How Do You Evaluate and Assess Media for Instruction?

Approximate Reading Time: 3 minutesThis question was asked on one of the LinkedIn groups (AECT: Association for Educational Communications and Technology) I belong to. It got me thinking…. I decided to move my part of the conversation here because the notion interests me. Here’s … Continue reading

The Decorative Media Principle in Action

Approximate Reading Time: 2 minutesThere are thousands (maybe even millions) of examples of the Decorative Media Principle out there in the Internets. The Decorative Media Principle involves creating a visually pleasing background and other decorations for a worksheet, website, etc. that is usually thematically … Continue reading

Communicating (a comment on Pidgin Learning by Clark Quinn)

Approximate Reading Time: < 1 minuteHere’s a short post from Clark Quinn about making communication work even when we don’t really share the same language: Pidgin Learning Very nicely put. I’ve been mired the writing of two chapters of my book that talk about definitions, … Continue reading

The Decorative Media Principle

Approximate Reading Time: 4 minutesI’ve been looking around at a lot of educational sites and I keep running into the same thing. Many of them LOOK nice – I mean: they have nice colours, cute or otherwise appealing characters and graphics; some of them … Continue reading

Thoughts on Ed Theories: Cognitive Load

Approximate Reading Time: 2 minutesForgive me, I come from Science. “Theory” means something different in science from what it means in education. It seems that in education we can label any notion we have about how things work as a theory – and then … Continue reading

Why can’t EdTechs get along with IT, and how that effects Education

Approximate Reading Time: 3 minutesWhy do so many people in Ed Tech denigrate people who actually know tech? Isn’t knowing tech supposed to be a good thing? Do people with Education degrees feel that they are somehow better than the rest of us because … Continue reading

Knowing ‘X’ does not imply knowing ‘Y’

Approximate Reading Time: 2 minutesEarlier this spring, I had a lovely conversation with a fellow game researcher and enthusiast (Jostein Hassel) about how digital games are related to non-digital games. I learned a lot from this conversation (more on that in an upcoming post). … Continue reading

Ed Tech is an Interdisciplinary Field

Approximate Reading Time: 2 minutesSo why is it possible to get an Ed Tech degree by taking ONLY Education courses? It shouldn’t be. IT  (Information Technology), Education, Management, … are all APPLIED disciplines – if all you know is the one of these, you … Continue reading