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Online game to help self-management of finances

February 12, 2012 By Leave a Comment
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AP (2012) NH launches online money management game Vanguard, February 12

Extracts

The U.S. Treasury Department recently awarded grants to five states to expand financial education and counseling services for prospective homebuyers. While the other states set up more traditional face-to-face counseling programs, the New Hampshire Housing Finance Authority created an online program that includes an educational game aimed at making the process more enjoyable.

The game is set up as a “financial freedom island cruise.” Each island represents lessons on budgeting and credit management. Participants earn money by answering questions correctly or by “spinning” the cruise ship’s wheel for bonus prizes — “You won $400 at bingo!” — though it’s all just part of the game….

The idea for the program stemmed from a family self-sufficiency program the finance authority already offers for people trying to build their assets and get out of poverty.

While there are other websites dedicated to the same topic, they often feature advertising. About 100 people have signed up for the New Hampshire program so far, and the goal is to register at least 600 in the next year and a half.

Comment

This won’t of itself solve the US housing mess created by the banks, but it does provide an interesting way of helping people manage their money after they’ve been ripped off by the banks.

But will it also help Americans realise that they cannot get quality public services such as schools and universities if they don’t pay taxes? Now that would be a financial education.

Filed Under: Bibliography, games, simulations, animations and games, Technology Tagged With: , , , , ,

Going to Online Educa Berlin

November 25, 2011 By 3 Comments
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Online Educa Berlin begins next week. I will be attending for the first time in many years. If you are also going, I hope to meet you.

There are many interesting sessions at the conference. Some of these are highlighted in the Online Educa news service:

The Saudi Arabian Digital Library. The National Center for E-Learning (NCeL) of the Saudi Ministry of Higher Education was launched five years ago. Of its many projects, the Saudi Digital Library (SDL) is perhaps the most impressive. Launched in November 2010, the SDL holds more than 114 000 e-Books and reference works spanning various academic disciplines. It also manages the Maknaz repository which provides interactive learning objects in different formats such as photos, instructional movies, illustrations and so forth. Dr Abdullah Almegren, Assistant Professor of Education at King Saud University and the general manager of NCeL, will be speaking at the conference.

Research on the effective of virtual patients in the teaching of medicine. Martin Riemer and his co-author Martin Abendroth have spent the past year studying the use of virtual patients by hundreds of students at the University Medical Centre Hamburg-Eppendorf, Germany, and their findings shed light on how best virtual patients should be integrated into the curriculum.

OEB session CUL38, Learning Cultures: An International Perspective brings together speakers representing universities in Brazil, Russia and India in a panel discussion exploring theoretical discourse, technology implementation and factors supporting and hindering developments in open and distance learning.

In session VIR05, The Best Kept Secrets of Game-Based Learning, distinguished speakers will offer insight into how virtual environments and game-based learning can be integrated into school [and college] curricula seamlessly in order to increase learner motivation and enhance collaborative learning.

Lieve Van den Brande, a Principal Administrator at the Directorate-General for Education and Culture of the European Commission will present a paper entitled EU Policy for ICT in Education: A New Initiative on Creative Classrooms/Creative Learning Environments. The Europe 2020 strategy is an intricate ten-year plan to revive employment and stimulate the economy of the European Union. Such a plan requires educational goals that are simultaneously ambitious yet tenable. Lieve Van den Brande will discuss these in her presentation.

Pasi Vilpas, a biology teacher at the The Sotunki Distance Learning Centre in Vantaa, Finland, is presenting “Teaching Genetics in The Second Life with a Large-Scale 3D-Model of DNA”. Pasi invited his pupils to enter the three-dimensional online virtual world of Second Life and walk and fly inside the crucial molecule.

These are just a tiny sample of the 400 presentations at the conference. The main challenge will be working out what I really must attend from all the range of options (and also to handle the bierkellers). Hope to see you on the Kurfurstendamm!

 


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Games and learning in digital worlds – en français

June 8, 2011 By Leave a Comment
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© David Deal, 2011

The latest edition of the Canadian Journal of Learning and Technology (Vol. 37. No. 2, 2011) has five articles on this topic, all in French (there are short English abstracts for each article.)

Emmanuel Duplàa Taktak writes an editorial Presentation: Games and Learning in Digital Worlds

Louise Sauvé, David Kaufman, and Lise Renaud’s article Creating an Educational Online Game, Asthma :1,2,3…Breath!, to Sensitize
Secondary School Students to the Problems of Asthma is about a ‘game’ for secondary school students on asthma.

Marc-Antoine Dumont, Michael Thomas Power, and Sylvie Barma’s article GeoEduc3D: Evolution of Serious Gaming Towards Mobility and Augmented Reality in Science and Technology Education describes the development of a gaming prototype for senior high school students in science and technology studies, called Géoéduc 3D

Samuelle Ducrocq-Henry article Learning Together in Class Via Popular Video Games: A Pedagogical LAN Model reports on his PhD thesis “Tribes in Play” which puts forward a pedagogical LAN (PL) model that resulted from a local area network video game competition (LAN parties) study.

Vincent Berry’s article Playing to Learn: Are you Serious? A Theoretical Discussion of the Relationship Between (Video) Games and Learning offers a theoretical discussion of the relationship between video games and education based on both a literature review of this field and a study of players of Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games.

Etienne Armand Amato’s article The Uses of Serious Video Games: Purposes, Discourses, and Correlations argues that to overcome the rhetoric used by the actors in this quickly expanding sector, a new definition of serious video games is needed. This definition is based on how video games are utilized and comes to the conclusion that all serious games try to correlate effectively game and reality.

Comment

Far too often, language divides the world of anglophone and francophone speakers in Canada. As a result both communities suffer from missed opportunities to share knowledge and experience. As someone who reads French reasonably well, I welcome this francophone edition.

However, the  Canadian Network for Innovation in Education is the national organization for learning technologists and distance educators in Canada. It would increase knowledge transfer between the two language communities considerably if all articles in their journal were published in full in both languages. Ideally, all Canadians should be bi-lingual in English and French (which for many Canadians means being tri-lingual at least), and I realise there is a large cost in translation, but Canada is too small a country for such solitudes. We need to learn from each other.

Filed Under: Bibliography, games, Technology Tagged With: , , , ,

Report on Online Educa Berlin 2010

December 22, 2010 By 1 Comment
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The report summarizing the Online Educa Berlin 2010 conference earlier this month concluded:

‘A new paradigm of learning emerged during the sessions attended by a record number of 2197 participants from 108 countries: Leaders in business, education and research were urged to fundamentally change the learning culture of their organisations. It was felt that only an open climate that nurtures learning will enable companies, schools or institutions of higher education to adapt to the ever increasing dynamics of competitive global markets…..

A new learning culture that takes advantage of digital technologies is also urgently needed in education. This became very clear in the ONLINE EDUCA debate, chaired by the former British MP Dr Harold Elletson. An overwhelming majority of the audience voted in favour of the motion that “The public sector has failed to use ICTs effectively in education and training”.

As I wasn’t there, I’m struggling to understand exactly what this ‘new paradigm of learning’ means, but it sounds good. I’m all for changing the learning culture – but to what? I need more details, or is this a general phrase to capture a wide variety of interesting developments that are different from traditional teaching? Would anyone who was able to attend like to attempt a definition of this new learning culture? I’m hoping for something more precise than ‘better and more use of technology.’ Alternatively, if someone will offer me a plane ticket to Berlin for next year’s conference…..

There is also a full report on sessions on serious games and simulations, showing a number of applications within the corporate and vocational sector, including police training, wine management, law, economics and literacy history. These sessions certainly looked interesting.

For more on the outcomes of this conference, see also video recordings from the conference

Filed Under: conferences, e-learning, Events, games, simulations, animations and games, Technology, Tony's Blog Tagged With: , , ,

Summer books for e-learners

August 2, 2010 By Leave a Comment
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To follow up on my blog ‘In defence of books’, for those of you going off on a summer break, here’s some book suggestions, since I’ve decided that there is a future for books. Each one of these involves a character who uses the Internet (or its future form), usually illegally, but for good purposes (although not always). Reading these may be what the British call a bus driver’s holiday (taking a bus tour), but they are all well worth reading by anyone who lives and works with computers and the Internet.

Cory Doctorow’s ‘Little Brother’ (2008): about M1k3y, a high school online games player in San Francisco who uses the Internet to fight back against the Department of Homeland Security when they start locking everyone up in the name of ‘security.’ Great summer reading with authentic Internet ‘hacks’ and a disturbing plot. Which leads me to:

George Orwell’s ’1984′ Yes, you’ve probably read it before, many years ago, but read it again today, in the light of current developments. Do you still feel safe?

Watch again on DVD the original 1999 movie ‘The Matrix’, then read: William Irwin (editor) (2002) Philosophy and the Matrix The book is a serious take by philosophers on the issues raised in the movie, and great fun to read. If you weren’t paranoid up to now, you certainly will be now!

To re-enter a slightly more real, but equally awful, world, follow the adventures of Lisbeth Salander, the world’s most famous fictional hacker, in Stieg Larsson’s trilogy, ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’, ‘The Girl who played with Fire’, and The Girl who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest’. The ‘hacking’ doesn’t come over as authentic as in ‘Little Brother’, but the books are great escape.

Lastly, if you really, really can’t leave work alone when on holiday, try:

Nicola Whitton (2010) Learning With Digital Games New York/London: Routledge. This is a practical guide to engaging students in higher education, which looks at the theory, practice and technology of digital games in higher education. This is an excellent introduction to the topic with lots of practical suggestions.

If you have any other suggestions for light but fun, Internet-based books, please add them to the list.

And have a great holiday.

Filed Under: Bibliography, games, simulations, animations and games, Technology, virtual worlds/Second Life Tagged With: , ,
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