Glass orb with reflection of the landscape in it

Computer games 'motivate pupils'

BBC NEWS A third of teachers are using computer games in the classroom and a majority believe they improve pupils’ skills and knowledge, a survey suggests. There isn’t any mention made in the article about what games (if any) were involved in this first stage – i.e what’s going on now. However, they have said…

Grading Blogs

Blogs / Weblogs in Higher Education We haven’t yet started to grade blog use, though I have attempted to grade contributions to discussion boards. These seem like some useful pointers though – covering both technical and pedagogic points….

Using Blogs to Teach Philosophy

Using blogs to teach philosophy. This opens with the statement Students taking their first philosophy course often express surprise when encouraged to use “I” in their papers. Unlike academic writing in most other disciplines, philosophical writing frequently and strongly states the “I” because philosophers have to develop and defend their own positions. They cannot weasel…

'Educore' to Aid Collaboration

EduCore A wikipage (so might change), discussing the implications of utilising Open Source in HE, and some of the issues blocking its use. Fuchs suggets that were more universities to collaborate over open source projects (e.g. Sakai), then the support etc., would be there. Via: OL daily…

Boys and Learning This actual post is thinking about whether or not e-books might be a way to get boys reading. What I’ve found interesting is the fact that Last year, 60% of boys in Washington State failed the test, compared to 54% of girls (See TeleRead for more info) A recent UK report suggested…

WebServices for Teaching and Learning

The NITLE News Volume 4, Number 4, Fall 2005. The main article of this edition looks at webservices, so pretty much tied up with Web 2.0. As the article concludes, Web 2.0 is very much in its infancy; the applications to education even more so. May well be interesting to look back at in say…

Internet – Friend or Foe of Learning

Terraviva , an online edition of TerraViva, have a report from the recent World Summit on the Information Society, looking at the reaction of some Chilean schools to the “problems” introduced by allowing children to Word process homework (plagiarism being the main issue). Other teachers are commenting on the fact that while computers have been…

Resistance is useful: Thoughts concerning how to respectfully move teaching and learning online

Christopher D. Sessums looks at the challenges to moving more learning & teaching online. I’ll start with something from his conclusion: educators are presented with a number of challenges in getting students to adopt skills and demonstrate intellectual and practical dexterity of many complex concepts To get to this point, he’d looked at various aspects,…

eLearning 2.0

eLearn: Feature Article Steven Downes summarises the changes in eLearning, from initially being a radical idea some 10 or so years ago, to the mainstream product that it is today, invariably delivered via some form of LMS. He looks at both the rapidly changing technology as well as the typical user – who are often…