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Is It Possible to Combine TV and Active Play?

December 7, 2011 | 9:06 AM | By

Daniel Choo

Earlier this fall, Microsoft announced that its Xbox 360 would soon offer special games and TV shows associated with several well-known children’s programs, including Sesame Street and Nat Geo Wild. The plan, says Microsoft, is to create shows that would foster a new kind of “playful learning,” tying them to the capabilities of the Microsoft Kinect device.

The timing of the news wasn’t great: the same day Microsoft unveiled its new toddler-friendly Kinect games, the American Academy of Pediatrics issued a report urging no or limited screen time for children under age 2.

Kids will be able to help Cookie Monster with specific tasks, and he’ll respond to their gestures and to their voices.

But bringing the Kinect to children’s television is an intriguing proposition. Microsoft say that it’s filming new TV shows and building new games that “seek to inspire kids and their parents to get off the couch and into the action, working cooperatively with their favorite characters to have fun and learn at the same time.” Fun, learning and even physical activity are often invoked when it comes to children’s programming — and it’s something that the American Academy of Pediatrics Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Digital Tools, Teaching Strategies, Kinect, Microsoft, sesame street, XBox

Three Goals to Spark Innovation and Collaboration

November 9, 2011 | 10:46 AM | By

Flickr: Spacepleb

It’s been roughly two months since the launch of the Department of Education’s Digital Promise, and though it’s still very early in the process, a few pointed goals are emerging.

The main premise behind Digital Promise is to serve as a national center for research to spur innovation that will improve learning through technology, said Karen Cator, Department of Education’s Director of Technology.

At this point, the center has three goals:

1.  To bring smart ideas based on sound research to those who can bring it to life. More specifically giving entrepreneurs, investors, and innovators who create new learning products a central place to access the vast amount of research that’s already been conducted about how we learn and ways to improve learning.

2.   To offer challenges and prizes as an incentive to those who can find ways to vastly improve opportunities to learn.

3.   To create an organization where schools and leaders can work together on problems with using technology to improve learning. This group is called the League of Innovative Schools, and at this very early stage, it’s a loosely knit collaboration of people who’ve expressed interest in becoming involved.

Within this group, there are three specific goals.

  • Making sure that schools and districts are informed and supportive of innovation when investing in new technologies — it’s what Cator refers to as “smart demand.”
  • Gathering evidence and learning more about what’s already happening in schools and districts with respect to using technology. Harvard professor and Macarthur Fellow Roland Continue reading →
FILED UNDER: Big Ideas, Digital Tools, Teaching Strategies, Department of Education, Digital Promise, Karen-Cator, League of Innovative Schools, Microsoft

What Role Do Corporations Play in Supporting STEM Education?

July 19, 2011 | 8:00 AM | By

The Smithsonian Institution

Last week, as part of the Imagine Cup award ceremony, Hal Plotkin, the Senior Policy Advisor in the Office of the Under Secretary of Education, praised Microsoft for its commitment to STEM education with its hosting of the global student technology competition. Plotkin encouraged other companies to step up and invest in these sorts of endeavors. As the projects submitted to the Imagine Cup must tackle the UN’s Millennium Goals – poverty, hunger, disease, infant mortality, environmental destruction, and so on – it’s not just good for the U.S. education system, it’s good for the world.

Microsoft is not the only corporation involved in promoting STEM education.  Earlier this year, MindShift profiled the Change the Equation non-profit, through which companies like ExxonMobil, Dell and Lockheed Martin have supported science and technology education. Intel says it’s spent over $1 billion on education projects. And just last week, Google announced the winners of its first online global science fair, just one of the many programs that the search engine giant has undertaken to help encourage budding scientists, engineers, and programmers.

Corporate sponsorship and funding is seen as necessary to help boost the programs that oftentimes schools can’t afford. That seems to be particularly true when it comes to student competitions and science fairs, as these sorts of “extracurricular” projects are often on the chopping block when schools look to streamline their budgets.

But what are the implications of having students engaged in corporate-sponsored science? In the case of both the Imagine Cup and the Google Science Fair, participating students were required to use Microsoft and Google products respectively in their projects. Of course, students don’t often have a choice when it comes to the technology they get to use in the classroom. If your school has Windows computers, you use Windows; if your school runs Macs, you use Macs. Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Digital Tools, Change the Equation, Maker Faire, Microsoft, microsoft imagine cup, STEM

Computer Science With a Twist: Students Hack into Kinect

July 6, 2011 | 10:44 AM | By

Daniel Choo

Within the first 60 days of its release, Microsoft sold some eight million Kinects, making it the fastest selling consumer electronics device in history (beating out the iPad and the VCR).

For those who aren’t familiar with it yet, Kinect is a sensor input device for the popular Xbox gaming console that allows gamers to play without any controllers.

It’s been less than a year since the Kinect has been available to the public, and while the rapid uptake by consumers has broken records, it still feels as though the full potential has yet to be unleashed — particularly in the classroom.

“I want to light a fire for you and your kids,” said computer science teacher Baker, “because this is really cool stuff.”

We’re probably just beginning to explore the possibilities for building and using video games for learning. Now, the Kinect adds even more dimensions to gaming, least of which is the physical and the auditory, bringing “the real world” to gaming.

The Kinect sensors include a RGB camera, a depth sensor, and a microphone — all meaning that the physical actions taken by gamers can be captured by the Kinect and used in turn to control simulations. “You are the controller,” as some of the early marketing for the device contends. Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Digital Tools, Teaching Strategies, computer science, Kinect, Microsoft, STEM

Weekly News Roundup

May 13, 2011 | 9:43 AM | By

Flickr:WilliamC

  • Microsoft announced this week that it has agreed to acquire the popular VOIP service Skype for $8.5 billion. Skype has become an important tool for educators bridging classrooms around the world, and the acquisition may boost Microsoft’s status in the education sector (provided, of course, Skype still works on Apple computers).
  • According to the June issue of Consumer Reports, Facebook has about 7.5 million users below the required minimum age of 13. And 5 million of those users are ten or younger.
  • While teens and pre-teens may love Facebook, they’re less than enthralled with Foursquare and other location-based check-ins. That’s the findings of a recent survey by Dubit, a youth communications agency, reports Business Insider. According to the survey, 48% of teens have not heard of Foursquare, Facebook Places, or other location services, and 67% of teens who have heard of the services don’t use any of them.
  • Google has announced the semi-finalists for the Google Science Fair. Voting on these entries runs through May 20. Continue reading →
FILED UNDER: Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Skype, weekly news roundup

Weekly News Roundup

March 18, 2011 | 6:00 AM | By

Flickr: WilliaC

  • The Sesame Workshop and the Joan Ganz Cooney Center released its study on children’s media usage. Among its findings, television is still popular, but children are engaging in a variety of other media platforms. Almost 25 percent of young children under age 5 use the Internet at least once a week, and just under half of those under the age of 6 play video games.
  • The social learning platform Xplana released its report on digital textbooks in higher education, calling the industry at a tipping point and contending that by 2015, one out of every four textbooks will be e-books.
  • Google rolled out some changes to its Google Docs enhancing its collaboration features. Google Docs has allowed comments for almost a year, something that makes the apps great for classroom – for teachers and for students giving feedback. This week, Google expanded those comments into “discussions,” making them editable, making them appear in threaded conversations, and letting collaborators use the @ symbol to refer to each other by name. Google Wave lives on!
  • A complaint was filed against Northwestern and New York University, charging that the schools’ use of Google Apps for Education violated the Americans with Disabilities Act. According to the National Federation of the Blind, Google’s educational suite is not fully accessible. Google has responded saying it has “a strong commitment to improving our products,” but the company did not offer any details.
  • Microsoft released an update to its video game development platform for kids, Kodu. Kodu is an icon-based development environment, requiring no programming skills but teaching some of the basics of computational thinking and used to build games for PC and Xbox. Microsoft also announced the Kodu Cup competition for students age 9 to 17.
  • A new education-focused startup incubator launched this week. ImagineK12 will provide a 3-month accelerator program, with funding and mentorship, for early stage ed-tech startups. Founded by startup veterans Geoff Ralston, Tim Brady andAlan Louie and modeled after the very successful Y Combinator program, ImagineK12 aims “to effect positive change in the K-12 education space.”
FILED UNDER: Big Ideas, accessibility, google apps for education, Microsoft, sesame workshop, video games