Many of our students are hooked to different types of games (pc, ps2, xbox, mmorpg etc) and it has been deemed by many teachers that these games are a waste of time. Well, interestingly, this article points out that 3 of the world’s top researchers believed it to be otherwise.
As a computer gamer myself for the past 17+ years, I have learnt much from games. Besides facts which are obtainable by reading books, the training of reflexes (physical and mental) is perhaps something unacheivable by reading alone. The use of games can definitely complement the use of books in teaching and learning. One should not look at it as though books and games are mutually exclusive. Now that we are also going to explore games in our R&D work, wow, it’s going to be very exciting indeed.
[source: slashdot]
KnowNet – Open Source for Collaborative Knowledge Development and Learning
This few days we have been talking about looking at Open Source Software (OSS) for possible applications in schools, to support teaching and learning. Chanced open this site(KnowNet), home to 2 OSS, namely Plone and Zope.
For future reference purpose:
Zope is an open source application server for building content management systems, intranets, portals, and custom applications.
Plone is ideal as an intranet and extranet server, as a document publishing system, a portal server and as a groupware tool for collaboration between separately located entities.
Games, for education
Chanced upon this website while browsing the orange-covered “Engaging IT” CD produced by ETD in 2004, well, and it happens that this morning during meeting that the big word GAME was brought up.
I/We belong to a generation (may not hold true for everyone of the same age group though) of gamers where we have witnessed computer games giving off only beeps thru the good old PC speakers, to the 3D Live surround sound games today. Looking back, some of the facts that we gathered are from the games we have played. Hmm … let me recall the optimum height to fly a F-16 for maximum fuel efficiency …
Need more time to explore this website in evaluating its educational value, but the games are surely engaging 😛
Funbrain.com, check it out here.
Banning of Instant Messaging (IM)
Organisations as well as educational instituitions all the world have been banning the use of IM, for some reasons which includes security, waste of time, a form of distraction etc.
This post by James F in his blog has reminded us of the global community we are in as well as the world in which our students are growing up.
Quoting findings from a paper “Instant Messaging � Collaborative Tool or Educator�s nightmare!” by Robert Farmer, it is no surprise to me that under “students’ normal usage outside of class activities”, the frequency in use of forums is less than half that of IMs. It’s now 2005 and I believe the trend is there to stay, if not increase.
While IM is relatively new to the educational environment, it is raising many questions and concerns. Clearly students have embraced this technology, while faculty have not.
As a user very much hooked on to IM myself, perhaps it is timely that we (re)look in-depth on the benefits of IM *hmm*
Podcasting, a close look
Spent some time today to look at podcasting, one of the hottest thing lately, and well to look at its possible use for teaching and learning of course.
In short, if we compare podcasting to blogging, a blog post is a typewritten post, while a podcast publish an audio clip. The content for both can be similar, it’s the form that is different.
To begin podcasting, you simply need a digital device that is capable of capturing sound/voice. One commonly used piece of hardware by podcasting fans is the iPod. (origin of the pod in podcasting)
In this experiment, I used the built-in microphone of my latest toy. You need a software capable of capturing your voice and converting it to MP3 format. The freely available opensource software Audacity is the perfect choice. And here goes my 1st ever podcast!
Looking from the perspective of language(s) teaching and learning, podcasting is most useful for the developing of oral skills. Students can be asked to tell a story, to comment on any issue (just like in an oral exam), or simply to retell their day’s event! These are but some possiblities. Teacher may also use podcast to give assignments, such as ‘completing the story after you have heard this podcast‘.
As this tool is most useful in the development of the oral skills, where Mother-Tongue Languages are concerned, it may be more suitable for the primary level, where they are still learning to speak/narrate. For the secondary level, the Normal(Techinical) students would benefit most as a large proportion of their examination is based on the oral component.