The 10 best games for learning about the stock market — from onlinecollegecourses.com

Excerpt:

Much like skydiving, playing the stock market is not an activity you want to learn through your mistakes. Fortunes are made and lost all the time by people who think (or thought) they had a handle on stock trading. If you have a few million you can afford to lose, or you’re investing with someone else’s money (you’re a bank, in other words), by all means, jump right in. But for the other 99%, we recommend simulating the experience of stock market investing first, to learn what to do and not do with your hard-earned cash. Here are the 10 best games to help you do that.

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Apple's iTunes U may be leading a global revolution in higher education

 

From DSC:

Apple has been putting together a solid ecosystem of hardware and software that allows for the creation and distribution of content.  “Easy is hard” I like to say and Apple’s done a great job of creating easy-to-use devices and apps. They have a long way to go before iTunes U has all the built-in functionality needed to replace a Blackboard Learn or a Moodle type of CMS/LMS.  But given their solid history of creating highly-usable hardware and software, they could deal a smashing blow to what’s happening in the CMS/LMS world today. 

Plus, with Apple TV, Airplay mirroring, the growth of second screen-based apps, and machine-to-machine communications, Apple is poised to get into this game…big time. If my thoughts re: “Learning from the Living [Class] Room” come to fruition, Apple would be positioned for some serious worldwide impact on lifelong learning; especially when combined with the developments such as the use of MOOCs, AI and HCI-related innovations, learning agents, web-based learner profiles, and potential/upcoming changes to accreditation.

Too far fetched do you think? Hmmm….well considering that online learning has already been proven to be at least as affective as f2f learning — and in some studies has produced even greater learning outcomes/results — I wonder how things will look in mid-2015…? (That is, where is the innovation occurring?)


 Addendum:

  • Connected TV penetration to top 50% by 2017 — from worldscreen.com by Mansha Daswani
    Excerpt:
    SCOTTSDALE: ABI Research forecasts that more than 50 percent of television homes in North America and Western Europe will have Internet-connected TV sets by 2017, up from just 10 percent last year, while Blu-ray player penetration is expected to rise to more than 76 percent from about 25 percent. The report notes that the popularity of connected TV is not limited to developed markets—there have been increasing shipments to China, ABI notes.
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  • Advertisers need to pay attention to connected TV [INFOGRAPHIC] — from Mashable.com
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  • The future of TV is two screens, one held firmly in your hands — from FastCompany.com by Kit Eaton
    Excerpt:

    The connected TV, sometimes called the smart TV (and even branded as such by Samsung) is a growing phenomenon: TV makers are adding limited apps, Net connectivity, and even streaming media powers to their newer TVs in the hope they’ll persuade you to upgrade your newish LCD for a flatter, smarter unit. They’re desperate to, given how flat this market is. But according to new research from Pew, the future of TV may actually be a little more closely aligned with the notion of a “connected TV viewer,” an important distinction. Pew spoke to over 2,200 U.S. adults a couple of months ago and discovered that 52% of all adult cell phone owners now “incorporate their mobile devices into their television watching experiences.”

 

4 ways to gamify learning in your classroom — from tophatmonocle.com

Excerpt:

This post explores the role of gamification in education and provides four examples of how you can bring the learning method into your classroom.

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Top Hat Monocle closes $8M to bring gamification to university classrooms — from betakit.com

Excerpt:

Today another student engagement platform, Top Hat Monocle, announced it has closed $8 million in Series A funding led by Emergence Capital Partners and iNovia Capital, with participation from SoftTech VC, Version One Ventures, and Golden Venture Partners. The Toronto- and San Francisco-based company, which raised $1.5 million in seed funding in November 2011, launched their product in 2010 and has been used by 65,000 students at over 150 global universities.

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Gamified courses from Course Hero and Bunchball boost student engagement — from gigaom.com by Ki Mae Heussner

Excerpt:

In some circles, the phrase “gamification” may have gone out of fashion, but Course Hero and Bunchball are intent on showing that it can still pack a punch in education.

In April, Course Hero, which uses free online resources to offer students digital study guides and other tools, launched a series of full-length online courses infused with game mechanics from Bunchball’s gamification platform. The companies Tuesday revealed some of the initial results from the partnership.

On average, users spend three times more time on the gamified courses than on all of CourseHero.com and total time on the platform has increased five percent since the Bunchball integration, Course Hero reported. The company also said that social sharing of achievements, which are awarded as students progress through the courses, has climbed nearly 400 percent since the Bunchball partnership.

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From DSC:

  • There is enormous power when resources are reallocated to teams of specialists that come together in order to create engaging, multimedia-based, interactive learning materials!   The products of these endeavors should prove to be highly beneficial — especially when they can be integrated into more hybrid/blended teaching and learning situations. That way, we can utilize the best of both the face-to-face and virtual worlds.

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If attention can be visualized as a gate...is it getting harder to get through the gate?

 

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Addendum on 7/19/12:

When the technologies behind Watson and Siri get perfected and integrated into the “Learning from the Living [Class] Room” environment [Christian]


From DSC:

When the technologies behind IBM’s Watson and Apple’s Siri get perfected and integrated into products and services that will make up the near future “Learning from the Living [Class] Room” environment— there will be:


 

  • A high degree of personalization and customization — available 24x7x365 on multiple kinds of devices
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  • The option to turn on tracking and analytics — reporting from which can be moved into the learner’s cloud-based profile upon completion of the unit/activity/badge
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  • Students of all ages will have access to their own virtual tutors so to speak
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  • When a virtual tutor is unable to resolve or address the student’s issue to the student’s satisfaction, the student will be able to instantly access a human tutor (with the option of keeping the existing work/issue/problems visible to the human tutor)

 

IBM's Watson -- incredible AI!

 

 

The Living [Class] Room -- by Daniel Christian -- July 2012 -- a second device used in conjunction with a Smart/Connected TV

 

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Addendums:

 

10 best colleges for game-based learning — from bestcollegesonline.com

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Excerpt:

If you were busy playing Call of Duty and you missed it, July 8 was Video Games Day. While most people’s experience with gaming involves mindless destruction or sports competition, educators have begun to see the value in the medium for helping students learn. While the research is still developing and some professors are still skeptical, these 10 colleges represent your best bets for learning while playing video and other games.

http://www.harrisinteractive.com/uk/Insights/Reports/ConnectedTV.aspx

 

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Excerpt:

Every year for the past few years seems to have been heralded as “The Year of the Connected TV”. Few doubt that the big screen in the living room will be an important channel for everything the web has to offer, but there are question marks over the extent to which Connected or Smart TV, as it stands, has captured the imagination and viewing hours of consumers today. Is it the year of connected TV already, or is it still to be realised?

In this report we find out the views of the GB general public. We find out who has them, do they actually connect, what their experience is and what services do they really want.

 

A computer that learns the rules of a game by watching you play – from ExtremeTech.com by Sebastian Anthony

Excerpt:

A Parisian researcher has created a computer system that can learn the rules of games by watching you play — and then beat you at it.

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Higher Ed Tech" Where K-12 & Consumer Collide - Frank Catalano - March 2012

 

Excerpt:

What’s our agenda? It’s basically in three parts:

  1. What student expectations are
  2. Where innovation is coming from and what’s driving it
  3. And what it’s developing into over the next three years – in 5 transcendent trends that span K-20

 

Also see:

When Technologies Collide: Consumer, K-12 and Higher Ed -- by Frank Catalano -- April 2012

“Learning from the living room” — Part I [Christian]

Learning from the living room -- a component of our future learning ecosystems -- by Daniel S. Christian, June 2012

 

 

Legal size PDF here

 

 

Addendum on 7/3/12 from an article I wrote for EvoLLLution.com (for LifeLong Learning):
Establishing better collaboration between the corporate world and higher education [Christian]

In the near future, perhaps we could have second screen-based activities whereby corporate leaders are giving TED-like presentations or expressing the current issues in their worlds via a program on Smart TVs, and the students are communicating and collaborating about these presentations via tablets or smart phones.  Perhaps there will be electronic means whereby students could submit their ideas and feedback to the presenting companies (and whereby selected ideas could be rewarded in terms of free products or services that the company produces).

New lab aims to create, study educational games — from the Wall Street Journal by Ian Sherr

Excerpt:

A new videogame design lab is coming to Silicon Valley, but its goals are different from the studios that cook up the next “Battlefield” war simulation shooter or “World of Warcraft” multiplayer fantasy game. This one is focused on helping students learn.

Electronic Arts is going to be home for a new project called the Games, Learning and Assessment, or GLASS, Lab. The effort is funded in large part by $10.3 million in grants from The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The project will have two primary goals: building next-generation educational games, and creating tools to take existing games, potentially such as EA’s upcoming “SimCity,” and measure what students learn from them.

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Videos from Qualcomm Uplinq 2012 show the future of Smart TV
— from hexus.net by Mark Tyson

Excerpt:
Here are the feature highlights of these “redefined” Smart TVs:

  • Console quality gaming
  • Concurrency of apps
  • Miracast wireless technology allowing smartphone and tablet screens to partake in multi-screen interactivity
  • Personalisation and facial recognition
  • Gestures
  • HD picture quality
  • HD video calling

 

From DSC:
…and add to that list the power of customized learning and analytics!

Soundplay: The Intersection of Music, Gaming and Technology — from mylifescoop.com by Jason Johnson

Excerpt:

Soundplay is an exploration of the new gaming landscape, where independent game developers are today having the same transformative impact indie musicians have had on music over the past decade. We asked five innovative young game developers to create original games that didn’t simply use music as a soundtrack but that were original works inspired by specific songs. Today we feature another one of those five. It’s a remarkable time in the gaming world, where thanks to Intel’s advances in processing technology indie developers can create fully formed games without the assistance of major publishers.

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YouTube Video of  Marc Whitten, VP Xbox LIVE

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SmartGlass -- from Microsoft -- June 4, 2012

 

Microsoft Unveils ‘SmartGlass’ to Connect Xbox and Windows — from the Wall Street Journal

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Xbox Marc Whitten, corporate vice president of Xbox LIVE, announces
Xbox SmartGlass onstage at the Xbox 360 E3 media briefing Monday.

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Also see:

Addendum 6/6/12:

Games for Learning — part of the Games for Change Festival

Excerpt from Jennifer Levine:

For 9 years, the Games for Change Festival has brought the advocacy of social impact games to the industry’s attention. It’s where educators are exposed to new initiatives to bring games for learning to new frontiers. This year, the Festival will devote two entire days focusing on how educators can use the impact of games in formal and informal classroom settings.

Join long time investor in tools for teaching game designer, AMD, as they present an entire track of programming and workshops dedicated to teaching game design in the classroom. And don’t miss the Games for Learning Institute track which highlights research into games-based learning in a series of engaging talks including talks from Constance Steinkuehler, James Paul Gee, and creators of Portal, Valve Software.

Beyond that, there’s a wealth of impressive discussions, roundtables, demos and more at our full program here.

With less than a month left to register for the festival, what are you waiting for? Register now and don’t forget that groups of 5 or more who register together get 25% off! (#G4C12 and/or @G4C on Twitter)

© 2024 | Daniel Christian