September, 2006

Interactive approaches to scientific data collection

gamepolitics has information about an experiment that’s addressing what one commentator has described as “sheeple” theory: play games and help science develop an understanding of social behaviour

See Guardian Gamesblog

The Virtual Advertising Agency

BBH launches a virtual advertising agency on Second Life but the article also includes mention of how Second Life is growing…..

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Wikipedia, Scholarpedia and now Citizendium…

Jack Schofield in Technology Guardian on a new version wikipedia…….

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Learning a Language Via the DS…..

English Training: Have Fun Improving Your Skills launches across Europe on Nintendo DS on 13th October 2006. The press release states it is perfect for anyone who hasn’t had the time, money or self-confidence to go on a course.

Gamespot UK News has the full press release if you haven’t seen it yet….

Another interesting educational use for the DS.

Electronic handsets helping to engage young mathematicians

Another interesting article from Education Guardian (you will need to register) regarding Quizdom Interact and Q4 handsets.

View The Article

Sounds great but how about doing the same thing with the Nintendo DS and Dr Kawashima’s brain training ? more on this topic later……

Death Of The Lecture ?

Education guardian (you will need to register) has an interesting viewpoint on podcasting as a learning medium by Dr David Hearnshaw…

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ALT-C 2006 Blog Presentation Feedback

Peter Murray at Informaticopia mentioned our ALT-C 2006 presentation and being concerned “about the control factor they seemed to be imposing”.

Just to clarify this point, during our blogging@bu pilot although some of the pilots in IHCS and SM were/will be behind a firewall due to issues of content we did run blogs in the clear using a variety of products – blogger, bloglines, elgg and the ubiquitous edublogs. Sorry if this point didn’t come across in our presentation, but it is an interesting area open to debate. There are plenty of instances as to why it might be advisable to exercise control in some cases. One such case can be seen at Slashdot

The slides from the Blogging@BU presentation can be viewed here

Playing Trauma Center #1

Last week I finally got around to purchasing Trauma Centre for the Nintendo DS. Having now performed three operations (not altogether successfully in one go !) I think this software/platform has much to offer in reflecting how similar educational health software packages could be produced and used with great success.

This very immersive environment puts you under time pressure – 5 minutes only to perform the operations and you have to remember sequences and techniques from previous operations to utilise in the next one in a high pressure situation. Operations can then be retried once unlocked to improve on previous attempts and to use as an aide memoire for future ops.

Learning in an environment like this (even though there are no proper medical techniques or learning outcomes to pick up) has huge potential over and above traditional methods of teaching.

How to podcast tutorial

A simple tutorial on podcasting

See the Tutorial

Recently highlighted on Andys Black Hole

iPods as language learning aid

Pupils given iPods as language learning aid. From Education Guardian in July – you will need to register to read this…….

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