TED+Talks

Johnny Lee-Wii Remote Hacks This TED talk title immediately caught my attention because I have a wii and enjoy playing, so I was interested to see exactly what this TED talk would be about in regards to the wii remote. It was amazing to see that with just a wii remote and infrared pen you could create your own interactive whiteboard. Like Johnny Lee said, there are plenty of schools out there that don't have a lot of extra money and this could be a great and cheap way for them to incorporate the interactive whiteboard into their classroom. I used an interactive whiteboard in my student teaching classroom and loved it, and the students did as well. The students were much more engaged when they could use the computer and whiteboard as part of the lessons. It's nice to know that you could use this technology in the classroom, even if the school couldn't afford the 2-3000 dollar board. I looked up the wii game that was supposed to come out with the head tracker, but EA games ended up deciding not to include it at the last minute. It didn't say why they decided not to, I would have been interested to see how the head tracker worked with the game if it had come out.

Arthur Benjamin's formula for changing math education Before I opened this TED talk I thought it was going to be about integrating a certain type of technology into the math classroom. I was one of those students, and still am who doesn't really care for math. When I was student teaching I did my best to use technology with math so that the students could be an active part of the lesson, answer math problems on the interactive whiteboard and playing games involving math we were learning. It was nice to see that even those students who weren't as confident in their math skills were more willing to participate. I care for statistics about as much as I care for calculus, which isn't much. Now if I had been taught statistics more in depth at an earlier age, if it was at the top of the spectrum like Benjamin was pushing for, then maybe I would be more comfortable with it in my college years. I do agree that statistics are something we use more today than calculus, so I can agree with Benjamin that we should maybe think about making a change to the spectrum to move statistics higher up on the priority list. I would want to see more research on the topic however, to better understand the comparison between calculus and statistics as far as which one should hold more emphasis in regards to instruction in school.

Gaming to engage learners I was really surprised at the statistics between boys and girls showed at the beginning of the TED talk, especially when it talked about the differences existing even in later years. To hear that universities are heading toward being comprised of almost seventy percent girls was very surprising. The majority of my classes, both in undegrad and graduate school have been made up of girls, but I assumed that was due to the fact that I'm in the education field and that there just aren't as many boys interested in that. We've talked about the use of video games in education a little in class and it's definitely a controversial topic which is why this TED talk seemed interesting just by the title. As far as the zero tolerance policy goes for writing in the classroom, I don' t think you can assume it's that way in every classroom. In my P-12 writing class the other day one of the special education teachers talked about working on a short story unit during Halloween, at which time she let her students write about the bloody and gory stuff they often aren't allowed to. She talked about how cool they thought it was and how much they enjoyed, especially the boys. She also talked about how much better their stories were in comparison to previous years when she could sometimes barely get through them. She said she was going to start having the short story unit about Halloween in the years to come. She found it important to let the students have this outlet where they could write about things they usually don't. There are classrooms out there where teachers allow their students to step outside the box. I agree that they need to design better games for boys and have more males in the classroom, but the question is how do we do that? Also, where do we get the money she talking about? I don't think games should necessarily be just like World of Warcraft kinds of games, they need to appeal to a larger demongraphic. Some boys don't have interest in games, and some girls do. Then you have to consider parent and teacher attitudes. I like the idea of designing more games for kids, not just boys, but I think the type of games talked about are more expensive and it would take more push to get them into the classroom. I don't think we're quite there yet, maybe in a few years.

7 ways video games engage the brain It was very interesting to think about the rewards that someone gets from playing video games. When I play a video game and retrieve an award it's of course exciting, but I don't think about how much it impacts me emotionally at the time and how much it drives me to work towards the next reward or goal in the game. It really does make you feel accomplished when you reach a goal or reward during a video game, and it's just game, it's not even real life!! This makes for a compelling argument for the use of gaming in schools, gaming geared toward educational concepts. If we can get our students to feel that motivation and accomplishment when learning educational concepts through gaming, think of how it would also increase student achievement. The discussion on statistics in video games, and not making rewards too easy or difficult to get was also fascinating to me. The goal is for the player to be challenged, but not to feel too frustrated. This is something else you may not think about when playing a video game, and it makes you think about the difficulty that goes into designing these games, and how difficult it may be to design educational games in the same way. Many of the things he was talking about which are included in games are included with instructional practices as well, like having long and short term aims or goals, and having rewards, giving clear and quick feedback, and working with others. It would be amazing to look at brain processes and figure out when the enhanced window of time is for engagement with students, like he talked about doing with video gamers. This TED talk was definitely interesting and it was easy to see the connections between playing video games and what type of learning we would like, and hopefully sometimes does take place in the classroom.