Tech 4 Edu

Tall, Dark, and Mysterious » Dispatches from the library
i don’t quite know what to do about the calculator problem: the strong students know when to use it to amplify their understanding, while the weaker students use it as a substitute for their lack of understanding. yet it’s exactly the weaker students who might need calculator skills later in life if they run across a real-world problem (oh, the horror!) that they can’t remember how to do.

Slashdot | GLS Conference In Retrospect: Posted by Zonk on 01:49 PM -- Sunday July 03 2005
from the learning-is-fun dept.
Late last month the Games Learning Society conference came to town in Madison, WI. The assembled big thinkers discussed many different aspects of gaming as it interacts with education, socialization, and main-stream culture. Terra Nova has a great big breakdown thread with commentary from some of the presenters. The Shifted Librarian has a firsthand account of the conference, and PsychoChild's blog features musings on the MMO presentations. From PyschoChild's blog: 'Stephen Gillett, a Senior Director at Yahoo! Inc., gave an excellent presentation at the GLS conference entitled Guild Building is Skill Building where he argues that you can learn important skills from playing online games. In his case, he says he learned important management skills from leading a guild. Stephen argued that the act of forming and running a guild is similar to what an entrepreneur does. An entrepreneur has to raise capital, incorporate, find talent, etc. Similarly, a guild master (GM) has to get together funds, form the guild, recruit good members, etc. Given Stephen's history as an entrepreneur he knows what he's talking about.'"