A Stellar Example of Ed vs. Fun: Virtual Frog Dissection

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I was looking at a “Top Ten Best of” list today. There are dozens, if not hundreds of these. It’s rarely made clear why or how the people posting these lists are qualified to judge, nor is it usually explained how they came to the conclusions they did, but I’ll leave that for another rant.

Most of the lists I come across are extremely US-centric. Most do not acknowledge the very legitimate concern of many non-American educators about leaving their data in an American cloud, but that’s for another rant too.

Today’s rant is about this:

 This came up as one of the top educational apps on the list I was looking at. I’m quite familiar with this app as I examined it quite carefully when I was doing my dissertation (2003-2008).

To be fair, there are some very good things about it:

  1. It is visually very, very good (but, see my Decorative Media Principle, here, here, and here. I’ve also got a few publications on this notion).
  2. It is accurate. Can’t fault it there. They did their homework.
  3. The software works as designed and is robust. Again – kudos!
  4. They promote humane treatment of animals and this app certainly provides a viable alternative to killing and cutting up real frogs. RL still beats virtual dissection, but I really don’t believe it is necessary for everyone in a class to kill a frog in order for them to get the RL experience.

BUT, and here’s where we part ways…….

IT IS NOT FUN.

When I evaluate educational software and apps, I try and look at it from the kid’s perspective. You know those pins you use to hold your specimen down on the board? First thing I tried was to stab the frog in the chin – I couldn’t. This was not an option. Then I tried pinning it down by the elbows and knees instead of the feet. Again – not allowed. It didn’t even tell me I’d done it wrong – it just didn’t work. Now, I love animals – really I do, but this is a VIRTUAL frog – I CAN’T HURT IT. Why shouldn’t I be able to EXPERIMENT? That’s what scientists do after all, right? You can not tell me that real scientists don’t have some goofy fun with their specimens from time to time?

OK, moving on. I acquiesce, and put the pins exactly where I know they want me to put them (boring…), and move on.

Next: I pick up the scalpel. Guess what? I HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO CUT EXACTLY ALONG THE DOTTED LINES ON THE FROG’S BELLY. This is NOT interactivity – this is me using my mouse (or finger, if you have the mobile app) to advance a linear video. Again, I am given no option but to do it exactly the way they want.

How dare you call yourself “interactive”, when the only thing I get to do is exactly what you tell me to do. How is that better than clicking the button on the slide projector?

Interactivity is about CHOICE. I should get to “be bad” – who am I hurting if I cut off the frog’s leg? Why can’t I play Dr. Frankenstein and switch the heart and brain?

I’ll tell you why: far too many teachers and administrators have bought into the myth that education and fun are at opposite ends of a continuum. Education can’t be fun or it’s not real. Kids having too much fun aren’t learning.

No wonder so many kids STILL hate school.

Virtual Frog Dissection | Educational App – iPad Mac Desktop Whitebroad & Intel AppUp.

 

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Where I’ve Been This Week (weekly)

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  • Snap! Build Your Own Blocks. Alpha

    programming language

    tags: snap scratch

  • News Details

    Overall, the top five countries, nominally providing the ‘best’ higher education were found to be the United States, Sweden, Canada, Finland and Denmark. However, broken down into the smaller sections, it was interesting to see that the US, traditionally seen as a country with one of the strongest education systems, did not always hit the top spot. Government funding of higher education as a percentage of GDP is highest in Finland, Norway and Denmark. Taking private expenditure into account changed this significantly: on that measure funding is highest in the United States, South Korea, Canada and Chile, unsurprising, given the structure in these counties.

    tags: news details higher-ed rankings

  • Gartner’s top tech 2012 predictions: Impact on learning at 3 levels | Learning Cafe

    The crux of the article is that IT budgets and responsibilities are moving out of the control of IT departments and into the hands of others, thanks to trends such as consumerization and cloud computing which is making centralised controlled of IT difficult. Users are taking more control of the devices they will use, business managers are taking more control of the budgets IT organizations. IT organization will need to co-ordinate those who have the money, those who deliver the services, those who secure the data, and those consumers who demand to set their own pace for use of IT. This decentralisation of control provides the learning function with opportunities to be a bit more responsive to e-learner needs which in the past may have been hampered by the rigid operational frameworks imposed by IT.

    tags: gartner tech predictions impact learning

  • Why TV is Better Than Games | GamesIndustry International

    Gamification is often described as ‘adding game-like elements to things that are not games’. That’s not really what it is at all. Those game-like elements aren’t anything to do with games, they are behavioural economics. Normal economics believes that people are rational and act in their own self interest, and then goes off on one from there. That is, sadly for economics, not true. Behavioural economics makes no such assumptions. It’s the study of what people actually do. The study of the world as it is, not the way we wish it were.

    tags: games international gamification

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Flip This: Bloom’s Taxonomy and the notion of Productive Failure

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It’s interesting how certain ideas seem to come together in bunches. I was at a conference this week and one of the keynotes talked about his notion of “productive failure“. This is something I’ve been thinking about for quite some time but it’s nice to see the idea getting more press.

Today’s article talks about how this looks through the lens of Bloom’s. I like it.

Rather than starting with knowledge, we start with creating, and eventually discern the knowledge that we need from it.

The pyramid creates the impression that there is a scarcity of creativity — only those who can traverse the bottom levels and reach the summit can be creative. And while this may be how it plays out in many schools, it’s not due to any shortage of creative potential on the part of our students.

I think the narrowing pyramid also posits that our students need a lot more focus on factual knowledge than creativity, or analyzing, or evaluating and applying what they’ve learned. And in a Google-world, it’s just not true.

I think the narrowing pyramid also posits that our students need a lot more focus on factual knowledge than creativity, or analyzing, or evaluating and applying what they’ve learned. And in a Google-world, it’s just not true.

Here’s what I propose: we flip Bloom’s taxonomy. Rather than starting with knowledge, we start with creating, and eventually discern the knowledge that we need from it.

via Flip This: Bloom’s Taxonomy Should Start with Creating | MindShift.

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Where I’ve Been This Week (weekly)

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~ A record of places on the web I want to remember ~

 

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Struggle continues to plug embedded programming gap

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“To be blunt,” Dewar wrote, “adopting Java to replace previous languages used in introductory programming courses – such as Pascal, Ada, C or C++ — was a step backward pedagogically.

via Struggle continues to plug embedded programming gap.
I started saying this over a decade ago. I even did embedded stuff in my 3rd year data architecture course – my department was uninterested, and the students had a real hard time wrapping their heads around the thought that there are places where resources are limited.

The department fought me when I said that students needed to learn more than one language (Java). The department disagreed when I said that students should learn how to program for environments where bloated OO methods might not work (….But, the ARE no places where efficiency matters!!! It’s all about “Software Engineering”!).

The students had NO idea what it meant to program for a machine that had no disk, only memory.

Part of the reason CS departments are seen as being so out of touch is BECAUSE THEY ARE!!!

University should not be about job training, BUT it is also NOT about teaching only those things the faculty find interesting.

 

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Where I’ve Been This Week (weekly)

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~ A record of places on the web I want to remember ~

 

  • The Ups and Downs of Game-Based Learning | MindShift

    Games have shown great promise for learning, but it’s not always easy to figure out the logistics of how to use them in class. Every student and teacher’s experience is unique and it takes time to calibrate and tinker to get the best out of the experience.

    What’s more, using games might lead to something neither students or teacher anticipated — more work.

    tags: learning games games-in-learning education

  • A number of environmental factors can affect the incidence of hip dysplasia in dogs – NVH

    Hip dysplasia (HD) in dogs is affected to a larger degree than previously believed by the environment in which puppies grow up.

    It is particularly during the period from birth to three months that various environmental factors appear to influence the development of this disease. During the puppy stage, preventive measures can therefore be recommended with a view to giving dogs disposed to the condition a better quality of life.

    tags: environmental dogs hip

  • New Survey: Half of Teachers Use Digital Games in Class | MindShift

    No longer relegated to experimental programs, digital games are becoming much more commonly used in classrooms across the country, according to a survey by the Joan Ganz Cooney Center released today.

    Half of the 505 K-8 teachers surveyed said they use digital games with their students two or more days a week, and 18 percent use them daily.

    There will be further, more in-depth coverage of this report in the coming weeks, but in the meantime, some more statistics from the study:

    Nearly 70 percent said that “lower-performing students engage more with subject content with use of digital games.”
    Three-fifths reported “increased attention to specific tasks and improved collaborations among all students.”
    Sixty percent said using digital games “helps personalize instruction and better assess student knowledge and learning.”
    Though most use Apple or PC computers, 25 percent said their students use iPads or tablet computers, and less than 10 percent use other mobile devices or video game consoles.
    62% said games make it easier to level lessons and effectively teach the range of learners in their class.

    tags: survey teachers ganmes edugames

  • Can You Make Yourself Smarter? – NYTimes.com

    What is surprising is what else it improved. In a 2008 study, Susanne Jaeggi and Martin Buschkuehl, now of the University of Maryland, found that young adults who practiced a stripped-down, less cartoonish version of the game also showed improvement in a fundamental cognitive ability known as “fluid” intelligence: the capacity to solve novel problems, to learn, to reason, to see connections and to get to the bottom of things. The implication was that playing the game literally makes people smarter.

    tags: nytimes intelligence game

  • Dual NBack Application

    tags: memory learning game brain intelligence

  • Brenda Brathwaite: Gaming for understanding | Video on TED.com

    It’s never easy to get across the magnitude of complex tragedies — so when Brenda Brathwite’s daughter came home from school asking about slavery, she did what she does for a living — she designed a game. At TEDxPhoenix she describes the surprising effectiveness of this game, and others, in helping the player really understand the story.

    Brenda Brathwaite designs games that turn some of history’s most tragic lessons into interactive, emotional experiences.

    tags: gaming understanding video ted

  • Kathryn Schulz: On being wrong | Video on TED.com

    Most of us will do anything to avoid being wrong. But what if we’re wrong about that? “Wrongologist” Kathryn Schulz makes a compelling case for not just admitting but embracing our fallibility.

    tags: TED wrong failure learning talk

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Gamasutra – Features – The Top 10 Things The Game Industry Can Learn from Film Production

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Well worth the read:

How do we utilize these ideas to make higher quality games faster, cheaper? Let’s review!

Pre-Production:

  • Develop solid game concepts before production crews are brought in
  • Vet concepts in a similar way to the film script development process

Production:

  • Hire a skilled time management specialist
  • Keep crews productive by planning and paying for overtime and providing meals
  • Ensure team members are consistently in the loop for game changes and vision
  • Define team roles and have one clear creative director
  • Delegate tasks off leadership to allow them to focus on moving the rest of the team forward
  • Balance improvements and high quality with sticking to the original product vision

Post-Production

  • Make sure post-production time is planned in your budget
  • Use post-production to its fullest capacity, acknowledging that it is half the game

via Gamasutra – Features – The Top 10 Things The Game Industry Can Learn from Film Production.

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Anne Murphy Paul: Why Floundering Makes Learning Better | TIME Ideas | TIME.com

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Anne Murphy Paul: Why Floundering Makes Learning Better | TIME Ideas | TIME.com.

Interesting:

With one group of students, the teacher provided strong “scaffolding” — instructional support — and feedback. With the teacher’s help, these pupils were able to find the answers to their set of problems. Meanwhile, a second group was directed to solve the same problems by collaborating with one another, absent any prompts from their instructor. These students weren’t able to complete the problems correctly. But in the course of trying to do so, they generated a lot of ideas about the nature of the problems and about what potential solutions would look like. And when the two groups were tested on what they’d learned, the second group “significantly outperformed” the first.

Too often we race in to “help” when people are struggling. We give them answers when often all they need is a little guidance. This is especially true in formal education – often to an extreme degree with very young children. The desire to help them avoid frustration is perfectly natural, but it is how we learn. If we prevent this kind of learning by racing in to help to quickly (by, for example, providing too much “scaffolding”) the learning doesn’t stick, and, ultimately, the learners stop trying.

 

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