how teachers use them for learning in class.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg class=\"alignleft\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2016/04/Podcast-Square-e1463002696628.jpg\" alt=\"\">\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>\u003ca href=\"https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/id1078765985\">Subscribe in iTunes\u003c/a>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Don't miss an episode of \u003cem>Stories Teachers Share\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Also available via \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/category/stories-teachers-share/feed/\">RSS\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"disqusTitle": "Can Games Make High-Stakes Tests Obsolete?",
"title": "Can Games Make High-Stakes Tests Obsolete?",
"headTitle": "The MindShift Guide to Digital Games and Learning | MindShift | KQED News",
"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_35964\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-35964\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/05/3585052105_1052a5e228_z.jpg\" alt=\"timlewisln\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/05/3585052105_1052a5e228_z.jpg 640w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/05/3585052105_1052a5e228_z-400x225.jpg 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/05/3585052105_1052a5e228_z-320x180.jpg 320w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">timlewisln\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Part 5 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\">Nobody likes high-stakes testing. The problems are \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2012/04/movement-against-standardized-testing-grows-as-parents-opt-out/\" target=\"_blank\">well documented\u003c/a>. But maybe games can help to change the way we approach assessment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At least since John Dewey, educational theorists and scholars have been clear about the inherent shortcomings of thinking about education in terms of standardized, quantifiable outcomes. In order for instructional strategies to be successful at a large scale, they need to take individual differences under consideration. Not all students are the same. They don’t learn in the same ways and it's a fantasy to believe we can accurately assess them all using identical rubrics. Likewise, a great many of our widely accepted developmental theories are only accurate in a vacuum; they fail to take all the subjective cultural, ethnic, and socio-economic factors into account.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Howard Gardner, John H. and Elisabeth A. Hobbs Professor in Cognition and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, is best known for his theory of \"multiple intelligences.\" “Human beings have very different kinds of intellectual strengths and these strengths are very, very important in how kids learn and how people represent things in their minds, and then how people use them in order to show what it is that they've understood,” h\u003ca href=\"http://www.edutopia.org/multiple-intelligences-howard-gardner-video\">e says. \u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even if you disagree with his theory about different learning styles, it's hard to disagree with the notion that making learning personal to students is beneficial.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But as teachers know, bringing that personalized level of attention and assessment in a classroom of 20 or 30 students is a challenge: identifying individualized learning objectives on a daily basis, imagining measurements of incremental achievement, monitoring for mastery, and undertaking ongoing formative and substantive assessments. Consider the compounded complexity for the hundreds or thousands of students in a single school. Tens of thousands in a district. Hundreds of thousands in each state. Millions in the United States of America and globally.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">Games allow processes to take place all at once--instruction and assessment simultaneously happening through practice reimagined as play.\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Adaptive and game-based learning technologies aim to untangle the complexity that makes widespread personalized instruction and assessment seem unfathomable. Behind the shiny graphics and mechanics, many games and apps feature complex assessment algorithms that collect and analyze student data. Sometimes that data is simply there for the teacher to view (and also for the student in the best implementations). Other times, the software is collecting data about the learner and adapting accordingly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the simplest level, adapting might mean changing the order in which the student is presented with challenges. But it can get way more complex, even factoring in \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/04/do-games-have-a-future-as-assessment-tools/\" target=\"_blank\">metacognitive data\u003c/a> and analyzing the confidence with which a student solves a problem or completes a level.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Adaptive games and apps isolate skills and iterate contextualized instructional sequences, creating precise curricula tailored to the needs, strengths, and challenges of the individual learner. In addition, by cross referencing the data of all students using the system, these technologies can also continually monitor overall effectiveness in a comparative way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In order to understand how this works, you’ll need to step out of the ordinary way of thinking about education. We tend to break the school experience into three parts: instruction, practice, and assessment. The teacher delivers content to the student. The student does homework. We test for retention.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Games allow these three processes to take place all at once--instruction and assessment simultaneously happening through practice reimagined as play. The promise of game-based learning is not only about increased student engagement and intrinsic motivation, but also about changing the way we think about assessment so that it is no longer in a category by itself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Using games, we eliminate the negative consequences of summative assessments and replace them with engaging formative assessments. Games provide the ability to evaluate students continuously in order to understand how to improve our teaching throughout the year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It's not too hard to imagine. After all, this is what teachers already do in the classroom. We constantly change our teaching style so that it best serves the particular mix of learners in the room. When the pupil doesn’t “get it,” we instantly adapt our approach. Just think about how we all communicate casually in everyday conversation. We are personalizing assessment when we say, “do you know what I mean?” We are iterating instruction when we say, “think about it this way,” or, “in other words.”\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>All good teachers do this regularly, but they can only do this for a\u003ci> \u003c/i>few of their students some of the time. It just wouldn’t be feasible to do it for everyone all the time. Humans are fallible and subjective. We just can’t match the speed and comprehensive efficiency of a computer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, in the not-too-distant future, and in a few schools even now, a teacher could tap an icon on a tablet every morning and receive precise assessment data about all the students in the class -- data that can be organized and optimized in whatever way is preferable, information that can help teachers design more impactful human-to-human lesson plans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dave McCool, President and CEO of \u003ca href=\"http://muzzylane.com/projects\">Muzzy Lane\u003c/a>, a game developer that specializes in 3D multiplayer games for the classroom, is passionate about designing games that can help teachers reach students more effectively. “Unlike traditional assessment,” he says, “game-based learning provides moment-to-moment opportunities for learners to apply their knowledge and demonstrate competency while solving problems in a relevant context. Assessment data reflecting player decision-making can be used to present a personalized learning experience as the game adapts to the learner's strengths and weaknesses.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>McCool is describing a model where assessment is so fully integrated into a contextualized everyday learning experience that familiar questions about accountability are rendered irrelevant. We may not even talk about assessment anymore. Instead, we’ll simply be able to leverage the data that comes out of ongoing gameplay. Games don’t replace tests; they make tests unnecessary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Institute of Play’s \u003ca href=\"http://glasslabgames.org/\">GlassLab\u003c/a> is working on that very objective (Glass is an abbreviation for \"games and learning assessments\"). Their mission is to make continuous, research driven game-based assessments available for all standards.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jessica Lindl, GlassLab’s general manager, reiterated that the enormous amount of data that comes out of game play, contextualized appropriately, has the potential to be “just as reliable as high stakes assessments.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The unique thing about using gameplay data for assessment purposes is that it enables teachers to assess the choices that learners make rather than content they can regurgitate. Process is prioritized over the rote learning. The game monitors the decisions that learners make, evaluating students’ incremental progress. In other words, games assess \u003ci>how\u003c/i> kids are learning rather than \u003ci>what\u003c/i> they are learning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some people worry that the very notion of using games as assessments is problematic. Most of this criticism is more about the problem with summative assessment than it is with using games themselves. James Paul Gee, a longtime proponent and researcher of games who has written many books on the subject, doesn’t want to see us replace the current “\u003ca href=\"https://www.edsurge.com/n/2013-08-19-games-standards-and-assessment-staying-out-of-the-toxic-mess\" target=\"_blank\">toxic mess\u003c/a>” of standardized tests with games. Like Muzzy Lane and GlassLab, Gee understands that, “in a game, assessment and learning are completely integrated. It is hard to tell them apart.” The key point is that good game-based learning should use data that comes from continuous gameplay for the purpose of ongoing formative assessment, not just replace tests with games in a way that barely addresses the current student experience.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not only will game-based assessment translate into a better student experience, but also the data that games and adaptive learning systems provide will enable researchers to understand, with increasing precision, how students learn best. The promise is certainly exciting. But there’s also a scary side.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you're creeped out by the targeted advertising that shows up in your Facebook timeline, or beside your Google search results, imagine what the world would look like if advertisers had been tracking your decision making processes since grade-school. Our concerns about the NSA are nothing compared to the big brother surveillance state that we could inadvertently let into our classrooms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>None of the developers interviewed for this series say they're interested in these nefarious uses of data. But teachers should still be on guard. Avoid free games and apps that make your students sign up with personal info. Chances are, if they’re free, you're paying them with data. In addition, whenever you download an app for the classroom, read the terms of service carefully. When learning resources are cloud-based, make sure you agree with the privacy policy. Be cynical and skeptical and remember that part of your job is to protect your students. There’s a Department of Education \u003ca href=\"http://ptac.ed.gov/document/protecting-student-privacy-while-using-online-educational-services\">guide\u003c/a> on privacy and student data if you need more information.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Be cautious, but don’t be alarmed. Some of the fear around big data is just \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/05/whats-really-at-stake-untangling-issues-around-student-data-privacy/\" target=\"_blank\">a fear of the unknown\u003c/a>. In many ways, the world is changing more quickly than we can comprehend. We cannot slow it down, but we can take the ride mindfully.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most importantly, we can use the new game-based technologies to educate a generation of citizens with more playful personalization than has ever been possible. Game-based learning has the potential to address many of the shortcomings and challenges that our current high-stakes testing environment presents.\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_35964\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-35964\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/05/3585052105_1052a5e228_z.jpg\" alt=\"timlewisln\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/05/3585052105_1052a5e228_z.jpg 640w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/05/3585052105_1052a5e228_z-400x225.jpg 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/05/3585052105_1052a5e228_z-320x180.jpg 320w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">timlewisln\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Part 5 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\">Nobody likes high-stakes testing. The problems are \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2012/04/movement-against-standardized-testing-grows-as-parents-opt-out/\" target=\"_blank\">well documented\u003c/a>. But maybe games can help to change the way we approach assessment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At least since John Dewey, educational theorists and scholars have been clear about the inherent shortcomings of thinking about education in terms of standardized, quantifiable outcomes. In order for instructional strategies to be successful at a large scale, they need to take individual differences under consideration. Not all students are the same. They don’t learn in the same ways and it's a fantasy to believe we can accurately assess them all using identical rubrics. Likewise, a great many of our widely accepted developmental theories are only accurate in a vacuum; they fail to take all the subjective cultural, ethnic, and socio-economic factors into account.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Howard Gardner, John H. and Elisabeth A. Hobbs Professor in Cognition and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, is best known for his theory of \"multiple intelligences.\" “Human beings have very different kinds of intellectual strengths and these strengths are very, very important in how kids learn and how people represent things in their minds, and then how people use them in order to show what it is that they've understood,” h\u003ca href=\"http://www.edutopia.org/multiple-intelligences-howard-gardner-video\">e says. \u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even if you disagree with his theory about different learning styles, it's hard to disagree with the notion that making learning personal to students is beneficial.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But as teachers know, bringing that personalized level of attention and assessment in a classroom of 20 or 30 students is a challenge: identifying individualized learning objectives on a daily basis, imagining measurements of incremental achievement, monitoring for mastery, and undertaking ongoing formative and substantive assessments. Consider the compounded complexity for the hundreds or thousands of students in a single school. Tens of thousands in a district. Hundreds of thousands in each state. Millions in the United States of America and globally.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">Games allow processes to take place all at once--instruction and assessment simultaneously happening through practice reimagined as play.\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Adaptive and game-based learning technologies aim to untangle the complexity that makes widespread personalized instruction and assessment seem unfathomable. Behind the shiny graphics and mechanics, many games and apps feature complex assessment algorithms that collect and analyze student data. Sometimes that data is simply there for the teacher to view (and also for the student in the best implementations). Other times, the software is collecting data about the learner and adapting accordingly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the simplest level, adapting might mean changing the order in which the student is presented with challenges. But it can get way more complex, even factoring in \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/04/do-games-have-a-future-as-assessment-tools/\" target=\"_blank\">metacognitive data\u003c/a> and analyzing the confidence with which a student solves a problem or completes a level.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Adaptive games and apps isolate skills and iterate contextualized instructional sequences, creating precise curricula tailored to the needs, strengths, and challenges of the individual learner. In addition, by cross referencing the data of all students using the system, these technologies can also continually monitor overall effectiveness in a comparative way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In order to understand how this works, you’ll need to step out of the ordinary way of thinking about education. We tend to break the school experience into three parts: instruction, practice, and assessment. The teacher delivers content to the student. The student does homework. We test for retention.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Games allow these three processes to take place all at once--instruction and assessment simultaneously happening through practice reimagined as play. The promise of game-based learning is not only about increased student engagement and intrinsic motivation, but also about changing the way we think about assessment so that it is no longer in a category by itself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Using games, we eliminate the negative consequences of summative assessments and replace them with engaging formative assessments. Games provide the ability to evaluate students continuously in order to understand how to improve our teaching throughout the year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It's not too hard to imagine. After all, this is what teachers already do in the classroom. We constantly change our teaching style so that it best serves the particular mix of learners in the room. When the pupil doesn’t “get it,” we instantly adapt our approach. Just think about how we all communicate casually in everyday conversation. We are personalizing assessment when we say, “do you know what I mean?” We are iterating instruction when we say, “think about it this way,” or, “in other words.”\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>All good teachers do this regularly, but they can only do this for a\u003ci> \u003c/i>few of their students some of the time. It just wouldn’t be feasible to do it for everyone all the time. Humans are fallible and subjective. We just can’t match the speed and comprehensive efficiency of a computer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, in the not-too-distant future, and in a few schools even now, a teacher could tap an icon on a tablet every morning and receive precise assessment data about all the students in the class -- data that can be organized and optimized in whatever way is preferable, information that can help teachers design more impactful human-to-human lesson plans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dave McCool, President and CEO of \u003ca href=\"http://muzzylane.com/projects\">Muzzy Lane\u003c/a>, a game developer that specializes in 3D multiplayer games for the classroom, is passionate about designing games that can help teachers reach students more effectively. “Unlike traditional assessment,” he says, “game-based learning provides moment-to-moment opportunities for learners to apply their knowledge and demonstrate competency while solving problems in a relevant context. Assessment data reflecting player decision-making can be used to present a personalized learning experience as the game adapts to the learner's strengths and weaknesses.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>McCool is describing a model where assessment is so fully integrated into a contextualized everyday learning experience that familiar questions about accountability are rendered irrelevant. We may not even talk about assessment anymore. Instead, we’ll simply be able to leverage the data that comes out of ongoing gameplay. Games don’t replace tests; they make tests unnecessary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Institute of Play’s \u003ca href=\"http://glasslabgames.org/\">GlassLab\u003c/a> is working on that very objective (Glass is an abbreviation for \"games and learning assessments\"). Their mission is to make continuous, research driven game-based assessments available for all standards.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jessica Lindl, GlassLab’s general manager, reiterated that the enormous amount of data that comes out of game play, contextualized appropriately, has the potential to be “just as reliable as high stakes assessments.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The unique thing about using gameplay data for assessment purposes is that it enables teachers to assess the choices that learners make rather than content they can regurgitate. Process is prioritized over the rote learning. The game monitors the decisions that learners make, evaluating students’ incremental progress. In other words, games assess \u003ci>how\u003c/i> kids are learning rather than \u003ci>what\u003c/i> they are learning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some people worry that the very notion of using games as assessments is problematic. Most of this criticism is more about the problem with summative assessment than it is with using games themselves. James Paul Gee, a longtime proponent and researcher of games who has written many books on the subject, doesn’t want to see us replace the current “\u003ca href=\"https://www.edsurge.com/n/2013-08-19-games-standards-and-assessment-staying-out-of-the-toxic-mess\" target=\"_blank\">toxic mess\u003c/a>” of standardized tests with games. Like Muzzy Lane and GlassLab, Gee understands that, “in a game, assessment and learning are completely integrated. It is hard to tell them apart.” The key point is that good game-based learning should use data that comes from continuous gameplay for the purpose of ongoing formative assessment, not just replace tests with games in a way that barely addresses the current student experience.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not only will game-based assessment translate into a better student experience, but also the data that games and adaptive learning systems provide will enable researchers to understand, with increasing precision, how students learn best. The promise is certainly exciting. But there’s also a scary side.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you're creeped out by the targeted advertising that shows up in your Facebook timeline, or beside your Google search results, imagine what the world would look like if advertisers had been tracking your decision making processes since grade-school. Our concerns about the NSA are nothing compared to the big brother surveillance state that we could inadvertently let into our classrooms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>None of the developers interviewed for this series say they're interested in these nefarious uses of data. But teachers should still be on guard. Avoid free games and apps that make your students sign up with personal info. Chances are, if they’re free, you're paying them with data. In addition, whenever you download an app for the classroom, read the terms of service carefully. When learning resources are cloud-based, make sure you agree with the privacy policy. Be cynical and skeptical and remember that part of your job is to protect your students. There’s a Department of Education \u003ca href=\"http://ptac.ed.gov/document/protecting-student-privacy-while-using-online-educational-services\">guide\u003c/a> on privacy and student data if you need more information.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Be cautious, but don’t be alarmed. Some of the fear around big data is just \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/05/whats-really-at-stake-untangling-issues-around-student-data-privacy/\" target=\"_blank\">a fear of the unknown\u003c/a>. In many ways, the world is changing more quickly than we can comprehend. We cannot slow it down, but we can take the ride mindfully.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most importantly, we can use the new game-based technologies to educate a generation of citizens with more playful personalization than has ever been possible. Game-based learning has the potential to address many of the shortcomings and challenges that our current high-stakes testing environment presents.\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_35639\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.flickr.com/photos/steveonjava/12628872993/in/photolist-keYgXx-keZTBs-keY7mP-keXVyr-keXBuT-keXwBg-keXjG4-keZY2j-keXWFX-keXQxz-keZv6L-keZwvu-keXuqc-keXm3v-keXQ5v-keZKKq-keXpJD-keYi6e-keY7R6-keXkJK-keZvzw-keZMwS-keZw2U-keZHNQ-keZxnE-keXDzz-keZKwj-keXktV-keZExw-keXw92-keZR2s-keXrhP-keXTuM-keXyJc-keXchK-keXqFZ-keXpeF-keYgfv-keYfFK-keXeFn-keXs6c-keZN2j-keZDZN-keY9Cn-keXtYv-keXRJc-keXuWx-keXzJP-keXoj4-keZGVs\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-35639\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/05/robot.jpg\" alt=\"(Stephen Chin/Flickr)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/05/robot.jpg 640w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/05/robot-400x225.jpg 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/05/robot-320x180.jpg 320w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">(Stephen Chin/Flickr)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp class=\"dropcap-serif\">Talk of robots in the classroom may have seemed far fetched a few years ago, but it’s safe to say that the future has arrived – at least in some classrooms. Educators are beginning to experiment with how robots can add value to their classrooms, and while it’s by no means common -- they’re still quite expensive for many school budgets -- robots paired with specific software and curriculum are offering interesting new learning opportunities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>DEMONSTRATING ABSTRACT CONCEPTS\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To explain difficult abstract concepts in science and math subjects, some teachers are using \u003ca href=\"http://www.robotslab.com/\" target=\"_blank\">RobotsLab BOX\u003c/a>. It's a kit that includes a quadcopter, tablet, robotic arm, a spherical robot, a circular robot and lesson plans to go with all of them. Teachers use the tablet to manipulate the various robots into demonstrating different STEM concepts. Because all the software and lessons come preloaded, teachers don't need programming or robotics knowledge to make it work. The whole kit costs $3,500.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The founder of RobotsLab, Elad Inbar, said that teachers complained that their students were coming into first year engineering and computer science college classes without a solid foundation of math concepts. The suite of products his team ultimately developed use robots to show students that the equations and graphs they slave over mean something in the physical world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are trying to use the power of visual learning to bridge all the ‘I’m not a math person’ stuff,” Inbar said. “They can actually use their senses to understand it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For example, a lesson about quadratic functions uses a quadcopter robot to demonstrate what the equation means in real life by correlating the area viewed on a camera attached to the bottom, with the graph. If programmed with a quadratic equation, the quadcopter rises to specific heights, demonstrating the visible relationship between the hovering robot and the area captured by the camera.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">\n“They want to work with the robot for as long as possible. Every time their lesson is done they're disappointed.”\u003cbr>\n\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>After students have been introduced to the concept and have seen it demonstrated on the robot, they can try to program the robot themselves. The hands-on aspect helps students to understand that they can manipulate the robot themselves with the right code, Ibar said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have teachers who are doing project-based learning and they give the robots to the students with the tablet and they say, 'You figure it out and come back and tell me what you learned,'” Inbar said. While his product includes curriculum and lessons teachers can use, the robot itself is just a platform that can be programmed by tinkering students just as effectively as by a teacher.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jerry Moldenhauer has been using \u003ca href=\"http://www.vexrobotics.com/\" target=\"_blank\">VEX\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"http://www.lego.com/en-us/mindstorms/?domainredir=mindstorms.lego.com\" target=\"_blank\">Lego Mindstorm\u003c/a> robots in his engineering classes at Eastside Memorial High School in Austin, Texas for several years. Until now, he's mostly used them to offer advanced students challenge problems, giving them opportunities to design concepts and practice programming. This year, he started using the RobotLab BOX kit with his whole class, and he's found that it boosts engagement and crystallizes difficult concepts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They have solved a big problem and that is bringing in curriculum, especially for math and physics,” Moldenhauer said. He prefers teaching with project-based methods, but said it can be challenging for math teachers to come up with engaging and relevant projects that also get students to practice enough math to solidify what they've learned.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“[The robot] gives the instructors a tool to get them interested in the learning and then the math behind it is a surprise to them,” Moldenhauer said. Kids are calculating the velocity of the robot without realizing they’re using algebra. \"It really makes the connection better for them,” he said. Moldenhauer finds the robot especially useful for explaining the math behind more advanced engineering topics his class will work towards. They often don't have a firm grasp of the algebra they'll need and using the robot to visually demonstrate the concepts helps them review.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Moldenhauer is especially grateful for the extra engagement and excitement students show when working with the robot at this time of year, when most are already checking out for the summer. He used funds his department set aside for the engineering program to purchase the RobotLab BOX, but expects to use it across science and math departments. Sharing the robots that way helps justify the cost, but even without it, Moldenhauer says it was well worth the expense for the change he's seen in his student's ability to understand abstract concepts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>INCREASES ENGAGEMENT\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Onslow County, North Carolina, Gretchen Robinson is using robots with students at Northwoods Elementary School of Technology and Innovation. She’s started out slowly, incorporating the humanoid NAO robot her school purchased into a few lessons with each grade K-5. Different models of the NAO robot range from $16,000 to $20,000. Students named the robot ABBI, short for Awesome Bot Bringing Innovation, the winner of a student name contest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Whereas many schools are focusing on using robots to teach science, technology, engineering and math, Robinson’s school is focusing on literacy. The kindergarten class has been learning about basic storytelling, so Robinson programmed a story the teacher wrote into the robot for it to read aloud to students. Afterwards the students answered questions the ABBI posed to them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv style=\"float: left;width: 50%\">\u003cimg src=\"http://www.robotslab.com/BLOGIMGS/2wbws.gif\" alt=\"logo\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cdiv style=\"float: right;width: 50%\">\u003cimg src=\"http://www.robotslab.com/BLOGIMGS/ar%20drone%20graph.gif\" alt=\"logo\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>The second-graders were learning common economic vocabulary like \"income\" or \"expense.\" ABBI described a term without using the word itself and a small group of students discussed which answer to choose from a pile of 20 flashcards. When they reached a decision, they held up the vocabulary term and the robot used visual recognition to “read” what they had written and tell them if they’d gotten it right or wrong. “Through trial and error I learned that the students really liked the vision recognition,” Robinson said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While she’s pleased with the engagement the robot has generated -- students never want the lesson to end when ABBI is involved -- Robinson said learning to program it was a steep learning curve. “Learning to program the robot at the beginning of the year was very time-consuming,” Robinson said. She spent around 40 hours programming a single lesson. Now that she’s had more practice she can do the same lesson in just a few hours.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Robinson has started to teach students the programming language and is helping the winners of a poetry contest code their work into ABBI so it will recite it back to them. Next year she hopes to do some small group programming work to at least expose kids to programming concepts before they move onto middle and high school where they might take it up more seriously.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re a school of technology so I think it will be something that’s useful for us,” Robinson said. She’s aware that right now the robot is taking more time than it should, but she wants her students to be exposed to the many ways it can be programmed early to pique their interest in robotics and programming for more exploration down the road.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She’s also noticed that students are more willing to retry answering a question again without argument when ABBI tells them they are wrong. “The kids sometimes work better not for their teacher,” Robinson said. “Because the robot is cool and unusual they are excited about working with him.” The robot also gets everyone participating. “A lot of kids don’t want to disappoint their teacher, so they either won’t answer or they’ll mumble an answer,” Robinson said. “Whereas with the robot everybody wants to answer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Robinson doesn't take it personally. She sees it as just another tool to help reach all kids, even the quiet ones. Her school has only been experimenting with the robot for a short time and hasn't even had a chance to poll students on the differences between learning from a teacher or from the robot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Robinson sees students' willingness to engage, to collaborate and to work on a lesson for as long as it takes to understand the content as positive signs of learning. “They want to work with the robot for as long as possible,\" Robinson said. \"Every time their lesson is done they're disappointed.” She's also quizzed students on content after they're done working with the robot and has found them to have a greater grasp of the information.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While Robinson has programmed ABBI to teach short group lessons on things like how to read a bar graph or vocabulary, she's never tried to have the robot lead an entire lesson. She thinks its possible, but would be a heavy programming lift and probably isn't possible anytime soon without some changes to the coding software.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>EXPOSURE TO COMPUTATIONAL THINKING\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A big selling point for robots in classrooms is their novelty. Educators are hoping to turn student excitement into a passion for learning how to program and manipulate a robotic platform.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Robot company founders, like Inbar, know the novelty factor is working in their favor, but they don't see robots getting old. The robot is just a platform for students and teachers to manipulate, after all, and its applications can constantly change and evolve.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Robinson isn't concerned her students will get tired of their robot anytime soon. Her school only has one, so students only engage with it once or twice a month, for lessons that lend themselves to it. \"I do think the robot is a powerful learning tool,\" Robinson said. \"However, I do not feel like it would be as commanding if it was used on a daily basis as an instructional tool, students may lose interest.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s about opening up the world of computational thinking in an age appropriate way for them,” said Vikas Gupta, CEO of Play-i, a nascent educational robotics company with aspirations in both the consumer and education markets. The robot can be controlled with simple swipes on a tablet, and was designed for children as young as five. Gupta insists that even without writing code, children are beginning to develop “computational thinking,” the ability to break down a problem into its parts, understand those individual elements and then rearrange them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For kids who see this technology all around them, if we can give them a mental model for how things work, that’s really important,” Gupta said. As kids manipulate the tablet, they watch the robot dance or sing and realize their power to create in a software-driven world. For older kids, Play-i has software to allow kids to see blocks of code that they can string together to dictate the robots actions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>GIRLS AND ROBOTS\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>An interesting observation struck both Gupta and Inbar as they designed their robots. When testing a prototype of his robot with kids, Gupta discovered that girls were uninterested in the robot when it had visible wheels and wires. Little girls quickly identified that first version of the robot as a mechanical toy meant for boys. The company then developed a robot with rounded curves, more of a fantastical critter than the stereotypical boxy robot. “It became something that they could see in their imaginations,” said Gupta. “There was no stereotype they could apply.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As educators think about the benefits and drawbacks of using robots in the classroom, drawing in girls has become an important focus. Anectdotally, Inbar said teachers report that girls outperform boys in computer science when they’re in all-female environments. “If you go to an all-girls school you will see that the performance is actually higher than in all-boys schools,” Inbar said. But if girls aren't exposed early to science and technology, many quickly succumb to stereotypes that those fields aren't appropriate for girls.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We want to show robots and programming is not just for boys,” Inbar said. RobotLab is currently running two contests, a fashion show in Austin and a Robot Idol competition between schools in Northern and Southern California. Inbar found girls were more interested in programming robots if it was connected to designing something creative. “There is no problem with girls’ engagement in STEM subjects,” Inbar said. Educators just have to help them realize they like it and try to downplay the competition with boys, which can sometimes make girls withdraw.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Teachers often run into a similar situation when teaching computer science. “Boys already love computers, they already know they are going to be awesome at this,\" said Sheena Vaidyanathan, a computer science teacher in Los Altos public schools. \"Girls have to be sold on the idea. The machine itself doesn't attract them as much, but what it can do does.\" Girls are often battling stereotypes about the kind of boy, or girl, who likes programming. Drawing girls into subjects like computer science and robotics well before high school norms set in -- not to mention the accompanying hormones -- is critical, Vaidyanathan said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_35639\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.flickr.com/photos/steveonjava/12628872993/in/photolist-keYgXx-keZTBs-keY7mP-keXVyr-keXBuT-keXwBg-keXjG4-keZY2j-keXWFX-keXQxz-keZv6L-keZwvu-keXuqc-keXm3v-keXQ5v-keZKKq-keXpJD-keYi6e-keY7R6-keXkJK-keZvzw-keZMwS-keZw2U-keZHNQ-keZxnE-keXDzz-keZKwj-keXktV-keZExw-keXw92-keZR2s-keXrhP-keXTuM-keXyJc-keXchK-keXqFZ-keXpeF-keYgfv-keYfFK-keXeFn-keXs6c-keZN2j-keZDZN-keY9Cn-keXtYv-keXRJc-keXuWx-keXzJP-keXoj4-keZGVs\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-35639\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/05/robot.jpg\" alt=\"(Stephen Chin/Flickr)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/05/robot.jpg 640w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/05/robot-400x225.jpg 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/05/robot-320x180.jpg 320w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">(Stephen Chin/Flickr)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp class=\"dropcap-serif\">Talk of robots in the classroom may have seemed far fetched a few years ago, but it’s safe to say that the future has arrived – at least in some classrooms. Educators are beginning to experiment with how robots can add value to their classrooms, and while it’s by no means common -- they’re still quite expensive for many school budgets -- robots paired with specific software and curriculum are offering interesting new learning opportunities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>DEMONSTRATING ABSTRACT CONCEPTS\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To explain difficult abstract concepts in science and math subjects, some teachers are using \u003ca href=\"http://www.robotslab.com/\" target=\"_blank\">RobotsLab BOX\u003c/a>. It's a kit that includes a quadcopter, tablet, robotic arm, a spherical robot, a circular robot and lesson plans to go with all of them. Teachers use the tablet to manipulate the various robots into demonstrating different STEM concepts. Because all the software and lessons come preloaded, teachers don't need programming or robotics knowledge to make it work. The whole kit costs $3,500.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The founder of RobotsLab, Elad Inbar, said that teachers complained that their students were coming into first year engineering and computer science college classes without a solid foundation of math concepts. The suite of products his team ultimately developed use robots to show students that the equations and graphs they slave over mean something in the physical world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are trying to use the power of visual learning to bridge all the ‘I’m not a math person’ stuff,” Inbar said. “They can actually use their senses to understand it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For example, a lesson about quadratic functions uses a quadcopter robot to demonstrate what the equation means in real life by correlating the area viewed on a camera attached to the bottom, with the graph. If programmed with a quadratic equation, the quadcopter rises to specific heights, demonstrating the visible relationship between the hovering robot and the area captured by the camera.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">\n“They want to work with the robot for as long as possible. Every time their lesson is done they're disappointed.”\u003cbr>\n\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>After students have been introduced to the concept and have seen it demonstrated on the robot, they can try to program the robot themselves. The hands-on aspect helps students to understand that they can manipulate the robot themselves with the right code, Ibar said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have teachers who are doing project-based learning and they give the robots to the students with the tablet and they say, 'You figure it out and come back and tell me what you learned,'” Inbar said. While his product includes curriculum and lessons teachers can use, the robot itself is just a platform that can be programmed by tinkering students just as effectively as by a teacher.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jerry Moldenhauer has been using \u003ca href=\"http://www.vexrobotics.com/\" target=\"_blank\">VEX\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"http://www.lego.com/en-us/mindstorms/?domainredir=mindstorms.lego.com\" target=\"_blank\">Lego Mindstorm\u003c/a> robots in his engineering classes at Eastside Memorial High School in Austin, Texas for several years. Until now, he's mostly used them to offer advanced students challenge problems, giving them opportunities to design concepts and practice programming. This year, he started using the RobotLab BOX kit with his whole class, and he's found that it boosts engagement and crystallizes difficult concepts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They have solved a big problem and that is bringing in curriculum, especially for math and physics,” Moldenhauer said. He prefers teaching with project-based methods, but said it can be challenging for math teachers to come up with engaging and relevant projects that also get students to practice enough math to solidify what they've learned.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“[The robot] gives the instructors a tool to get them interested in the learning and then the math behind it is a surprise to them,” Moldenhauer said. Kids are calculating the velocity of the robot without realizing they’re using algebra. \"It really makes the connection better for them,” he said. Moldenhauer finds the robot especially useful for explaining the math behind more advanced engineering topics his class will work towards. They often don't have a firm grasp of the algebra they'll need and using the robot to visually demonstrate the concepts helps them review.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Moldenhauer is especially grateful for the extra engagement and excitement students show when working with the robot at this time of year, when most are already checking out for the summer. He used funds his department set aside for the engineering program to purchase the RobotLab BOX, but expects to use it across science and math departments. Sharing the robots that way helps justify the cost, but even without it, Moldenhauer says it was well worth the expense for the change he's seen in his student's ability to understand abstract concepts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>INCREASES ENGAGEMENT\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Onslow County, North Carolina, Gretchen Robinson is using robots with students at Northwoods Elementary School of Technology and Innovation. She’s started out slowly, incorporating the humanoid NAO robot her school purchased into a few lessons with each grade K-5. Different models of the NAO robot range from $16,000 to $20,000. Students named the robot ABBI, short for Awesome Bot Bringing Innovation, the winner of a student name contest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Whereas many schools are focusing on using robots to teach science, technology, engineering and math, Robinson’s school is focusing on literacy. The kindergarten class has been learning about basic storytelling, so Robinson programmed a story the teacher wrote into the robot for it to read aloud to students. Afterwards the students answered questions the ABBI posed to them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv style=\"float: left;width: 50%\">\u003cimg src=\"http://www.robotslab.com/BLOGIMGS/2wbws.gif\" alt=\"logo\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cdiv style=\"float: right;width: 50%\">\u003cimg src=\"http://www.robotslab.com/BLOGIMGS/ar%20drone%20graph.gif\" alt=\"logo\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>The second-graders were learning common economic vocabulary like \"income\" or \"expense.\" ABBI described a term without using the word itself and a small group of students discussed which answer to choose from a pile of 20 flashcards. When they reached a decision, they held up the vocabulary term and the robot used visual recognition to “read” what they had written and tell them if they’d gotten it right or wrong. “Through trial and error I learned that the students really liked the vision recognition,” Robinson said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While she’s pleased with the engagement the robot has generated -- students never want the lesson to end when ABBI is involved -- Robinson said learning to program it was a steep learning curve. “Learning to program the robot at the beginning of the year was very time-consuming,” Robinson said. She spent around 40 hours programming a single lesson. Now that she’s had more practice she can do the same lesson in just a few hours.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Robinson has started to teach students the programming language and is helping the winners of a poetry contest code their work into ABBI so it will recite it back to them. Next year she hopes to do some small group programming work to at least expose kids to programming concepts before they move onto middle and high school where they might take it up more seriously.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re a school of technology so I think it will be something that’s useful for us,” Robinson said. She’s aware that right now the robot is taking more time than it should, but she wants her students to be exposed to the many ways it can be programmed early to pique their interest in robotics and programming for more exploration down the road.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She’s also noticed that students are more willing to retry answering a question again without argument when ABBI tells them they are wrong. “The kids sometimes work better not for their teacher,” Robinson said. “Because the robot is cool and unusual they are excited about working with him.” The robot also gets everyone participating. “A lot of kids don’t want to disappoint their teacher, so they either won’t answer or they’ll mumble an answer,” Robinson said. “Whereas with the robot everybody wants to answer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Robinson doesn't take it personally. She sees it as just another tool to help reach all kids, even the quiet ones. Her school has only been experimenting with the robot for a short time and hasn't even had a chance to poll students on the differences between learning from a teacher or from the robot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Robinson sees students' willingness to engage, to collaborate and to work on a lesson for as long as it takes to understand the content as positive signs of learning. “They want to work with the robot for as long as possible,\" Robinson said. \"Every time their lesson is done they're disappointed.” She's also quizzed students on content after they're done working with the robot and has found them to have a greater grasp of the information.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While Robinson has programmed ABBI to teach short group lessons on things like how to read a bar graph or vocabulary, she's never tried to have the robot lead an entire lesson. She thinks its possible, but would be a heavy programming lift and probably isn't possible anytime soon without some changes to the coding software.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>EXPOSURE TO COMPUTATIONAL THINKING\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A big selling point for robots in classrooms is their novelty. Educators are hoping to turn student excitement into a passion for learning how to program and manipulate a robotic platform.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Robot company founders, like Inbar, know the novelty factor is working in their favor, but they don't see robots getting old. The robot is just a platform for students and teachers to manipulate, after all, and its applications can constantly change and evolve.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Robinson isn't concerned her students will get tired of their robot anytime soon. Her school only has one, so students only engage with it once or twice a month, for lessons that lend themselves to it. \"I do think the robot is a powerful learning tool,\" Robinson said. \"However, I do not feel like it would be as commanding if it was used on a daily basis as an instructional tool, students may lose interest.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s about opening up the world of computational thinking in an age appropriate way for them,” said Vikas Gupta, CEO of Play-i, a nascent educational robotics company with aspirations in both the consumer and education markets. The robot can be controlled with simple swipes on a tablet, and was designed for children as young as five. Gupta insists that even without writing code, children are beginning to develop “computational thinking,” the ability to break down a problem into its parts, understand those individual elements and then rearrange them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For kids who see this technology all around them, if we can give them a mental model for how things work, that’s really important,” Gupta said. As kids manipulate the tablet, they watch the robot dance or sing and realize their power to create in a software-driven world. For older kids, Play-i has software to allow kids to see blocks of code that they can string together to dictate the robots actions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>GIRLS AND ROBOTS\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>An interesting observation struck both Gupta and Inbar as they designed their robots. When testing a prototype of his robot with kids, Gupta discovered that girls were uninterested in the robot when it had visible wheels and wires. Little girls quickly identified that first version of the robot as a mechanical toy meant for boys. The company then developed a robot with rounded curves, more of a fantastical critter than the stereotypical boxy robot. “It became something that they could see in their imaginations,” said Gupta. “There was no stereotype they could apply.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As educators think about the benefits and drawbacks of using robots in the classroom, drawing in girls has become an important focus. Anectdotally, Inbar said teachers report that girls outperform boys in computer science when they’re in all-female environments. “If you go to an all-girls school you will see that the performance is actually higher than in all-boys schools,” Inbar said. But if girls aren't exposed early to science and technology, many quickly succumb to stereotypes that those fields aren't appropriate for girls.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We want to show robots and programming is not just for boys,” Inbar said. RobotLab is currently running two contests, a fashion show in Austin and a Robot Idol competition between schools in Northern and Southern California. Inbar found girls were more interested in programming robots if it was connected to designing something creative. “There is no problem with girls’ engagement in STEM subjects,” Inbar said. Educators just have to help them realize they like it and try to downplay the competition with boys, which can sometimes make girls withdraw.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Teachers often run into a similar situation when teaching computer science. “Boys already love computers, they already know they are going to be awesome at this,\" said Sheena Vaidyanathan, a computer science teacher in Los Altos public schools. \"Girls have to be sold on the idea. The machine itself doesn't attract them as much, but what it can do does.\" Girls are often battling stereotypes about the kind of boy, or girl, who likes programming. Drawing girls into subjects like computer science and robotics well before high school norms set in -- not to mention the accompanying hormones -- is critical, Vaidyanathan said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"disqusTitle": "What's Really At Stake? Untangling the Big Issues Around Student Data",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_35776\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 531px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-35776\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/05/5749839627_d88a8ce537_z.jpg\" alt=\"CEA\" width=\"531\" height=\"431\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/05/5749839627_d88a8ce537_z.jpg 531w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/05/5749839627_d88a8ce537_z-400x325.jpg 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/05/5749839627_d88a8ce537_z-320x260.jpg 320w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 531px) 100vw, 531px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">CEA\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"dropcap-serif\">As student data moves online, concerns from some parents and teachers are mounting around the safety of protecting the data from getting in the hands of corporations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the root of the angst surrounding the use of student data is a lack of trust and familiarity with how the data is collected, stored, shared, and protected. It’s a challenge to track this constantly expanding and changing landscape, as companies – each with their own set of privacy policies -- vie for their share of the \u003ca href=\"http://siia.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1627:siia-estimates-79-billion-us-market-for-educational-software-and-digital-content&catid=62:press-room-overview&Itemid=1672\">$8 billion ed-tech market\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s an enormous tidal wave of new applications being built for schools and for the first time, schools have tons of options for each little thing,” said Tyler Bosmeny, CEO of Clever, which provides software that works with students information systems.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The sole purpose and function of many educational application developers is to collect and analyze student data and assessments in order to help teachers \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2011/06/has-the-holy-grail-of-adaptive-tech-been-discovered/\" target=\"_blank\">adapt curriculum to students' specific levels\u003c/a>. But fears of what will become of that data have led to a backlash against the companies collecting, storing and analyzing student data. In turn, policymakers have responded to these mounting concerns, introducing \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-admin/www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2014/04/28/305715935/what-parents-need-to-know-about-big-data-and-student-privacy\">82 bills in 32 states\u003c/a> this year that address student privacy, according to the \u003ca href=\"http://www.dataqualitycampaign.org/\">Data Quality Campaign\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>How is Student Data Collected and Stored?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Parents often kick off their child’s electronic trail well before the first day of class. At some schools, parents register their child for school online, typing in their child’s name, address, birth date, schools, medical and behavioral history. This information (or parts of it), are often stored in a virtual folder next to other student’s registration in a Student Information System. Administrators can add attendance records to these files through integrated systems and teachers can upload test scores and scan in bubble sheets to complete the picture. Over the years, a child’s school life could be told in data points. The goal of keeping this data is build a profile that can help educators analyze the information and tailor teaching approaches to help the child learn and grow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To keep all this growing data in one place, states created the \u003ca href=\"http://nces.ed.gov/programs/slds/about_SLDS.asp\">Statewide Longitudinal Data Systems \u003c/a>in 2005. (Read more about SLDS \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/ed/2014/05/16/313117187/what-parents-need-to-know-about-big-data-and-student-privacy\" target=\"_blank\">here\u003c/a>.)\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">“If a child is wrongly branded as a trouble maker in third grade and the profile follows him like the no-fly list – that’s a problem.”\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>But the more data is collected, the harder it is for schools to keep track. Schools often find it’s cheaper and easier to have third party cloud providers like Google, Amazon and Microsoft store and maintain the student data on their servers than it is to own and operate a unique school district data center. In fact, 95 percent of schools and districts store their student information in the cloud, according \u003ca href=\"http://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1001&context=clip\">a recent study\u003c/a> on data privacy led by Professor Joel Reidenberg, director of the Center on Law and Information Policy at Fordham Law School.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It is this outsourcing of student data to third parties that puts privacy advocates on edge. In mid-April, privacy concerns grew so pronounced about inBloom – a non-profit corporation that was created to store and manage student data from a handful of states – that the group shut down as state after state pulled out of the massive project.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>What Are the Fears?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fears around how student data can be improperly used fall into a few categories: data marketers, data breaches and unshakable data trails.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the same way that Google recommends products based on your web searches, marketers with access to student data could suggest items to children. \"You don’t want to see a student write four essays on baseball and then have a company try to sell him baseball tickets,” says Joni Lupovitz, of Common Sense Media.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A second area of concern stems from the potential for data breaches, which have already happened. \u003ca href=\"https://news.tn.gov/node/1238\">One breach in Tennessee\u003c/a> in 2009 inadvertently left 18,000 K-12 student names, addresses, birth dates and full Social Security numbers on an unsecured web server for four months. “Every major financial institution has had their banking information compromised,” Reidenberg said. “There’s no reason to believe children’s information will be more secure.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Finally, there is the risk that student data, like a tattoo, will be hard to erase. \"If a child is wrongly branded as a trouble maker in third grade and the profile follows him like the no-fly list – that’s a problem,\" Reidenberg said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But other education stakeholders hold a more tempered view. “There are a lot of misconceptions about storage of student data in the cloud,\" said Kathleen Styles, the Chief Privacy Officer at the U.S. Dept. of Education on \u003ca href=\"http://www.safegov.org/2013/4/18/interview-with-kathleen-styles,-chief-privacy-officer,-us-department-of-education\">a forum about cloud computing.\u003c/a> There’s nothing inherently more or less secure about cloud storage compared to traditional data storage – it all depends on the specific approach and the contract terms.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>How Is Student Data Protected?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Student data is protected under a variety of state and federal laws, but the \u003ca href=\"http://ptac.ed.gov/sites/default/files/Student%20Privacy%20and%20Online%20Educational%20Services%20%28February%202014%29.pdf\">Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act\u003c/a>, or FERPA is the most commonly cited. Under FERPA, student data can only be used for educational purposes and using student data to sell or market products is prohibited.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But FERPA’s protections get murky. For starters, FERPA allows schools to release records to other education officials without parental consent. Those education officials can be vendors, including for-profit cloud service providers that are under \"direct control\" of schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What’s more, Reidenberg argues FERPA applies only to schools receiving federal funding –- not to private companies. In his study, he found that “fewer than 7 percent of agreements between schools and developers restrict the sale or marketing of student information by vendors, and many agreements allow vendors to change the terms without notice.” And his study only explored cloud computing contracts, not contracts with the myriad educational software programs and learning applications in existence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Selling Student Data Security\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some companies are conscious of the escalating concerns about privacy and are using security as a selling point. For example, Clever doesn’t even store student data, but has a policy of only making agreements with developers who are FERPA compliant. Clever software enables students to log onto multiple apps like eSpark Learning, DreamBox and Wowzers with just one username and password. “We created Clever to create some sanity in managing those applications and knowing which ones are FERPA compliant,” he says. “There are so many options to choose from that many schools don’t know where to start.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=\"e85ae72b5a6abb1bcf74755984434063\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another company, Illuminate, which provides student information systems, data and analysis and other software goes to great lengths to build trust with schools. Illuminate reports that it encrypts every page, stores most of its data on its own servers (not the cloud), has round the clock security on staff and trains each employee in the federal law protecting student data. “To stay up on security, it takes full-time people every day to stay on top of what’s out there. If you’re in a school district and trying to manage that on your own, that’s a very difficult task,” said company’s CEO Lane Rankin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even with all the security precautions, Rankin, whose business is dependent on student data, believes the issue of privacy has been overblown to some extent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Parents should be much more concerned about what’s going on with their bank, about all the stuff Google’s tracking every time you’re on the web, about your cell phone and what Verizon knows about your location and where you took your pictures,\" he said. \"But student data? That’s in a very secure location, controlled by the local school district, there for the purposes of helping more students, classrooms and schools. Because it’s very benign data, advertisers aren’t going to care about this data. They care about when you’re clicking around so they can sell you more stuff.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Setting Up Protocols\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>School administrators, the stewards of student data, must institute technical protections against the misuse of information. “It’s up to the school or district to set the proper balance of physical, technological and administrative controls to prevent unauthorized access,” the DOE's Styles said. This means administrators decide what information goes into the cloud or to an app, who has access to it, what password protections those with access need and how much encryption to require considering the sensitivity of the data.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Beyond the technical agreements, all stakeholders can push for specific privacy principles in the contract language between schools and vendors. Common Sense Media, which launched a\u003ca href=\"https://www.commonsensemedia.org/school-privacy-zone\"> School Privacy Zone Campaign,\u003c/a> suggests contracts with software companies explicitly prohibit developers from using the data for commercial purposes and only use data for educational purposes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Both Common Sense Media and the \u003ca href=\"http://epic.org/%20\" target=\"_blank\">Electronic Privacy Information Center\u003c/a> recommend limits to the amount of data collected and the amount of time it can be stored. EPIC recommends \u003ca href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/03/06/why-a-student-privacy-bill-of-rights-is-desperately-needed/\" target=\"_blank\">returning control of the data to the students\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Parents and students should feel entitled to ask administrators how they’re collecting, storing and sharing data, says the DOE’s Styles. “Make sure schools have self-awareness,” says Styles. “I would be looking for the currency of the privacy policy, evidence that the district is aware of what kind of data the schools and district are capturing and evidence that the data is classified by sensitivity -- that more sensitive data is being protected in a more stringent fashion.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While guiding privacy principles and careful contractual language are critical, schools and parents are hard-pressed to keep pace with the technically complex and rapidly changing educational landscape. Increasingly, districts are adding a new layer of protection to their systems. They’re hiring Chief Technology Officers to guide their technological engagement, so schools have a sophisticated player of their own keeping pace in the tech race.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_35776\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 531px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-35776\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/05/5749839627_d88a8ce537_z.jpg\" alt=\"CEA\" width=\"531\" height=\"431\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/05/5749839627_d88a8ce537_z.jpg 531w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/05/5749839627_d88a8ce537_z-400x325.jpg 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/05/5749839627_d88a8ce537_z-320x260.jpg 320w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 531px) 100vw, 531px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">CEA\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"dropcap-serif\">As student data moves online, concerns from some parents and teachers are mounting around the safety of protecting the data from getting in the hands of corporations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the root of the angst surrounding the use of student data is a lack of trust and familiarity with how the data is collected, stored, shared, and protected. It’s a challenge to track this constantly expanding and changing landscape, as companies – each with their own set of privacy policies -- vie for their share of the \u003ca href=\"http://siia.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1627:siia-estimates-79-billion-us-market-for-educational-software-and-digital-content&catid=62:press-room-overview&Itemid=1672\">$8 billion ed-tech market\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s an enormous tidal wave of new applications being built for schools and for the first time, schools have tons of options for each little thing,” said Tyler Bosmeny, CEO of Clever, which provides software that works with students information systems.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The sole purpose and function of many educational application developers is to collect and analyze student data and assessments in order to help teachers \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2011/06/has-the-holy-grail-of-adaptive-tech-been-discovered/\" target=\"_blank\">adapt curriculum to students' specific levels\u003c/a>. But fears of what will become of that data have led to a backlash against the companies collecting, storing and analyzing student data. In turn, policymakers have responded to these mounting concerns, introducing \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-admin/www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2014/04/28/305715935/what-parents-need-to-know-about-big-data-and-student-privacy\">82 bills in 32 states\u003c/a> this year that address student privacy, according to the \u003ca href=\"http://www.dataqualitycampaign.org/\">Data Quality Campaign\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>How is Student Data Collected and Stored?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Parents often kick off their child’s electronic trail well before the first day of class. At some schools, parents register their child for school online, typing in their child’s name, address, birth date, schools, medical and behavioral history. This information (or parts of it), are often stored in a virtual folder next to other student’s registration in a Student Information System. Administrators can add attendance records to these files through integrated systems and teachers can upload test scores and scan in bubble sheets to complete the picture. Over the years, a child’s school life could be told in data points. The goal of keeping this data is build a profile that can help educators analyze the information and tailor teaching approaches to help the child learn and grow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To keep all this growing data in one place, states created the \u003ca href=\"http://nces.ed.gov/programs/slds/about_SLDS.asp\">Statewide Longitudinal Data Systems \u003c/a>in 2005. (Read more about SLDS \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/ed/2014/05/16/313117187/what-parents-need-to-know-about-big-data-and-student-privacy\" target=\"_blank\">here\u003c/a>.)\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">“If a child is wrongly branded as a trouble maker in third grade and the profile follows him like the no-fly list – that’s a problem.”\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>But the more data is collected, the harder it is for schools to keep track. Schools often find it’s cheaper and easier to have third party cloud providers like Google, Amazon and Microsoft store and maintain the student data on their servers than it is to own and operate a unique school district data center. In fact, 95 percent of schools and districts store their student information in the cloud, according \u003ca href=\"http://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1001&context=clip\">a recent study\u003c/a> on data privacy led by Professor Joel Reidenberg, director of the Center on Law and Information Policy at Fordham Law School.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It is this outsourcing of student data to third parties that puts privacy advocates on edge. In mid-April, privacy concerns grew so pronounced about inBloom – a non-profit corporation that was created to store and manage student data from a handful of states – that the group shut down as state after state pulled out of the massive project.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>What Are the Fears?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fears around how student data can be improperly used fall into a few categories: data marketers, data breaches and unshakable data trails.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the same way that Google recommends products based on your web searches, marketers with access to student data could suggest items to children. \"You don’t want to see a student write four essays on baseball and then have a company try to sell him baseball tickets,” says Joni Lupovitz, of Common Sense Media.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A second area of concern stems from the potential for data breaches, which have already happened. \u003ca href=\"https://news.tn.gov/node/1238\">One breach in Tennessee\u003c/a> in 2009 inadvertently left 18,000 K-12 student names, addresses, birth dates and full Social Security numbers on an unsecured web server for four months. “Every major financial institution has had their banking information compromised,” Reidenberg said. “There’s no reason to believe children’s information will be more secure.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Finally, there is the risk that student data, like a tattoo, will be hard to erase. \"If a child is wrongly branded as a trouble maker in third grade and the profile follows him like the no-fly list – that’s a problem,\" Reidenberg said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But other education stakeholders hold a more tempered view. “There are a lot of misconceptions about storage of student data in the cloud,\" said Kathleen Styles, the Chief Privacy Officer at the U.S. Dept. of Education on \u003ca href=\"http://www.safegov.org/2013/4/18/interview-with-kathleen-styles,-chief-privacy-officer,-us-department-of-education\">a forum about cloud computing.\u003c/a> There’s nothing inherently more or less secure about cloud storage compared to traditional data storage – it all depends on the specific approach and the contract terms.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>How Is Student Data Protected?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Student data is protected under a variety of state and federal laws, but the \u003ca href=\"http://ptac.ed.gov/sites/default/files/Student%20Privacy%20and%20Online%20Educational%20Services%20%28February%202014%29.pdf\">Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act\u003c/a>, or FERPA is the most commonly cited. Under FERPA, student data can only be used for educational purposes and using student data to sell or market products is prohibited.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But FERPA’s protections get murky. For starters, FERPA allows schools to release records to other education officials without parental consent. Those education officials can be vendors, including for-profit cloud service providers that are under \"direct control\" of schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What’s more, Reidenberg argues FERPA applies only to schools receiving federal funding –- not to private companies. In his study, he found that “fewer than 7 percent of agreements between schools and developers restrict the sale or marketing of student information by vendors, and many agreements allow vendors to change the terms without notice.” And his study only explored cloud computing contracts, not contracts with the myriad educational software programs and learning applications in existence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Selling Student Data Security\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some companies are conscious of the escalating concerns about privacy and are using security as a selling point. For example, Clever doesn’t even store student data, but has a policy of only making agreements with developers who are FERPA compliant. Clever software enables students to log onto multiple apps like eSpark Learning, DreamBox and Wowzers with just one username and password. “We created Clever to create some sanity in managing those applications and knowing which ones are FERPA compliant,” he says. “There are so many options to choose from that many schools don’t know where to start.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another company, Illuminate, which provides student information systems, data and analysis and other software goes to great lengths to build trust with schools. Illuminate reports that it encrypts every page, stores most of its data on its own servers (not the cloud), has round the clock security on staff and trains each employee in the federal law protecting student data. “To stay up on security, it takes full-time people every day to stay on top of what’s out there. If you’re in a school district and trying to manage that on your own, that’s a very difficult task,” said company’s CEO Lane Rankin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even with all the security precautions, Rankin, whose business is dependent on student data, believes the issue of privacy has been overblown to some extent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Parents should be much more concerned about what’s going on with their bank, about all the stuff Google’s tracking every time you’re on the web, about your cell phone and what Verizon knows about your location and where you took your pictures,\" he said. \"But student data? That’s in a very secure location, controlled by the local school district, there for the purposes of helping more students, classrooms and schools. Because it’s very benign data, advertisers aren’t going to care about this data. They care about when you’re clicking around so they can sell you more stuff.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Setting Up Protocols\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>School administrators, the stewards of student data, must institute technical protections against the misuse of information. “It’s up to the school or district to set the proper balance of physical, technological and administrative controls to prevent unauthorized access,” the DOE's Styles said. This means administrators decide what information goes into the cloud or to an app, who has access to it, what password protections those with access need and how much encryption to require considering the sensitivity of the data.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Beyond the technical agreements, all stakeholders can push for specific privacy principles in the contract language between schools and vendors. Common Sense Media, which launched a\u003ca href=\"https://www.commonsensemedia.org/school-privacy-zone\"> School Privacy Zone Campaign,\u003c/a> suggests contracts with software companies explicitly prohibit developers from using the data for commercial purposes and only use data for educational purposes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Both Common Sense Media and the \u003ca href=\"http://epic.org/%20\" target=\"_blank\">Electronic Privacy Information Center\u003c/a> recommend limits to the amount of data collected and the amount of time it can be stored. EPIC recommends \u003ca href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/03/06/why-a-student-privacy-bill-of-rights-is-desperately-needed/\" target=\"_blank\">returning control of the data to the students\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Parents and students should feel entitled to ask administrators how they’re collecting, storing and sharing data, says the DOE’s Styles. “Make sure schools have self-awareness,” says Styles. “I would be looking for the currency of the privacy policy, evidence that the district is aware of what kind of data the schools and district are capturing and evidence that the data is classified by sensitivity -- that more sensitive data is being protected in a more stringent fashion.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While guiding privacy principles and careful contractual language are critical, schools and parents are hard-pressed to keep pace with the technically complex and rapidly changing educational landscape. Increasingly, districts are adding a new layer of protection to their systems. They’re hiring Chief Technology Officers to guide their technological engagement, so schools have a sophisticated player of their own keeping pace in the tech race.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_35793\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-35793\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/05/153204599-e1400374634332.jpg\" alt=\"Getty\" width=\"640\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/05/153204599-e1400374634332.jpg 640w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/05/153204599-e1400374634332-400x250.jpg 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/05/153204599-e1400374634332-320x200.jpg 320w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Getty\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp class=\"dropcap-serif\">When parents find they have a two-year-old who can read, or a five-year-old who wakes up talking about square roots, the task of ensuring that these exceptionally bright children get the educational nourishment they need is unchartered territory. The path can be frustrating for the kids, and worry-inducing for the parents. But the ongoing boom in online learning opportunities has been a great benefit for many gifted youth because the offerings can cater to a student’s ability rather than age.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sating the voracious curiosity of gifted students can be challenging. They may get bored and cranky when they easily grasp lessons ahead of the group in a standard classroom. Take, for example, the case of a seven-year-old who attends a Berkeley, Calif., public elementary school. When he found the pace of his math class unbearably slow, he protested by gluing together two months’ worth of his math worksheets. Given a new packet of them, he “filled out all the answers, and then folded each sheet into paper airplanes,” his mother said. (The mother asked that they not be identified in this story.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The educational infrastructure in the U.S. for supporting high-achieving students is an underfunded patchwork quilt of services and programs across the states, according to \u003ca href=\"http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20111109005205/en/Nations-Infrastructure-Support-Gifted-Students-Crumbling-Survey\" target=\"_blank\">a survey by the National Association for Gifted Children\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We do not have a systematic way of addressing the needs of the gifted,” said Joyce VanTassel-Baska, education professor emerita at the College of William and Mary. “You could go to one school system and they might be doing a great job. And you would go to another school system and you would see nothing.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As a result, gifted students and their parents often must cobble together their \u003ca href=\"http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_ic_10680.aspx\" target=\"_blank\">own individual education plan\u003c/a> from various sources to obtain a deeper, more advanced intellectual dive than what standard school systems can provide.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the case of the young Berkeley protester, who was reading at a fifth-grade level by age four, “we spend \u003cem>a lot\u003c/em> of time at the library trying to keep up with his interests and voracious reading habit,” his mother said. At home, “we make books, build airplanes and robots out of found objects, research stuff online, fix our bikes, and create elaborate LEGO machines. He is endlessly curious and astonishingly creative.” The parents have signed him up for extracurricular classes in science as well as art, music, and sports, including classes for gifted students at the Lawrence Hall of Science. This family has not tried online options yet, and if they do look into private school options, they’ll have to apply for scholarships or financial aid, or would not be able to afford it.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">“It’s very difficult to find a high school that would be willing to have a 10-year-old take an AP course.”\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Across the bay in San Francisco, Debbie Saret has been similarly engaged in an evolving process of discovery in finding the right resources for her exceptionally gifted son -- a 13-year-old who is now doing math coursework at the college-sophomore level. Six years ago, when she and her husband decided to homeschool him starting in the second grade, it was like stepping off “into the unknown” – a journey that had the parents constantly worrying whether they were making good choices and often “really feeling quite alone, because nobody else around us had ever done anything like that,” she said. Her son’s education has been an eclectic meld of private tutoring, online courses, after-school and summer camps, \u003ca href=\"https://www.mathcircles.org\" target=\"_blank\">math circle\u003c/a>, and community college classes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>ONLINE SOURCES BRING ACCESS TO THE WORLD\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Compared to three decades ago, many more out-of-school academic resources are now available for gifted learners, which makes it easier than ever to access advanced learning opportunities, ranging from \u003ca href=\"http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/08/24/01edtech-gifted.h31.html\" target=\"_blank\">video courses\u003c/a> to \u003ca href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/20/education/stanfords-online-high-school-raises-the-bar.html?_r=0\" target=\"_blank\">diploma-granting online high schools.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The online component was extremely important for us,” Saret said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Math and English courses from Stanford’s \u003ca href=\"http://epgy.stanford.edu\" target=\"_blank\">Education Program for Gifted Youth\u003c/a> (EPGY) initially formed the backbone of the Saret son’s homeschooling. Founded in 1990, EPGY has long offered self-paced, computer-based instruction through brief, pre-recorded multimedia lectures on CD-ROMs or, as technology has evolved, via web browser. Students can also sign up for tutorial guidance from an instructor by phone, email, or the web. (Under a recent licensing deal with Stanford, an education company named Redbird Advanced Learning has taken over the EPGY program and is in a transition of updating and enhancing its technology components.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At age eight, Saret’s son began taking classes part-time at \u003ca href=\"https://ohs.stanford.edu/\" target=\"_blank\">Stanford Online High School\u003c/a> (OHS), a fully accredited, diploma-granting school for academically talented students in grades 7 through 12. OHS, which opened in 2006, provides real-time, interactive virtual seminars through web-based video conferencing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite the fact that much of it happens online, Saret says there’s an emphasis on developing personal connections, too. “They really have a sense of community,” Saret noted. “Class meetings, clubs -- it’s a very interactive online experience with video, text chat, whiteboard. Very much like a normal class, but online in terms of interaction.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Saret is grateful that these sorts of learning resources exist for her son. “Online opportunities are really a big benefit for this group of students, because your age doesn’t matter as much as your interests and your ability … Because it’s very difficult to, say, find a high school that would be willing to have a 10-year-old take an AP course,” she said. At that age, her son was able to study AP physics at OHS.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>TEACHING THE GIFTED\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other digital learning options for the gifted include independent-study courses from \u003ca href=\"http://cty.jhu.edu/ctyonline\" target=\"_blank\">Johns Hopkins University\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"http://tip.duke.edu/node/141\" target=\"_blank\">Duke University\u003c/a>, and \u003ca href=\"http://www.ctd.northwestern.edu/gll/\" target=\"_blank\">Northwestern University\u003c/a>. Another resource popular among young math prodigies around the world is the \u003ca href=\"http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/School/index.php?page=howclassroomworks\" target=\"_blank\">Art of Problem Solving\u003c/a> (AoPS) web community and school, which provides real-time instruction through a virtual classroom where pupils and teachers communicate via live text-chatting. Such online education programs offer bright kids a lot of flexibility and a variety of ways for taking their learning well beyond the usual school curricula. Even if standard schools offer advanced placement classes in calculus, those offerings aren’t rigorous enough for many of the mathematically precocious kids who come to AoPS, said Richard Rusczyk, company founder and a winner of the USA Mathematics Olympiad in 1989.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=\"5ebc7121ee85ea803ca3f199b734b393\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They get everything right away. The problems are just too easy,” he said. Typical AP classes don’t prepare the students for math courses at places like MIT, he said, where they may hit the wall of failure for the very first time – and get so discouraged that they just might quit math or science. That would be bad, not just for the student but also potentially for all of us, because as Rusczyk and others point out, these exceptionally bright individuals have a lot to give. “These students are going to produce an outsized portion of the major technological, medical, mathematical, scientific, economic advances of the next generation,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The philosophy at AoPS is to teach math at a deep and complex level and introduce high-performing students to difficult problems that stretch their capabilities early. In Rusczyk’s view, the ultimate goal of education should be “\u003ca href=\"http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10565.aspx\" target=\"_blank\">to teach students how to solve problems \u003c/a>they’ve never seen before. That’s the main focus of what we’re trying to do in our classes.” The ability to work through difficult conundrums applies to all kinds of life and career situations, such as, in his case, figuring out how to run a company, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A key part of challenging the smartest kid in a school, he added, is exposing him or her to peers who are just as sharp or even sharper. “I’ll tell kids, if you’re always the smartest person in the room, you need to find another room,” Rusczyk said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The internet now makes it a lot simpler to find and engage with a brainier crowd. For math lovers, AoPS is one of those “other rooms.” While children in the top 5 percent of intellectual talent largely look the same in a standard curriculum -- all acing their classes with 100s -- in the AoPS community, students look wildly different in their abilities, interests, and needs, Rusczyk said. Some want to be “taught to the test” and need to be trained out of that mentality, while others want to only think about tackling hard problems. Some turn in beautiful writing assignments, he said, while others “will write stuff that their English teachers would be horrified to look at -- no punctuation, no capital letters.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When very bright children are ready for a more in-depth complexity of material at a young age but don’t get it at their schools, they’re badly served, said Stanford math professor Rafe Mazzeo, who served as EPGY’s faculty director. It’s not uncommon to see gifted kids who tap out all their high school’s math courses early and spend their entire senior year taking humanities classes. But if those students plan to go into any quantitative discipline, including engineering or natural sciences, allowing their math skills to get rusty for a year or more is “kind of a disaster,” Mazzeo said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If they have a couple of fallow years where they’re not being challenged, you can really do them intellectual damage.” With its extracurricular computer-based classes, EPGY’s mission has been to help students race ahead with more challenging, accelerated coursework while still staying in the social milieu of their regular grades at their local schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At Stanford OHS, which grew out of EPGY’s success, students also can race ahead, but they generally do it with a cohort of other high-achievers who are doing the same thing. The school’s philosophy is to place students into courses by their ability, not age or grade level, said admissions director Claire Goldsmith. “There’s no way to max out. We can offer courses to kids at all levels.” With 530 students from 43 states and 18 nations currently enrolled, OHS focuses on fostering critical thinking and argumentation with its core curriculum. It also provides counseling support for social and emotional issues.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>STUDENTS’ EXPERIENCES\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chloe Clougher of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, started at OHS as a junior last fall after two years at a nearby private college-preparatory high school, and prior to that, homeschooling since kindergarten. Though she liked her local school, she decided to apply to OHS because it offered some advanced classes in science and Mandarin that the brick-and-mortar school didn’t have. It would’ve been otherwise frustrating “to try to cobble a whole random schedule together from, like, three different schools or online courses like edX,” said the 16-year-old, who won a full scholarship covering OHS’s expensive $17,250 yearly tuition. (About 16 percent of OHS students receive financial aid.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although the brick-and-mortar high school has AP courses, Clougher said, she noticed that they kept students busy with lots of assignments that didn’t seem like meaningful work. Now at OHS, she is currently jazzed about biology class and her instructor, who’s not only enthusiastic about teaching, but also about learning new areas of biological research – and hearing what the students have to say. “You don’t really see that in a whole lot of teachers,” Clougher said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They have excellent teachers and really interesting classes,” said sophomore Eva Guevara, 15, who lives in Marfa, a town in far West Texas, and is also attending OHS on a full scholarship. She had gone to ninth grade at the local brick-and-mortar public high school, but found the pace slow and uninteresting. Biology class was especially disappointing, she said. “I ended up just being sent out of the room and just \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/05/how-are-teachers-and-students-using-khan-academy/\" target=\"_blank\">watching Khan Academy \u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/05/how-are-teachers-and-students-using-khan-academy/\" target=\"_blank\">videos\u003c/a> and taking notes on those.” Today, she still goes to the local school building, but only to attend one robotics course and use the library, where she logs into her OHS seminars. Chemistry class, currently her favorite, is “challenging but also it’s really fun,” Guevara said. “And I feel like it’s going at a really great pace for me too.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the Stanford coursework is more rigorous and satisfying, both Clougher and Guevara said that social interactions with their classmates online, although quite good, naturally can’t fully match the social life of a real-life high school. But many OHS students do get to meet classmates face-to-face in occasional get-togethers in their region.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For gifted students, building strong friendships is as important to their personal growth as academic achievement. In San Francisco, Saret said that finding communities for her son and their family, and keeping those social circles going, has been one of the biggest challenges. For him, attending \u003ca href=\"http://epsiloncamp.org/\" target=\"_blank\">Epsilon Camp\u003c/a>, a two-week summer program for 8- to 11-year-olds who are profoundly gifted at math, was life-changing: At the camp held in Colorado Springs, Colorado, in 2011, he met kindred spirits sharing an intense passion for math, a community where he felt he truly belonged.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He has said to me, ‘It was the first time that I felt that other kids understood what I was trying to say in the most truthful sense.’ He could just be himself, say whatever he wanted to say, without worrying about the other kids not getting him,” said Saret, who subsequently became Epsilon Camp’s admissions director. Her son still keeps in touch with the close friends he made there, including some who live in the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_35793\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-35793\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/05/153204599-e1400374634332.jpg\" alt=\"Getty\" width=\"640\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/05/153204599-e1400374634332.jpg 640w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/05/153204599-e1400374634332-400x250.jpg 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/05/153204599-e1400374634332-320x200.jpg 320w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Getty\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp class=\"dropcap-serif\">When parents find they have a two-year-old who can read, or a five-year-old who wakes up talking about square roots, the task of ensuring that these exceptionally bright children get the educational nourishment they need is unchartered territory. The path can be frustrating for the kids, and worry-inducing for the parents. But the ongoing boom in online learning opportunities has been a great benefit for many gifted youth because the offerings can cater to a student’s ability rather than age.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sating the voracious curiosity of gifted students can be challenging. They may get bored and cranky when they easily grasp lessons ahead of the group in a standard classroom. Take, for example, the case of a seven-year-old who attends a Berkeley, Calif., public elementary school. When he found the pace of his math class unbearably slow, he protested by gluing together two months’ worth of his math worksheets. Given a new packet of them, he “filled out all the answers, and then folded each sheet into paper airplanes,” his mother said. (The mother asked that they not be identified in this story.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The educational infrastructure in the U.S. for supporting high-achieving students is an underfunded patchwork quilt of services and programs across the states, according to \u003ca href=\"http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20111109005205/en/Nations-Infrastructure-Support-Gifted-Students-Crumbling-Survey\" target=\"_blank\">a survey by the National Association for Gifted Children\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We do not have a systematic way of addressing the needs of the gifted,” said Joyce VanTassel-Baska, education professor emerita at the College of William and Mary. “You could go to one school system and they might be doing a great job. And you would go to another school system and you would see nothing.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As a result, gifted students and their parents often must cobble together their \u003ca href=\"http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_ic_10680.aspx\" target=\"_blank\">own individual education plan\u003c/a> from various sources to obtain a deeper, more advanced intellectual dive than what standard school systems can provide.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the case of the young Berkeley protester, who was reading at a fifth-grade level by age four, “we spend \u003cem>a lot\u003c/em> of time at the library trying to keep up with his interests and voracious reading habit,” his mother said. At home, “we make books, build airplanes and robots out of found objects, research stuff online, fix our bikes, and create elaborate LEGO machines. He is endlessly curious and astonishingly creative.” The parents have signed him up for extracurricular classes in science as well as art, music, and sports, including classes for gifted students at the Lawrence Hall of Science. This family has not tried online options yet, and if they do look into private school options, they’ll have to apply for scholarships or financial aid, or would not be able to afford it.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">“It’s very difficult to find a high school that would be willing to have a 10-year-old take an AP course.”\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Across the bay in San Francisco, Debbie Saret has been similarly engaged in an evolving process of discovery in finding the right resources for her exceptionally gifted son -- a 13-year-old who is now doing math coursework at the college-sophomore level. Six years ago, when she and her husband decided to homeschool him starting in the second grade, it was like stepping off “into the unknown” – a journey that had the parents constantly worrying whether they were making good choices and often “really feeling quite alone, because nobody else around us had ever done anything like that,” she said. Her son’s education has been an eclectic meld of private tutoring, online courses, after-school and summer camps, \u003ca href=\"https://www.mathcircles.org\" target=\"_blank\">math circle\u003c/a>, and community college classes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>ONLINE SOURCES BRING ACCESS TO THE WORLD\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Compared to three decades ago, many more out-of-school academic resources are now available for gifted learners, which makes it easier than ever to access advanced learning opportunities, ranging from \u003ca href=\"http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/08/24/01edtech-gifted.h31.html\" target=\"_blank\">video courses\u003c/a> to \u003ca href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/20/education/stanfords-online-high-school-raises-the-bar.html?_r=0\" target=\"_blank\">diploma-granting online high schools.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The online component was extremely important for us,” Saret said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Math and English courses from Stanford’s \u003ca href=\"http://epgy.stanford.edu\" target=\"_blank\">Education Program for Gifted Youth\u003c/a> (EPGY) initially formed the backbone of the Saret son’s homeschooling. Founded in 1990, EPGY has long offered self-paced, computer-based instruction through brief, pre-recorded multimedia lectures on CD-ROMs or, as technology has evolved, via web browser. Students can also sign up for tutorial guidance from an instructor by phone, email, or the web. (Under a recent licensing deal with Stanford, an education company named Redbird Advanced Learning has taken over the EPGY program and is in a transition of updating and enhancing its technology components.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At age eight, Saret’s son began taking classes part-time at \u003ca href=\"https://ohs.stanford.edu/\" target=\"_blank\">Stanford Online High School\u003c/a> (OHS), a fully accredited, diploma-granting school for academically talented students in grades 7 through 12. OHS, which opened in 2006, provides real-time, interactive virtual seminars through web-based video conferencing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite the fact that much of it happens online, Saret says there’s an emphasis on developing personal connections, too. “They really have a sense of community,” Saret noted. “Class meetings, clubs -- it’s a very interactive online experience with video, text chat, whiteboard. Very much like a normal class, but online in terms of interaction.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Saret is grateful that these sorts of learning resources exist for her son. “Online opportunities are really a big benefit for this group of students, because your age doesn’t matter as much as your interests and your ability … Because it’s very difficult to, say, find a high school that would be willing to have a 10-year-old take an AP course,” she said. At that age, her son was able to study AP physics at OHS.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>TEACHING THE GIFTED\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other digital learning options for the gifted include independent-study courses from \u003ca href=\"http://cty.jhu.edu/ctyonline\" target=\"_blank\">Johns Hopkins University\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"http://tip.duke.edu/node/141\" target=\"_blank\">Duke University\u003c/a>, and \u003ca href=\"http://www.ctd.northwestern.edu/gll/\" target=\"_blank\">Northwestern University\u003c/a>. Another resource popular among young math prodigies around the world is the \u003ca href=\"http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/School/index.php?page=howclassroomworks\" target=\"_blank\">Art of Problem Solving\u003c/a> (AoPS) web community and school, which provides real-time instruction through a virtual classroom where pupils and teachers communicate via live text-chatting. Such online education programs offer bright kids a lot of flexibility and a variety of ways for taking their learning well beyond the usual school curricula. Even if standard schools offer advanced placement classes in calculus, those offerings aren’t rigorous enough for many of the mathematically precocious kids who come to AoPS, said Richard Rusczyk, company founder and a winner of the USA Mathematics Olympiad in 1989.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They get everything right away. The problems are just too easy,” he said. Typical AP classes don’t prepare the students for math courses at places like MIT, he said, where they may hit the wall of failure for the very first time – and get so discouraged that they just might quit math or science. That would be bad, not just for the student but also potentially for all of us, because as Rusczyk and others point out, these exceptionally bright individuals have a lot to give. “These students are going to produce an outsized portion of the major technological, medical, mathematical, scientific, economic advances of the next generation,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The philosophy at AoPS is to teach math at a deep and complex level and introduce high-performing students to difficult problems that stretch their capabilities early. In Rusczyk’s view, the ultimate goal of education should be “\u003ca href=\"http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10565.aspx\" target=\"_blank\">to teach students how to solve problems \u003c/a>they’ve never seen before. That’s the main focus of what we’re trying to do in our classes.” The ability to work through difficult conundrums applies to all kinds of life and career situations, such as, in his case, figuring out how to run a company, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A key part of challenging the smartest kid in a school, he added, is exposing him or her to peers who are just as sharp or even sharper. “I’ll tell kids, if you’re always the smartest person in the room, you need to find another room,” Rusczyk said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The internet now makes it a lot simpler to find and engage with a brainier crowd. For math lovers, AoPS is one of those “other rooms.” While children in the top 5 percent of intellectual talent largely look the same in a standard curriculum -- all acing their classes with 100s -- in the AoPS community, students look wildly different in their abilities, interests, and needs, Rusczyk said. Some want to be “taught to the test” and need to be trained out of that mentality, while others want to only think about tackling hard problems. Some turn in beautiful writing assignments, he said, while others “will write stuff that their English teachers would be horrified to look at -- no punctuation, no capital letters.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When very bright children are ready for a more in-depth complexity of material at a young age but don’t get it at their schools, they’re badly served, said Stanford math professor Rafe Mazzeo, who served as EPGY’s faculty director. It’s not uncommon to see gifted kids who tap out all their high school’s math courses early and spend their entire senior year taking humanities classes. But if those students plan to go into any quantitative discipline, including engineering or natural sciences, allowing their math skills to get rusty for a year or more is “kind of a disaster,” Mazzeo said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If they have a couple of fallow years where they’re not being challenged, you can really do them intellectual damage.” With its extracurricular computer-based classes, EPGY’s mission has been to help students race ahead with more challenging, accelerated coursework while still staying in the social milieu of their regular grades at their local schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At Stanford OHS, which grew out of EPGY’s success, students also can race ahead, but they generally do it with a cohort of other high-achievers who are doing the same thing. The school’s philosophy is to place students into courses by their ability, not age or grade level, said admissions director Claire Goldsmith. “There’s no way to max out. We can offer courses to kids at all levels.” With 530 students from 43 states and 18 nations currently enrolled, OHS focuses on fostering critical thinking and argumentation with its core curriculum. It also provides counseling support for social and emotional issues.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>STUDENTS’ EXPERIENCES\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chloe Clougher of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, started at OHS as a junior last fall after two years at a nearby private college-preparatory high school, and prior to that, homeschooling since kindergarten. Though she liked her local school, she decided to apply to OHS because it offered some advanced classes in science and Mandarin that the brick-and-mortar school didn’t have. It would’ve been otherwise frustrating “to try to cobble a whole random schedule together from, like, three different schools or online courses like edX,” said the 16-year-old, who won a full scholarship covering OHS’s expensive $17,250 yearly tuition. (About 16 percent of OHS students receive financial aid.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although the brick-and-mortar high school has AP courses, Clougher said, she noticed that they kept students busy with lots of assignments that didn’t seem like meaningful work. Now at OHS, she is currently jazzed about biology class and her instructor, who’s not only enthusiastic about teaching, but also about learning new areas of biological research – and hearing what the students have to say. “You don’t really see that in a whole lot of teachers,” Clougher said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They have excellent teachers and really interesting classes,” said sophomore Eva Guevara, 15, who lives in Marfa, a town in far West Texas, and is also attending OHS on a full scholarship. She had gone to ninth grade at the local brick-and-mortar public high school, but found the pace slow and uninteresting. Biology class was especially disappointing, she said. “I ended up just being sent out of the room and just \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/05/how-are-teachers-and-students-using-khan-academy/\" target=\"_blank\">watching Khan Academy \u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/05/how-are-teachers-and-students-using-khan-academy/\" target=\"_blank\">videos\u003c/a> and taking notes on those.” Today, she still goes to the local school building, but only to attend one robotics course and use the library, where she logs into her OHS seminars. Chemistry class, currently her favorite, is “challenging but also it’s really fun,” Guevara said. “And I feel like it’s going at a really great pace for me too.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the Stanford coursework is more rigorous and satisfying, both Clougher and Guevara said that social interactions with their classmates online, although quite good, naturally can’t fully match the social life of a real-life high school. But many OHS students do get to meet classmates face-to-face in occasional get-togethers in their region.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For gifted students, building strong friendships is as important to their personal growth as academic achievement. In San Francisco, Saret said that finding communities for her son and their family, and keeping those social circles going, has been one of the biggest challenges. For him, attending \u003ca href=\"http://epsiloncamp.org/\" target=\"_blank\">Epsilon Camp\u003c/a>, a two-week summer program for 8- to 11-year-olds who are profoundly gifted at math, was life-changing: At the camp held in Colorado Springs, Colorado, in 2011, he met kindred spirits sharing an intense passion for math, a community where he felt he truly belonged.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He has said to me, ‘It was the first time that I felt that other kids understood what I was trying to say in the most truthful sense.’ He could just be himself, say whatever he wanted to say, without worrying about the other kids not getting him,” said Saret, who subsequently became Epsilon Camp’s admissions director. Her son still keeps in touch with the close friends he made there, including some who live in the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"disqusTitle": "Social And Emotional Benefits Of Video Games: Metacognition and Relationships",
"title": "Social And Emotional Benefits Of Video Games: Metacognition and Relationships",
"headTitle": "The MindShift Guide to Digital Games and Learning | MindShift | KQED News",
"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_35744\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/05/6660073135_a315ee4b17_z-e1400258741166.jpg\" alt=\"Brad Flickinger\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" class=\"size-full wp-image-35744\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/05/6660073135_a315ee4b17_z-e1400258741166.jpg 640w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/05/6660073135_a315ee4b17_z-e1400258741166-400x225.jpg 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/05/6660073135_a315ee4b17_z-e1400258741166-320x180.jpg 320w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Brad Flickinger\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Part 4 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\">For years, most people thought that video games were like candy: mostly bad, tempting to children, but okay in moderation. Now we understand that they can have more “nutritional” value than our parents ever imagined.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>My brothers and I played Space Invaders and Pac Man, Asteroids and Breakout. We pulled the plastic casing off the Atari joystick and stuck the accordioned bottom end to our foreheads like a suction cup. These were still the early days of interactive home computing and because game consoles were so unfamiliar, the adults were afraid. Surely, they assumed, staring at a box of glowing light while pressing buttons in response to electronic triggers would cause some invisible neural damage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kids played video games for hours. They wiggled joysticks and maneuvered “paddles” until they discovered the game’s patterns. They talked about the games with their friends. They shared tips and tricks. Even if they \u003cem>were\u003c/em> learning together, and if the arcade was always a kind of educational community, what exactly were they learning? Clearly, not the things that mattered. All learning is not good learning. Something had to be done.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Along came \u003ci>Oregon Trail, Reader Rabbit, Math Blaster\u003c/i>, and others. Gamification was not yet a household word. Back then, folks “school-ified” video games. The shoot-em up alien attack narratives were replaced with educational curriculum: facts about letters, numbers, history, science. Each correct solution launched a missile at your enemy. If kids were going to memorize all the details of a video game, why not construct those details so that they align with classroom content? It made sense. And it worked. Many of us learned touch typing from Mario and geography from Carmen Sandiego.\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>Clearly, the world has changed considerably since then. Interacting with machines is commonplace. It's normal to respond to screen-based electronic stimuli. Work almost always involves some interaction with digital platforms. Maybe this is why video games no longer inspire the same kind of anxiety and terror from parents and caregivers as they once did. In fact, we now know that games can teach much more than just content. There are social, emotional, and meta-cognitive benefits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2013, the American Psychological Association \u003ca href=\"http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2013/11/video-games.aspx\" target=\"_blank\">published a study\u003c/a> that identified some of the benefits of gaming, and the results were surprising. For example, in controlled tests, kids who played first-person shooters showed “faster and more accurate attention allocation, higher spatial resolution in visual processing, and enhanced mental rotation abilities.” This likely has very little to do with the violent narrative and a lot to do with repetitive execution of reflex-based actions. Essentially, first person shooters are intricate 3D virtual simulations of the carnival classic “whack-a-mole.” Players need to react fast. This is why kids who play a lot of games seem to show “measurable changes in neural processing and efficiency” and a positive increase in creativity. Players practice quick thinking and hurried response.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Of course, neural advantages like these are vague and invisible. Research that assumes a biologically deterministic view of humanity should be questioned. When we imagine ourselves as cellular organisms first and only second as uniquely human, we equate ourselves with amoebas, insects, and animals. This theoretical approach implicitly assumes that our development and actions are determined by electrochemical and biological impulses alone. Instinct reigns. The classic conception that distinguishes humans as “moral” animals is rendered obsolete. These neuroscientific discoveries may be accurate, but when it comes to learning, is this approach useful? After all, our intention is not husbandry in a petri dish. Instead, we aim to nurture human citizens that contribute to an ethical civilization.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We want our children to develop strong meta-cognitive skills. We want students to become critical thinkers that are motivated to make a difference in the world. When it comes to motivation, look to the work of \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/tag/carol-dweck/\" target=\"_blank\">Carol Dweck, \u003c/a>Stanford professor who writes about motivation and social development. She makes a distinction between an \u003cb>entity\u003c/b> theory of intelligence and an \u003cstrong>incremental\u003c/strong> theory of intelligence. When kids develop an \u003cb>entity\u003c/b> theory of intelligence, they believe they have innate, fixed traits. They're praised for being smart, or being good at math. It has a negative impact on long term attitudes. When kids develop an \u003cb>incremental\u003c/b> theory of intelligence, on the other hand, they understand that they have certain \u003ci>skills\u003c/i>. They are praised for their effort: “you worked so hard on that problem, you solved that puzzle.” They have a \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2012/11/beyond-talent-and-smarts-why-even-geniuses-struggle/\" target=\"_blank\">growth mindset\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=\"e71d679ae3717bbdd5eb8ba4d7082073\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Video games nurture an incremental understanding of intelligence. Because players are rewarded for one task at a time -- for overcoming one obstacle after another -- they learn to understand learning and accomplishment iteratively. For example, each track in Nintendo’s classic game \u003ci>Mario Kart\u003c/i> has its own particular challenges. Each time a player drives it he or she addresses the weaknesses of the previous attempt. The player iterates performance incrementally, addressing shortcomings and adjusting accordingly. He or she understands that mastering one course doesn’t necessarily equate to mastery of the next. A new learning process begins at the conclusion of the previous one.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Games designed for the classroom can leverage the same sort of motivational intelligence. Consider a game like \u003ca href=\"https://www.filamentgames.com/products/reach-sun-product\">\u003ci>Reach For The Sun \u003c/i>\u003c/a>(Filament Games). This resource management game is designed to teach plant life cycle sciences and photosynthesis. Players are challenged to “become a plant” and balance resources like starch and water. “Extend your roots, sprout leaves, and make your flowers bloom before winter hits.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezAH_WY6a8I&w=640&h=360]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Succeeding in \u003ci>Reach For The Sun \u003c/i>is about more than just trial and error. It involves an incremental approach that’s way more authentic than a workbook, lecture, or a quiz. It is not about right and wrong; it is about simulation. Students don’t just retain textbook bullet points of photosynthesis. They understand in an experiential way that the plant is a vibrant, dynamic life system that is constantly adjusting to its surroundings. They succeed when they comprehend the way a plant \u003ci>relates \u003c/i>to the world around it. Learning is about incrementally applying \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/05/how-games-based-learning-teaches-problem-solving-in-context/\">content in context\u003c/a>. And context is all about iterating relationships.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the process of learning to incrementally iterate in context, students are developing metacognitive skills. Put simply, metacognition describes an individual’s ability to think about his or her own thinking. Among other things, it refers to the ability to self-evaluate a thought process and to iterate based on an analysis of strengths and weaknesses. For learners, strong metacognitive functions translate into study skills. Strong metacognitive functions mean students have the ability to identify problem areas and seek out the necessary and deliberate practice needed to compensate for weaknesses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Metacognition is also another word for what educators are talking about when we say we want to create life-long learners. When we talk about critical thinking, problem solving skills, creating innovators, or nurturing perseverance, we’re talking about metacognition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those skills are not really unique to the new millenium. They are the same reflexive skills that have always been the prerequisite to critical thinking. Character education is code for metacognition. It's all about producing individuals who have the desire, the drive, and the skill, to look at themselves and evaluate the way they think about their place in the world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most importantly, strong metacognitive skills translate into strong interpersonal skills. After all, the ability to look at yourself is one of life’s most important social skills. How can you relate to others if you can’t even relate to yourself? Not well. Relationships, conflict resolution, and emotional intelligence all require strong metacognitive skills.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What does this have to do with video games? A lot: 70 percent of gamers play their games with other people. Contrary to the popular image of the gamer as an awkward, socially inept loner, players are actually engaged with one another. Think back to that educational community that emerged in every 1980s pizza parlor around the Ms. Pacman machine. Gamers play cooperatively. They play competitively. They share tips and tricks. They work together. The \u003ci>teach \u003c/i>each other how to get better at the game-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Imagine a classroom where collaboration is the norm. Where assessment is collective and individual assessment and competition do not create a culture of “entity intelligence.” Game-based learning is one tool that can help make it a reality.\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_35744\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2014/05/6660073135_a315ee4b17_z-e1400258741166.jpg\" alt=\"Brad Flickinger\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" class=\"size-full wp-image-35744\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/05/6660073135_a315ee4b17_z-e1400258741166.jpg 640w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/05/6660073135_a315ee4b17_z-e1400258741166-400x225.jpg 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2014/05/6660073135_a315ee4b17_z-e1400258741166-320x180.jpg 320w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Brad Flickinger\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Part 4 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\">For years, most people thought that video games were like candy: mostly bad, tempting to children, but okay in moderation. Now we understand that they can have more “nutritional” value than our parents ever imagined.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>My brothers and I played Space Invaders and Pac Man, Asteroids and Breakout. We pulled the plastic casing off the Atari joystick and stuck the accordioned bottom end to our foreheads like a suction cup. These were still the early days of interactive home computing and because game consoles were so unfamiliar, the adults were afraid. Surely, they assumed, staring at a box of glowing light while pressing buttons in response to electronic triggers would cause some invisible neural damage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kids played video games for hours. They wiggled joysticks and maneuvered “paddles” until they discovered the game’s patterns. They talked about the games with their friends. They shared tips and tricks. Even if they \u003cem>were\u003c/em> learning together, and if the arcade was always a kind of educational community, what exactly were they learning? Clearly, not the things that mattered. All learning is not good learning. Something had to be done.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Along came \u003ci>Oregon Trail, Reader Rabbit, Math Blaster\u003c/i>, and others. Gamification was not yet a household word. Back then, folks “school-ified” video games. The shoot-em up alien attack narratives were replaced with educational curriculum: facts about letters, numbers, history, science. Each correct solution launched a missile at your enemy. If kids were going to memorize all the details of a video game, why not construct those details so that they align with classroom content? It made sense. And it worked. Many of us learned touch typing from Mario and geography from Carmen Sandiego.\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>Clearly, the world has changed considerably since then. Interacting with machines is commonplace. It's normal to respond to screen-based electronic stimuli. Work almost always involves some interaction with digital platforms. Maybe this is why video games no longer inspire the same kind of anxiety and terror from parents and caregivers as they once did. In fact, we now know that games can teach much more than just content. There are social, emotional, and meta-cognitive benefits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2013, the American Psychological Association \u003ca href=\"http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2013/11/video-games.aspx\" target=\"_blank\">published a study\u003c/a> that identified some of the benefits of gaming, and the results were surprising. For example, in controlled tests, kids who played first-person shooters showed “faster and more accurate attention allocation, higher spatial resolution in visual processing, and enhanced mental rotation abilities.” This likely has very little to do with the violent narrative and a lot to do with repetitive execution of reflex-based actions. Essentially, first person shooters are intricate 3D virtual simulations of the carnival classic “whack-a-mole.” Players need to react fast. This is why kids who play a lot of games seem to show “measurable changes in neural processing and efficiency” and a positive increase in creativity. Players practice quick thinking and hurried response.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Of course, neural advantages like these are vague and invisible. Research that assumes a biologically deterministic view of humanity should be questioned. When we imagine ourselves as cellular organisms first and only second as uniquely human, we equate ourselves with amoebas, insects, and animals. This theoretical approach implicitly assumes that our development and actions are determined by electrochemical and biological impulses alone. Instinct reigns. The classic conception that distinguishes humans as “moral” animals is rendered obsolete. These neuroscientific discoveries may be accurate, but when it comes to learning, is this approach useful? After all, our intention is not husbandry in a petri dish. Instead, we aim to nurture human citizens that contribute to an ethical civilization.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We want our children to develop strong meta-cognitive skills. We want students to become critical thinkers that are motivated to make a difference in the world. When it comes to motivation, look to the work of \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/tag/carol-dweck/\" target=\"_blank\">Carol Dweck, \u003c/a>Stanford professor who writes about motivation and social development. She makes a distinction between an \u003cb>entity\u003c/b> theory of intelligence and an \u003cstrong>incremental\u003c/strong> theory of intelligence. When kids develop an \u003cb>entity\u003c/b> theory of intelligence, they believe they have innate, fixed traits. They're praised for being smart, or being good at math. It has a negative impact on long term attitudes. When kids develop an \u003cb>incremental\u003c/b> theory of intelligence, on the other hand, they understand that they have certain \u003ci>skills\u003c/i>. They are praised for their effort: “you worked so hard on that problem, you solved that puzzle.” They have a \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2012/11/beyond-talent-and-smarts-why-even-geniuses-struggle/\" target=\"_blank\">growth mindset\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Video games nurture an incremental understanding of intelligence. Because players are rewarded for one task at a time -- for overcoming one obstacle after another -- they learn to understand learning and accomplishment iteratively. For example, each track in Nintendo’s classic game \u003ci>Mario Kart\u003c/i> has its own particular challenges. Each time a player drives it he or she addresses the weaknesses of the previous attempt. The player iterates performance incrementally, addressing shortcomings and adjusting accordingly. He or she understands that mastering one course doesn’t necessarily equate to mastery of the next. A new learning process begins at the conclusion of the previous one.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Games designed for the classroom can leverage the same sort of motivational intelligence. Consider a game like \u003ca href=\"https://www.filamentgames.com/products/reach-sun-product\">\u003ci>Reach For The Sun \u003c/i>\u003c/a>(Filament Games). This resource management game is designed to teach plant life cycle sciences and photosynthesis. Players are challenged to “become a plant” and balance resources like starch and water. “Extend your roots, sprout leaves, and make your flowers bloom before winter hits.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/ezAH_WY6a8I'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/ezAH_WY6a8I'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Succeeding in \u003ci>Reach For The Sun \u003c/i>is about more than just trial and error. It involves an incremental approach that’s way more authentic than a workbook, lecture, or a quiz. It is not about right and wrong; it is about simulation. Students don’t just retain textbook bullet points of photosynthesis. They understand in an experiential way that the plant is a vibrant, dynamic life system that is constantly adjusting to its surroundings. They succeed when they comprehend the way a plant \u003ci>relates \u003c/i>to the world around it. Learning is about incrementally applying \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/05/how-games-based-learning-teaches-problem-solving-in-context/\">content in context\u003c/a>. And context is all about iterating relationships.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the process of learning to incrementally iterate in context, students are developing metacognitive skills. Put simply, metacognition describes an individual’s ability to think about his or her own thinking. Among other things, it refers to the ability to self-evaluate a thought process and to iterate based on an analysis of strengths and weaknesses. For learners, strong metacognitive functions translate into study skills. Strong metacognitive functions mean students have the ability to identify problem areas and seek out the necessary and deliberate practice needed to compensate for weaknesses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Metacognition is also another word for what educators are talking about when we say we want to create life-long learners. When we talk about critical thinking, problem solving skills, creating innovators, or nurturing perseverance, we’re talking about metacognition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those skills are not really unique to the new millenium. They are the same reflexive skills that have always been the prerequisite to critical thinking. Character education is code for metacognition. It's all about producing individuals who have the desire, the drive, and the skill, to look at themselves and evaluate the way they think about their place in the world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most importantly, strong metacognitive skills translate into strong interpersonal skills. After all, the ability to look at yourself is one of life’s most important social skills. How can you relate to others if you can’t even relate to yourself? Not well. Relationships, conflict resolution, and emotional intelligence all require strong metacognitive skills.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What does this have to do with video games? A lot: 70 percent of gamers play their games with other people. Contrary to the popular image of the gamer as an awkward, socially inept loner, players are actually engaged with one another. Think back to that educational community that emerged in every 1980s pizza parlor around the Ms. Pacman machine. Gamers play cooperatively. They play competitively. They share tips and tricks. They work together. The \u003ci>teach \u003c/i>each other how to get better at the game-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Imagine a classroom where collaboration is the norm. Where assessment is collective and individual assessment and competition do not create a culture of “entity intelligence.” Game-based learning is one tool that can help make it a reality.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"info": "\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em>, which listeners will hear in the first part of the hour, has fearless and much-needed conversations about race. Hosted by journalists of color, the show tackles the subject of race head-on, exploring how it impacts every part of society — from politics and pop culture to history, sports and more.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em>, which will be in the second part of the hour, guides you through spaces and feelings no one prepares you for — from finances to mental health, from workplace microaggressions to imposter syndrome, from relationships to parenting. The show features experts with real world experience and shares their knowledge. Because everyone needs a little help being human.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510312/codeswitch\">\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/lifekit\">\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />",
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"id": "commonwealth-club",
"title": "Commonwealth Club of California Podcast",
"info": "The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum. As a non-partisan forum, The Club brings to the public airwaves diverse viewpoints on important topics. The Club's weekly radio broadcast - the oldest in the U.S., dating back to 1924 - is carried across the nation on public radio stations and is now podcasting. Our website archive features audio of our recent programs, as well as selected speeches from our long and distinguished history. This podcast feed is usually updated twice a week and is always un-edited.",
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"order": 9
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"meta": {
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"id": "fresh-air",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=214089682&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"hidden-brain": {
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"airtime": "SUN 7pm-8pm",
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"info": "Guy Raz dives into the stories behind some of the world's best known companies. How I Built This weaves a narrative journey about innovators, entrepreneurs and idealists—and the movements they built.",
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"airtime": "SUN 7:30pm-8pm",
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"hyphenacion": {
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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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"order": 15
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"jerrybrown": {
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"title": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown",
"tagline": "Lessons from a lifetime in politics",
"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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"order": 18
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},
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"title": "Latino USA",
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"info": "Latino USA, the radio journal of news and culture, is the only national, English-language radio program produced from a Latino perspective.",
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},
"marketplace": {
"id": "marketplace",
"title": "Marketplace",
"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",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Marketplace-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.marketplace.org/",
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"source": "American Public Media"
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},
"masters-of-scale": {
"id": "masters-of-scale",
"title": "Masters of Scale",
"info": "Masters of Scale is an original podcast in which LinkedIn co-founder and Greylock Partner Reid Hoffman sets out to describe and prove theories that explain how great entrepreneurs take their companies from zero to a gazillion in ingenious fashion.",
"airtime": "Every other Wednesday June 12 through October 16 at 8pm (repeats Thursdays at 2am)",
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"meta": {
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"rss": "https://rss.art19.com/masters-of-scale"
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},
"mindshift": {
"id": "mindshift",
"title": "MindShift",
"tagline": "A podcast about the future of learning and how we raise our kids",
"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>",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Mindshift-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED MindShift: How We Will Learn",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/mindshift/",
"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 12
},
"link": "/podcasts/mindshift",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM1NzY0NjAwNDI5",
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},
"morning-edition": {
"id": "morning-edition",
"title": "Morning Edition",
"info": "\u003cem>Morning Edition\u003c/em> takes listeners around the country and the world with multi-faceted stories and commentaries every weekday. Hosts Steve Inskeep, David Greene and Rachel Martin bring you the latest breaking news and features to prepare you for the day.",
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"onourwatch": {
"id": "onourwatch",
"title": "On Our Watch",
"tagline": "Deeply-reported investigative journalism",
"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?",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/On-Our-Watch-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/onourwatch",
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"order": 11
},
"link": "/podcasts/onourwatch",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5ucHIub3JnLzUxMDM2MC9wb2RjYXN0LnhtbD9zYz1nb29nbGVwb2RjYXN0cw",
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},
"on-the-media": {
"id": "on-the-media",
"title": "On The Media",
"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",
"airtime": "SUN 2pm-3pm, MON 12am-1am",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/onTheMedia.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.wnycstudios.org/shows/otm",
"meta": {
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"source": "wnyc"
},
"link": "/radio/program/on-the-media",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/on-the-media/id73330715?mt=2",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/On-the-Media-p69/",
"rss": "http://feeds.wnyc.org/onthemedia"
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},
"pbs-newshour": {
"id": "pbs-newshour",
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"info": "Analysis, background reports and updates from the PBS NewsHour putting today's news in context.",
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"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/PBS-News-Hour-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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},
"link": "/radio/program/pbs-newshour",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/pbs-newshour-full-show/id394432287?mt=2",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/PBS-NewsHour---Full-Show-p425698/",
"rss": "https://www.pbs.org/newshour/feeds/rss/podcasts/show"
}
},
"perspectives": {
"id": "perspectives",
"title": "Perspectives",
"tagline": "KQED's series of daily listener commentaries since 1991",
"info": "KQED's series of daily listener commentaries since 1991.",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Perspectives_Tile_Final.jpg",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/perspectives/",
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 14
},
"link": "/perspectives",
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"npr": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/432309616/perspectives",
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"planet-money": {
"id": "planet-money",
"title": "Planet Money",
"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.",
"airtime": "SUN 3pm-4pm",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/planetmoney.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/sections/money/",
"meta": {
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"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/planet-money",
"subscribe": {
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/planet-money/id290783428?mt=2",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510289/podcast.xml"
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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",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Political-Breakdown-2024-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 5
},
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