Learning to nurture ideas - Latest Comments

Re: Finland’s Visual Arts Curriculum for Schools (Architecture, Visual Arts and Craft)

Dcerretani — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 15:51:55 -0000

It's hard to find this information. Thank you for providing it. You might think as a nation we would be investigating the success of the Finnish educational system, but then....

Re: Download YouTube videos the super simple way

Amar pawar — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 04:16:42 -0000

i found another very easy and simple method to download youtube videos here http://latesthackingnotes.blog...

Re: Threnody for #egypt

Ms. Solomon — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 10:53:47 -0000

Ian, I have come back to this post several times. It's captivating. I love Jabiz's found poem, likely because that is the form I have studied the most, the experience with which I have the most comfort and familiarity. But I agree with your point as well. The transmedia/intertextuality is an important part of the experience (though you could argue that most traditional poetry also depends on the same and is incomplete without further investigation and recognition of the texts/media that it alludes to). Is transmedia in this case simply a 21st century form of allusion? And if we get caught up in following links and exploring all the many and varied tangental texts, do we do so at the expense of the poetry? Or is the poetry tangental and the hypertext the point?
Of course, that's just what caught me today. The first time I looked at this post, it reminded me of my experience as I watched the elections and protests from Iran in 2009. Then, my questions were more about news and how we receive it/understand it/experience it. Which just goes to show how valuable and complex this post actually is. Thank you Ian!

Re: A housewarming gift for Anastasis Academy

Ktenkely — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 18:54:09 -0000

Ian, we look forward to this incredible gift with anticipation! The staff all knows it is coming but we thought we would keep it as a special surprise for students and let them open it during our devotions one morning. Thank you friend!

Re: Making Game Based Learning #gbl – research & principles

Adrian Camm — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 22:08:12 -0000

Thanks for those links Ian - very timely, especially the Tech for Creative Learning course.

You are right - it depends on how you define an MMO. Minecraft is something that I would consider a multiplayer game, but not a massive multiplayer game that is capable of supporting hundreds or thousands of players simultaneously. (Although Mojang announced earlier this year that they are currently working on an MMO version - http://www.zam.com/story.html?...

With the recent 1.8 release now supporting villages and NPC characters, it is definitely heading down that path. However, whilst many Minecrafters setup their own servers and in essence create persistent worlds, they only service between 10-100 players depending on Hardware capabilities of the host. So whilst the sandbox nature of Minecraft is similar to an MMO in many ways, it is dissimilar in many others, and the core MMO functionality is not yet there. What is there, is a loyal and dedicated fan-base and modding community that I see fitting in with Neilson's Participation Inequality and the Power Law curve (sort of). You only have to look at something like http://www.minecraftwiki.net/w... to gain an appreciation for this modding community, which I assume could be related to the 90-9-1 where 1% of the entire Minecraft community is investing their time in creating mods that in reality over 90% of people benefit from.

Kurt Squire in his book Video Games and Learning, talks about Trajectories of Participation within gaming communities - essentially within any gaming community players undergo a form of evolution from having a general sense of curiosity about the game, to being a noob, then to mastering the game, and then to tinkerer and designer - and it is at this point where players use game engines or tools to create levels or mods. But this isn't a given for any player chosen at random of course, and the motivating factors behind this evolution is one of the many things I am currently investigating. Media Molecule with Little Big Planet, are obviously onto something with over 5 million user-generated levels with a thriving community of Little Big Planet enthusiasts.Coming from a 'video' gaming background I hadn't really thought of all this in the context of transmedia, ARG's or large-scale gameful networks, and don't really have an answer for your question: What are the boundaries of persistence when an alternate reality game crosses into the real world?Definitely something for me to think about though.As games permeate life, and the physical, social and virtual worlds collide, traditional concepts and definitions become blurry and it is these types of conversations that need to be had - thanks for pushing my thinking.

Re: Making Game Based Learning #gbl – research & principles

ianchia — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 02:20:01 -0000

Hi Adrian, just had a look at your Games in Education wiki (I've stumbled across it before - it's an excellent resource and have read many of those works.) Thank you.

In relation to your wiki, you may also be interested in Kylie Peppler's work:
http://kpeppler.com/publicatio...

and research from the Cooney Center on early childhood digital media:
http://www.joanganzcooneycente...

as well as the material from MIT Media Lab's Lifelong Kindergarten Group:
http://llk.media.mit.edu/paper...

and their online course syllabus material for the "Technologies for Creative Learning" course. (I find the Sherry Turkle stuff is particularly thought provoking.)
http://mas714.media.mit.edu/

Re: Making Game Based Learning #gbl – research & principles

ianchia — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 01:52:44 -0000

Hi Adrian,

I think that not all networks that are gameful need to be MMOs, and MMOs generally by nature encourage stronger participation and less lurking. However, lurking/shyness still occurs within large scale networks (MMOs or otherwise), and I would guess that the power law distribution holds.

Let's take the example of a fanfic community for example. The active participants are by nature playing a game of transmedia and transliteracy, not only riffing off the source canonical material from cross media sources but positing them into unusual characterisations, relationships and other stuff. They also riff off each other's stories, building their own alternate universe with personal and collaborative transmedia storyworld structures. To me, that looks like it bears the characteristics of play, of making a game with participatory media. However, for every participant actively contributing, there is a far larger audience who are content to read, ponder, consume, enjoy. The long tail as it were of a silent majority. Occasionally, one or two stories might pop up from these participants, but my observations within online communities that I've participated in is that the power law curve is a strong match for group participation and/or consumption.

So it depends on how you define a MMO (if you step beyond the definition that it must be a "video" game). For our own transmedia work, and augmented + virtual MMO is an semi-appropriate word, just as "book" or "curriculum" are only approximate fits - there's no proper word for it yet. Within the transmedia context, these concepts become blurry. Consider an example like Shadow Cities: http://eu.techcrunch.com/2011/... The nature of participation and casual observation/consumption blurs across the virtual and physical boundaries. What are the boundaries of persistence when an alternate reality game crosses into the real world?

Thank you for the links to your resources! I'll definitely check them out.

I'm not sure why you wouldn't define Minecraft and its ilk as persistent though? Communities build worlds and artifacts that persist between sessions, and collaborate or destroy each others works in gameful ways. I'm very interested to hear your definition to understand what I'm missing?

Thank you!

Best,

- Ian

Re: Making Game Based Learning #gbl – research & principles

Adrian Camm — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 00:09:41 -0000

Nice article Ian - thanks for sharing.
I'm not sure I understand your thoughts on how Neilson's Participation Inequality fits into emergent behaviour within an MMO.... What exactly are you encouraging more users to contribute to? I would of thought that by subscribing to an MMO you are contributing - both to an ecosystem and a community.

From a technical perspective, I don't think I would classify Little Big Planet (or Minecraft for that matter) as an MMO, as an MMO by definition needs to have a persistent world. Although the community aspect of level creation and game modding within these environments, fits your thoughts/links and resources.
I have collected a few articles and papers that you may (or may not) find useful over at http://gamesined.wikispaces.co...

Cheers

Re: Making Game Based Learning #gbl – research & principles

Cynthiajabar — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 21:11:19 -0000

Thanks Ian! Very useful. ; )

Re: A housewarming gift for Anastasis Academy

ianchia — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 00:06:03 -0000

Thank you. I would encourage anyone to try it with even supermarket eggs. It's a lot of fun. :D

Re: A housewarming gift for Anastasis Academy

Tony Novak3000 — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 14:49:40 -0000

What a lovely, thoughtful, and inspiring gift! You are extremely talented!

Re: Growing networks of learning – part one

ianchia — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 09:50:25 -0000

Thank you Mark for coming and offering your perspective. Huge fan of Storybird and what you've been doing!

My approach to make it a realistic and manageable task about "growing networks of learning" is to consider discrete networks that overlap each other, rather than some global kitchen-sink network. As folk get more savvy about the social web, we're beginning to leverage the various pipes to cross-connect/amplify ideas (eg. applications that connect to Facebook and Twitter and Google+ etc.)

I think a useful discussion at this initial point is to think about networks that we are building or have some degree of control over. For example, for you - it would be the Storybird network. For me, it would be the MMOs we're working on, or connected "textbooks" like I Live Over Here (http://iliveoverhere.com/roadm....

The context problem is a big one because the issue doesn't lie just at the teacher level. I believe that it's a systems problem, ranging from the education publishers, the edu-industry, the policy makers (the move to Common Core in the US or the coming National Curriculum in Australia), school districts, school administration, the individual teachers as well as the individual learners as we trend towards personalized education.

Mark Pesce gave an excellent keynote yesterday in Australia for the national "Leading a Digital School Conference" called "Hyperconnected Education" http://blog.futurestreetconsul... and his thinking is right on the money. (It should be given his background http://markpesce.com/about/). Lots of deep thinking about the consequences in the very near future. Well worth reading about the deep impact of mobile adoption.

IMHO, if we're creating new networks of learning, the context problem won't be just solved at a teacher or student level. I think we'll be working on various blends of algorithmic tools, as well as social curation - I hope to explore these ideas in discussion when I get to the post about "designing for serendipity" - lots to think about in terms of discoverability and relevance in an endless sea of information.

Thanks for your comment - greatly appreciated. I hope you stick around and offer your perspective from time to time.

Re: Finland’s Visual Arts Curriculum for Schools (Architecture, Visual Arts and Craft)

brillo — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 02:27:55 -0000

Thanks for sharing that I am actually doing two assignments on this. So the translation is grate help

Re: Growing networks of learning – part one

Mark Ury — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 22:29:45 -0000

Hey Ian, thanks for inviting me to comment on your post.

My jumping point is your final question about how networks might alter education in the years ahead.

Being reasonable, I'll start by saying "I have no idea." The educational industrial complex is only now beginning to collapse and networks have yet to truly take over how we actively go about teaching.

But the early signs are here, and with it some clues. Facebook shows us how information spreads. Khan Academy is an example of the new "textbook." Edmodo is linking up classes in a school graph. The iPad has become an almost perfect information appliance. Etc.

All of these platforms and interactions are adding themselves to an increasingly dense but elastic network that resembles (unsurprisingly) our brains: an always on, electric system that is slowly approximating thought. I think it and there it is.

In such a supersaturated information space, access is no longer a primary issue. And access is what schools (and teachers) have been focused on managing (as have media companies, and we've seen what's happened to them).

Instead, context is the new educational frontier. Making sense of the mass of information to draw insight and relate it to the world around us.

Teachers have always been in the context business, but the context shifts to new systems and tools. Algorithms, visualizations, data interpretation—these have to be wrangled and used as a new kind of humanities.

Steve Jobs said Apple lives at the intersection of liberal arts and technology and created the world's most valuable company by finding the context in-between those two worlds. I think the same opportunity is there for teachers: to find the right "interface" to make sense of the noise and create patterns that help us learn.

Re: Growing networks of learning – part one

Ramblingteacher — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 06:57:56 -0000

I read about Google discontinuing AppInventor and I was a little alarmed by the news. When I learned that it was going to be looked after by MIT people, including Mitch Resnick, I felt it was in the best of hands.

Re: Growing networks of learning – part one

Michael Josefowicz — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 06:13:56 -0000

Yes. A brilliant set of links indeed. Thank you.

Re: Growing networks of learning – part one

ianchia — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 05:53:45 -0000

And the people said "amen." Right there with you, Monika. Thank you.

Re: Growing networks of learning – part one

monika hardy — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 23:48:29 -0000

i'm thinking the more we can get out of the way.. the more magic just happens. we're wired to learn. people crave hard work - wicked problems - that matter. collab is a natural result of work that is too hard for an individual.

Re: Growing networks of learning – part one

ianchia — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 22:50:36 -0000

Brilliant range of links Julian. Thank you very much!

Re: Growing networks of learning – part one

Julian S Wood — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 17:21:41 -0000

I feel that before affordable/throwaway technology learning was very much isolated. I can't remember any teachers of mine wanting to ring the other side of the world to have a chat about education.

Yet this is where we find ourselves now, in an instantly connected world, where opinions, fact, ideas and thought are readily available, 24/7/365-as long as you're connected.

Some of this stuff is way over my head but I think I get the gist and I enjoyed reading it-so I've posted some further reading for you Ian!

So here's a handy list of Personal Learning networks/environments visualised http://idsfac.me/nTBDtR

Is a great post here about connected companies http://idsfac.me/qSzDZw

The University of Wollongong is researching 'Visualising Student Networks' which links very neatly . http://idsfac.me/nlmxzN

Re: Growing networks of learning – part one

Jessica V Allen — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 11:07:47 -0000

Wow, what a great post! I can't wait to continue to read your follow up thoughts. While I still need time to digest everything, the first thing that popped into my head was "oh...our school looks like the traditional top down model, not the new innovative ones!" Hmmm. That has certainly got me thinking about looking into our structure and seeing how we can modify our processes to encourage more 21st century organisational design to support our emerging beliefs in 21st century learning. Thanks for provoking my thinking!

Re: Growing networks of learning – part one

ianchia — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 11:05:31 -0000

Hi Monika, very interesting input.

My problems with the term "beta" comes from my software dev background. Alpha=buggy as hell and getting there, Beta="feature complete" but not bug free, and Release is ... well, getting it out the door in whatever stage. Different companies have different ideas of beta and release. Apple typically doesn't reach release until it's a work of art (however flawed and still patched sporadically going forwards), Google ships regardless and keeps things released and in beta and much less polished. (Like Gmail was for years). Perhaps you're right. I definitely feel like I've shipped myself into the public arena but still have bugs. Perhaps I'm version 2.0b3 of myself. (-;
I really liked the idea that you've brought from Ellen Langer. It reminds me of Kathy Sierra's concepts about motivation *by design* in her talk on Creating Passionate Users at the O'Reilly Tools of Change conference. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v... She gives a similar speech for the Gov 2.0 and her term is about providing participants with the skills to see "at a higher resolution". She gives the example of how a photographer would perceive a photo compared to a non-photographer. I think your hunch about being "discriminating" is absolutely part of it. My gut feeling is that it's tied to Zoe Weil's ideas about creating "solutionaries" as well in her TEDX talk. By providing avenues to engage with relevancy, we hope to engender mindfulness. How to leverage individual engagement and mindfulness into collaborative learning networks is the big magic trick. I believe it's one we need to find ways of approaching in order to solve "wicked problems" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W... in the long term.

Re: Growing networks of learning – part one

Michael Josefowicz — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 10:57:19 -0000

for the email notification to work, folks have to click on the email subscribe button to activate.. I'm eager to see where your journey will take us all... :-)

Re: Growing networks of learning – part one

ianchia — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 10:46:03 -0000

Thanks Michael. I shall ponder more. :D I'm still unsure how it maps, but I'll read Sean's blog to get a better feel for it.

Thank you also for letting me know that you get email notification of replies. The comments are on the disqus platform, and I haven't dug much into that. It's just such a relief that the authentication stops the spambots. (;

Re: Growing networks of learning – part one

ianchia — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 10:27:56 -0000

Hmm, that's incredibly ironic when the children and youth already live here (image attached). Source: http://www.kzero.co.uk/univers...

More about that in the coming posts here (and probably my first Coop Catalyst post.)