Cross post: Nobelprize.org

Nobelprize.org's Educational Outreach Program: Multimedia Games, Experiments, and Simulated Environments

From the website:

"Nobelprize.org has a unique way of introducing the Nobel Prize that goes beyond the mere presentation of facts. These introductions, aptly called 'educational', are made in the form of games, experiments, and simulated environments ready to be explored and discovered. The productions are aimed at the young, particularly the 14-18 age groups, who may know about the Nobel Prizes and the Nobel Laureates, but often lack a deeper understanding about the Nobel Prize-awarded works."

"These educational productions do not require previous knowledge. A central thought or issue is explored during 10-20 minutes of activity, using a specific Nobel Prize-awarded work as a springboard for the whole exercise."

"The productions offer an excellent way of using the Internet for homework, or just plain, wholesome entertainment. The high level of interactivity and the sophisticated illustrations ensure an enriching time spent in front of the computer."

Note:

I recently came across the Nobelprize.org website when I was searching for interactive learning games suitable for use on interactive whiteboards or large touch-screen displays.

For those of you who follow my blog, you'll know that I periodically look for engaging visual and multimedia activities that have potential for use in classrooms where Universal Design for Learning is practiced. Visual and multimedia forms of knowledge representation can help to reach a wide range of people, including those who have reading difficulties, language-based learning disabilities, auditory attention and memory deficits, or have autism spectrum disorders (Asperger syndrome, autism, etc.).

If you are an educator who is interested in using games in your classroom, the resources from Nobelprize.org are a good start, since background information is provided for each game.

Data-Driven Decision-Making and Educational Data Mining

Technology tools are needed in order to support efforts such as Response to Intervention (RTI) that rely on closer monitoring of data regarding student progress. The Winston-Salem school district in North Carolina has implemented a web-based application known as the Teacher's Workbench, funded in part by a Reinventing Education grant from IBM.

According to an abstract by Mark Singley, Richard Boehme, Lei Kuang, Richard Lam, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, USA , "Teacher’s Workbench is a web application whose goal is to improve day-to-day instructional decision making by providing teachers with a finer-grained, more timely understanding of the ever-changing patterns of student proficiency in their classrooms. Teacher’s Workbench takes a three-pronged approach: First, the system provides integrated support for managing standards-based classroom data through the core functionality of a teacher planbook, student profiler, and access to third-party gradebooks. Secondly, the system amplifies the teacher’s ability to analyze and understand student performance by mining the gradebook, planbook, and other school data sources. The system alerts teachers to the existence of critical teaching and learning patterns. Finally, the system helps teachers act on these new understandings by automatically locating and delivering instructional resources in response to the patterns detected."

Business Tools for Better Schools is a website that advocates for improving educational data systems:

"...too often, educators do not know how to use the data system or lack training in how to leverage the information to improve instruction. Although collecting and disseminating better data is essential, knowing how to analyze and apply this information is just as important for improving student achievement. Business leaders, by tapping into their own corporate experiences, can help educators, administrators and policymakers understand how to access and use longitudinal data as part of daily operations and long-term improvement strategies."

In my opinion, school psychologists, given their backgrounds in measurement and data analysis, should be part of the decision-making process when school districts adopt new data systems designed to enhance student progress-monitoring.

If you are a school psychologist or educator who is involved in the use of data-driven decision-making to support Response to Intervention efforts, please leave a comment. What sort of software does your school use? What security and privacy precautions do you have in place to ensure the confidentiality of student information?

A Timeline of Teens and Technology: Presentation for School Psychologists

Amanda Lenhart, of the Pew Internet & American Life Project, presented "A Timeline of Teens and Technology " to the Policy & Advocacy in the Schools meeting of a group of school psychologists in August 2007. According to the presentation, the impact and implications are as follows:

• Those who have grown up with interactive media want to manipulate, remix, and share content.
• They expect to be in conversation with others about content- access to an audience
• Increasingly savvy about what they share, particularly on SNS-protecting privacy
• Social media is always on, and persistent
• But teens are still teens-the fundamentals of that time of life are still there.

It is important for educators to keep in mind how rapidly things are changing for their students regarding their creative and social use of the Internet and new technologies.



Link to PowerPoint Presentation

Food for Thought: This video about provides a good overview of computer and on-line privacy and security- if you work with students or if you are a parent, you'll find it useful:
"When I go to U. VA". is from UVA's Responsible Computing effort:

Family, Friends & Community Resources (from the Pew Website)

Parent and Teen Internet Use

Teens and Online Stranger Contact

Cyberbullying

Teens, Privacy and Online Social Networks

Social Networking Websites and Teens

MegaPost: Resources for All

Since I started blogging, new technologies have made their way into an increasing number of classrooms, and many educators are aware of efforts such as Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and Response to Intervention or Instruction (RTI), as well as innovative technologies that provide engaged, interactive learning experiences for students.

I've consolidated information and updated links and resources from some previous posts from my TechPsych and Interactive Multimedia Technology blogs. Although many of the resources cited in this post relate to K-12 education, some of the information is useful for instructional designers, school administrators, researchers, college/university educators, parents, and technologists who are interested in developing interactive multimedia applications for children and teens.

Take the time to review the "MegaPost" on the Interactive Multimedia Technology Blog!

Engaged Learning? Update

Those who follow my blogs know that I usually focus on the positive- engaging technologies, exciting research, interesting websites, and successes of others worth sharing. Today I came across a video that got me thinking about the importance of engaged learning, a topic I've written about in the past.

(Update- I added a second video that compliments the first.)

Much effort is extended in our high schools to prepare students for the "real" learning that will take place in college. With the increased emphasis on testing, it seems like the moment a child enters kindergarten, one of the main goals is to prepare for learning the skills needed in the following grade. Every student must be "ready".

Ready for....this?




In today's digital world, traditional word-based instruction doesn't always result in experiences that engage the hearts and minds of young people.

The video below was created by students involved in the Digital Ethnography group at Kansas State University. At the beginning of the video, the camera slowly peers around an empty university lecture hall, with the the following quote superimposed over the scene:

"Today's child is bewildered when he enters the 19th century environment that still characterizes the educational establishment where information is scarce but ordered and structured by fragmented, classified patterns, subjects, and schedules." -Marshall McLuhan, 1967

Although the quote is now forty years old, the message communicated in this video is clear. Despite technology, things haven't really changed, as traditional methods of teaching tend to disengage rather than engage a good number of students.



UPDATE:

After viewing the above video, watch this video, "When I grow up I want to be a teacher", a parody of a Monster.com commercial.

Boston Children's Hospital, The Big Tree: Innovative use of digital media technology to support communication skills

In the Autism Language Program at Boston's Children's hospital, therapists are using visual and multimedia methods of instruction, supported by technology. The program uses observational and two-way observational learning strategies to teach more complex concepts and skills.

Information from the Children's Hospital research and development web page describes research that supports the use of technology with children who have autism spectrum disorders:

"Our clinical observations have revealed that children on the spectrum are interested in all forms of electronic media. We conducted an extensive survey to quantify this observation. We surveyed 90 families of children (age 3-15) with autism from the Midwest and the east coast.

Partial results of the survey:

Children had extensive computer, television and video interest.
Animated characters were more interesting than human figures.
Majority of the children spend more time with media than they do with all other forms of play combined.

These findings are helping us discover ways to use animated characters as therapeutic tools to help children learn language."

The Big Tree is a website that includes information about "Multimedia Advocacy", the "use of multimedia to have a voice". This is especially important for young people who have communication disorders or other disabilities as they transition to adult life.

"Multimedia advocacy is process driven using a camera, video and computer in work with people who have learning disabilities has value as a process of assisted communication in its own right. Taking a person-centred approach so that service users are involved takes time. Multimedia advocacy provides valuable tools that allow those with communication difficulties ownership of their plans and records, rather like having ´an accessible filing cabinet´ that helps to shift the power relationships entailed in supporting people around and getting the focus onto the individual and placing them at the centre."

Karen Janowski's Blog Post: Free Technology Toolkit for UDL (Universal Design for Learning)

I just came by a great blog, "Ed Tech Solutions: Teaching Every Student" authored by Karen Janowski, an assistive technology consultant. Click on the above title link to find her post about a wide range of free technology tools that can support Universal Design For Learning (UDL) and assistive technology efforts. Great job, Karen!

Simulations and Games in Education

According to information from th SimSchool Website, "SimSchool Resources offer articles, research reports, links to human resources and multimedia, and other curriculum enhancements for teacher education. The collection is intended to support the growth of knowledge, skills and abilities needed for performance-based teaching and learning."

The Simulation & Games in Education collection has a wide range of articles by key researchers and practitioners in the field.


SimSchool is a digital library website of the Education Reform Networks, funded by the U.S. Department of Education Technology Innovations Challenge Grant and the U.S. Department of Ediucation PT3 Digital Equity Task Force.

LucidTouch two-sided touch screen

If you are interested in hand-held or mobile technologies that have potential for use in education, take a look at my post about LucidTouch, a two sided touch screen that is in development through a collaboration between Microsoft, the University of Toronto, and Mitsubishi.

Handheld Learning's link: Map of Future Forces Affecting Education: 2006-2016

It is difficult to keep up with changes that affect the future of education, especially when new technologies are springing up from every direction. For those of you who work in "low tech" educational settings, some of the changes might catch you by surprise. Hopefully some of the resources in this post and the TechPsych blog will help!

Handheld Learning website contains an interesting post about the future forces affecting education, along with a link to the "Map of Future Forces Affecting Education: 2006-2016". This map was created by the Knowledgeworks Foundation, an organization located in Ohio. The KnowledgeWorks Foundation is intersted in redesigning urban high schools in order to increase college access, enhance workforce education, and to create a seamless education system. They support the effective use of technology in the schools.


Handheld Learning, a group located in the UK, "promotes the use of mobile and ubiquitous technologies to enable transformational improvements in teaching and learning". They support the use of open standards and are committed to universal accessibility.

Handheld Learning was involved in the development of a recent video on Teachers.TV that provides an overview of the use of mobile devices by young people, including a discussion of the use of mobile devices for learning.

If you are interested in learning more about new technologies related to education, psychology, or special education, subscribe this blog. From the TechPsych blog, you can link to the Interactive Multimedia Technology or Technology-Supported Human-World Interaction. blogs.

Revisiting hand-held devices: iPhone, iPod Touch, and Education?

PDA's have been used in K-12 classrooms for several years, and as a result, resources for teachers such as hi-Ce (Center for Highly Interactive Classrooms, Curricula & Computing in Education), Palm for Education, and K12 Handhelds have become more available.

Some educators are thinking ahead of the crowd and brainstorming ways that Apple's iPhone could be used in educational settings, as it supports Web 2.0 applications. It it has an easy-to use multi-touch interface, and can access the Internet through a WiFi connection.

For more information, take some time to read the following articles:

"Educators assess iPhones for instruction" (Meris Stansbury, eSchool News)
"iPhone - 3 Features That Will Impact Education" (Jeff VanDrimmelen, EduTechie)

Now that the price has come down, iPhones, or the latest iPod "Touch" might be worth considering!

Browse The World Is My Interface Blog

"The World Is My Interface is about the development of newer technologies that support human-world interaction. This concept incorporates the best of of HCI, CSCW, universal usability, interaction design, game design, educational technology, and Ubicomp/ Pervasive Computing. The definition of "World", can include virtual worlds, simulations, VR, or augmented reality - just about anything humans interact with in their daily lives."

About Assisted Technology and ACC: Teaching Learners with Multiple Special Needs blog

The Teaching Students with Multiple Special Needs blog is a great resource for educators, therapists, and parents!

The blog has numerous useful links, nicely organized in the side-bar. You'll find pictures and videoclips that illustrate many of the blog's topics.

The companion website has loads of great information.

Teaching Learners with Multiple Special Needs Blog

Teaching Learners with Multiple Special Needs Website

About Wireless Handheld Devices in Education: Create-a-Scape and mscape

As I've mentioned before, the UK is often on the cutting edge of educational technology. Futurelab's "Create-A-Scape", an educational modification of Hewlett-Packard's mediascape software, gives students and teachers plenty of opportunities to explore the environment and be creative.

By the way, Create-A-Scape won the 2007 New Statesman New Media Award for Education.

If you haven't yet heard of this innovation, now is the time to learn, especially if you would like to create engaging educational experiences for your students. Integrating new technologies and applications takes time and thought, and the researchers, educational technologists, and educators at Futurelab have taken care of most of the groundwork.

What is a mediascape or mscape?

According to Futurelab's Create-a-Scape website, "A mediascape is composed of sounds, images and video placed outside in your local area. To see the images and video, and hear the sounds you need a handheld computer (PDA) and a pair of headphones. An optional GPS unit can automatically trigger the images, video and sounds in the right places."

"To create a mediascape, you start with a digital map of your local area. Using special, free software, you can attach digital sounds, pictures and video to places that you choose on the map (see below)."

"By going outside into the area the map covers, you can experience the mediascape. Using the handheld computer and headphones, you can hear the sounds and see the pictures and video in the places the author of the mediascape has put them. All sorts of exciting things can happen as you explore the mediascape."

Here is HP's promotional definition of a mediascape, a context-based application:

"Mediascapes are mobile, location-based experiences that incorporate digital media with the sights, sounds, and textures of the world around you. A mediascape blends digital images, video, audio and interactions with the physical landscape. Games, guided walks, tours, and destinations are among the mediascapes created to date. Download a mediascape onto a portable device, and see how your landscape comes alive as you move through the environment."

The mscapers website, a place where "mscapers" create and share mediascapes, offers free software. The wesbsite offers tutorials and demos. You'll need a Windows Mobile device with GPS to get started.

Here is a video clip from HP that shows people out and about engaged in mscaping:

If you are an educator who has used "Create-A-Scape", or if you are an mscaper, feel free to post your comments about your experiences.

On-line switch accessible games for children on the BBC website!

If you are a parent or teacher of a disabled child, here is some good news. The BBC reconfigured many on-line educational games for use with switches, which can be found on the CBeebies website.

The games can be easily adjusted to meet the needs of the user.


Here is a list I copied from the website that has links to all of the accessible games on the BBC's website:

Roly Mo, Snag a Snoot (single switch)

Teletubbies, Let's Count (single switch)

Teletubbies, Peek-a-boo(single switch)

Tots TV, Counting Song

(This works automatically with single switch).

Boogie Beebies: What am I? (single or double switch)

Razzledazzle: Chit Chat Chest (single or double switch)

Something Special: Old Macdonald's Farm (single or double switch)

Something Special: Transport Snap (single switch)

Tikkabilla: Emotion Theatre (single or double switch)

Tweenies: Startastic Captain Jake: (single or double switch)

Tweenies: Hide and Hear, the Adventures of Debbie Duck (single or double switch)

Tweenies: Make Music with Max (double switch)

"These games have not been as heavily modified, but they work with the keyboard as well as the mouse, which means they will also work with switches:"

Tweenies: The Enchanted Toyshop The 'next' button works with the spacebar.

Autumnwatch: Tigs' Quiz. This game works with the spacebar and return key.

Autumnwatch: Giggleswick Game This game works with the spacebar

Mama Mirabelle, Photo Match Game This game works with the spacebar

Jackanory: Rhyme Maker This game works with the spacebar. It is also strongly audio-driven, so should be good for children who cannot see.

Ball State Research: Wireless Handheld Devices (WHD) May Help Reluctant Readers

It is often difficult for parents and teachers to engage reluctant readers in reading. Hand-held devices, such as PDA's and eBooks may have the potential for interesting these students. According to an article by Laura Devaney, the associate editor of eSchool News, a Ball State study found that wireless handheld devices were motivating for reluctant readers, used at home and at school.
Link from the eSchool News article:
Bellaver's blog

Related links:
The Paperless Classroom
"101 great educational uses for your handheld computer" from K12handhelds.
THE Journal article: Assessment Testing>>In Their Hands
Wireless Generation website: "Formative assessment, reporting, and intervention solutions for a data-driven school system"

If you are using eBooks or PDA's in your school or classroom, or if you use hand-held technology to support reading interventions and/or assessments, please let me know.

TechPsych ResourceLinks: World Almanac of Educational Technology Wiki

The World Almanac of Educational Technologies is a new wiki where people interested and involved in educational and instructional technologies around the world can share information and resources.

e-School News Online: Current site of the week features the Microscope Imaging Station from the Exploratorium

One of my favorite sites is eSchool News Online. The Site of the Week is the Microscope Imaging Station, from the Exploratorium science museum's website. This is a site that I'd recommend viewing on a large-screen display or interactive whiteboard.

According to the Exploratorium website, the "Microcope Imaging Station produces high-resolution images and movies using research-grade microscopes. This gallery contains a range of images and movies that illustrate the diversity of what can be seen with light microscopes"



The link to eSchool News has links to past sites of the week.