MIT Develops inFORM, Blows Your Mind by Rendering Digital Stuff in 3D Physically

via Digital Trends

10 Must-Watch Videos for Flipped Learning

The Rise of Samsung

Kids’ Video Games: Source of Fun, Pain, and Profit

Video game companies are smart. They want the gamer to play longer, make more in-game purchases, get frustrated, learn to cope and persevere, and share their experiences with others through competition or collaboration. A game designer must have a versatile skill set: Part artist, part designer, part psychologist, part storyteller, part rewarder, part punisher, and part salesperson. One of the downsides to this immersive model of game design is its addictive nature. Gamers must find a balance! This article from Michelle DeWolf on MindShift examines Austin, a digital native similar to many others; hooked on video games and the incredible lengths game developers go to in order to keep players like Austin coming back for more. ”

via MindShift

Austin Newman, 10, of Menlo Park, Calif., is not allowed to play video games during the school week. His mother, Michelle DeWolf, said she had to take that step to keep her son focused on his homework during the week.

Max Kelmon, 13, has his own little version of a man cave in Palo Alto, Calif. Behind the family kitchen in a converted garage, he has an Xbox, a big-screen TV, headphones and a microphone. There’s an old couch covered in a sheet. And that couch where he parks himself, surrounded by boxes and Christmas lights, is one of Max’s favorite places on the planet.

From that couch, he connects to friends all over the globe — and he spends hours, pretty much every day, honing his skills in Call of Duty.

The first commercially successfully video game, Pong, invaded Americans’ living rooms 38 years ago. Since then, the industry has evolved from a simple bouncing ball in the Atari original to games with astounding graphics and sound, most of them connected to the Internet.

That means that kids like Max can play with people spread across the globe. It also means that gaming companies can analyze how gamers play — each and every decision they make.

So when kids sit down with a game, they are actually sitting across a screen from adults who are studying them — and, in some cases, trying to influence their behavior in powerful ways.

Researchers in game companies tweak games to get players to stay on longer, or to encourage them to spend money on digital goods. They study gamers’ reactions. It’s become a science.

And parents like Max’s mom, Vanessa Kelmon, often feel outgunned.

“I hate it. I really do,” she says. “He could play Xbox for 12 straight hours. [He has] friends in Mexico City and friends in England.”

Vanessa says Max is addicted to video games. “When I took it away, he started to cry,” she says. “My God, I am offering you to go play tennis or go play golf … and I am making you shut this down, and you’re crying about it.”

Tracking Clicks And Purchases

In millions of families, video games are a source of intense love and intense hate because they can be so incredibly compelling. You might not believe that if you don’t play them, but you can get lost in a great game. They make you feel good.

And it’s no accident, says Ramin Shokrizade, the game economist for Wargaming America.

“The technology for this has gotten quite sophisticated,” says Shokrizade, who began his career in neuroscience and behavioral economics. “At this point, every major gaming company worldwide either has in place a fully developed business intelligence unit, or they’re in the process of building one.”

Researchers in game companies tweak games to get players to stay on longer, or to encourage them to spend money on digital goods. They study gamers’ reactions. It’s become a science.

Today’s game design is dominated by research, he says. As we play games, game developers are tracking every click, running tests and analyzing data.

They are trying to find out: What can they tweak to make us play just a bit longer? What would make the game more fun? What can get us to spend some money inside a game and buy something?

So as millions of people play, designers introduce little changes and get answers to all of these questions in real time. And games evolve.

For example, most games today sell virtual goods right inside the game — like a new gun in Call of Duty or a cow in FarmVille. Shokrizade’s job is to get people to buy them.

One of the tricks of the trade is something developers at Zynga — which created FarmVille — used to call “fun pain” or “the pinch.” The idea is to make gamers uncomfortable, frustrate them, take away their powers, crush their forts — and then, at the last second, offer them a way out for a price.

John Davison, who works at video game company Red Robot Labs, says free-to-play smartphone games like Candy Crush Saga and Puzzle & Dragons have become brilliant at using these tests to figure out how to get people to spend money.

And the research is working. Davison says those games are making millions of dollars — every day.

Kids Who Cash In

When adults play games, they consent to share that personal information about how they play. But Shokrizade worries about the millions of kids who play. “If it’s a child, how do you even get consent for something like that?” he says.

Many of the people spending cash are kids, including Davison’s children. Game consoles sell gift cards at convenience stores that allow kids to make purchases on video games, even if they don’t have a credit card.

Davison’s kids started playing Clash of Clans this year. In the game, developed by Supercell, you get to run your own little Viking village and team up with friends. To protect your clan, you can spend money on forts and weapons.

It’s free to download — but because of these virtual goods, it’s one of the highest-grossing apps in Apple’s store.

Davison’s two boys loved it. “They were clearly getting a lot of enjoyment out of it,” he says. “But it did get to the point where my wife and I were like, ‘Do you really want to be spending everything on this?’ ”

And this is coming from a man who has devoted his life to video games.

“I was trying to sort of total up in my head how much the kids had spent on this game,” he says. “But there was also a degree of admiration for the team at Supercell, that they had managed to get under my 10-year-old’s skin to this degree.”

Apple recently settled a class-action lawsuit about kids making in-app purchases like this without their parents’ permission, and the European Union is considering new regulations on games.

Some regulations are taking place on a smaller scale. In Menlo Park, Calif., Michelle DeWolf banned her 10-year-old son, Austin Newman, from playing games during the school week.

Originally, she gave him 30 minutes a day, but that didn’t work.

“He couldn’t think about doing his homework. He couldn’t think about walking the dog or helping in any other way, because he couldn’t get his mind off the idea that he had 30 minutes coming,” she says.

“Once he knew there was nothing, he didn’t think about it during the week, and he almost — maybe I’m not objective — but he almost seemed relieved.”

Copyright 2013 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

Explore: video games

Understanding by Design: Essential Questions

8 Educational (and Fun) iOS Games for Teens

via Mashable

There’s a reason you learned more from Bill Nye than your actual science teacher. Mr. Nye made learning fun.

If your middle/high school student is struggling to grasp some concepts in school, there’s an app for that. Bonus points: if it’s part of our list, it’s a fun one.

The App Store is filled with productivity and educational apps to help your student achieve straight As. But sometimes a good game can provide the extracurricular support a student needs to truly understand a difficult lesson. We’ve selected a game for eight school subjects to give your student’s educational performance a boost.

Don’t see your problem subject here? We certainly haven’t exhausted the supply of educational games. Search the App Store for a game suited to your child’s age level, subject matter or gaming style. And share your favorite educational game in the comments section below.

Six New Changes in Children’s Media Habits

“The digital generation have an incredible appetite for media. Laura Devaney at eSchool News identifies six important statistics from a Common Sense Media report. Although television remains the most common platform for children’s educational content, mobile device usage has skyrocketed in recent years. What will this mean for schools and their students? ”

via eSchool News

Children’s mobile media use has skyrocketed, report shows

Children’s use of mobile devices and mobile apps has jumped dramatically in the past two years, doubling and tripling in some cases, according to results from a large national Common Sense Media report.

In 2011, 8 percent of families with children ages 0-8 owned an iPad or similar tablet device. In 2013, 40 percent of those families had an iPad or similar device. According to “Zero to Eight: Children’s Media Use in America 2013,” smart phone ownership has grown from 41 percent of families in 2011 to 63 percent of families today.

Two years ago, roughly half (52 percent) of all children up to age 8 had access to a new mobile media device such as a tablet or smart phone. Now, 75 percent of children have this access.

The report also reveals a marked increase in children who use mobile devices every day–from 8 percent in 2011 to 17 percent today. The amount of time children spend using these devices has tripled, jumping from 5 minutes a day among all children in 2011 to 15 minutes in 2013.

The authors note that along with expanded access comes greater use. Almost two times the number of children ages 0-8 have used a mobile device (72 percent) as compared to 2011′s results (38 percent).

Here are six key findings in the report:

1. Children’s access to mobile media devices is much greater today than two years ago. In 2011, only 8 percent of families with children ages 0-8 owned a tablet device. In 2013, 40 percent of families reported owning a tablet.

2. Roughly twice as many children use mobile media today than in 2011. The amount of time using the devices has increased, which is a reflection of wider access to devices. Today, 72 percent of children ages 0-8 have used a mobile device.

3. “Traditional” screen media use, such as television and video games, has decreased by more than 30 minutes per day. Overall, children ages 0-8 spend 1 hour and 55 minutes on “screen time” a day, compared to 2 hours and 16 minutes in 2011.

4. Children still spend most of their media time watching television, but viewing habits have changed. Fifty-eight percent of children watch TV at least once a day. Half of children’s daily screen time (1 hour and 55 minutes each day) is spent watching TV on a TV set, but this viewing includes watching pre-recorded, downloaded or streamed, or on-demand programs.

5. Poor and minority children have more access to mobile devices and apps than they did two years ago, but a large access gap still remains.Access to high-speed internet has remained about the same, with 42 percent of low-income families having access in 2011 and 46 percent having access in 2013. But access to smart phones is increasing–27 percent of lower-income families reported owning a smart phone in 2011, and in 2013, that figure has jumped to 51 percent. Tablet ownership, which sat around 2 percent in 2011, jumped to 20 percent of lower-income families. In 2011 just 22 percent of lower-income children had ever used a mobile device, and today, 65 percent of lower-income children have. But gaps still remain: though 20 percent of lower-income children own a tablet, 63 percent of higher-income children do. Thirty-five percent of lower-income parents have downloaded educational apps for their children, compared with 75 percent of higher-income parents.

6. Television is the most common platform for children’s educational content. Though many children access educational materials on mobile devices, television continues to top the list. Sixty-one percent of children ages 0-8 “often or sometimes” watch educational TV shows. When it comes to children ages 5-8, 59 percent “often or sometimes” watch educational TV, 48 percent “often or sometimes” use educational computer games, and 44 percent “often or sometimes” use educational games or apps on mobile devices. Fifty-four percent of higher-income children “often or sometimes” use educational content on mobile devices, but only 28 percent of lower-income children do the same.

The authors note that “the change in screen media use from 2011 to 2013 is a result of children spending less time using ‘traditional’ screen media” such as watching television and DVDs, but “on the other hand, children are averaging more time consuming media on mobile devices such as smart phones and tablets in 2013 than they did two years ago.”

The report is the second in a series of national surveys on children’s media use. Researchers used the same methods used with the first report in order to document how children’s media behaviors have changed.

Brain-Imaging with Entertainment

“Neuroimaging, or brain imaging, is the concept of actually putting a visual map on the structure and function of the brain. This advance in brain research has given us huge strides forward in our understanding of the human brain. Researchers in Australia are now working with the world’s first machine for brain imaging studies that features its own in-house entertainment. Read about the work they are doing with it in the following Stuff article by Nicky Phillips.”

via Stuff.co.nz

BOXED IN: Jane Corless, who has a cochlear implant, being scanned by the new machine. (NICK MOIR/Fairfax)

An Australian university is now in possession of the world’s first child-friendly brain-imaging device, which can keep kids occupied by displaying a movie or a game.

Researchers will use the custom-built machine to study brain development during early childhood.

One of the first studies to be performed will image the brains of children with cochlear implants to understand how the brain processes information from the hearing devices.

“We know early intervention yields the best cognitive outcomes for children because brain plasticity is optimal in the first few years of life,” said Stephen Crain, the director of ARC centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders at Macquarie University, where the unit will be housed.

“Using the new system, we plan to investigate how the brain is able to achieve so much more during this period using the same information,” he said.

The machine, called a cochlear implant MEG, or magnetoencephalography, processes brain function by measuring magnetic fields outside the head.

“When we process information like language, neurons are firing [inside the brain], and whenever neurons are firing they create tiny electric currents,” he said.

Surrounding these electric currents are magnetic fields, which travels through the blood, tissue and skull and can be measured by the imaging machine.

“The child can lie in the machine and watch a movie or play a video game,” Professor Crain said.

One of the most common brain imaging techniques, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) – which measures blood flow in neurons – requires a patient to lie in a noisy tunnel for 45 minutes with their head cocooned in a helmet.

“You don’t want to put your kid in there unless it’s necessary, such as suspecting they have a tumour or for pre-surgical mapping,” Professor Crain said.

As well as studying people with cochlear implants, the machine will also allow scientists to study language development in children.

Previously, this has been a difficult study area for linguists because young children struggle to perform language tasks that scientists use to measure language comprehension in adults.

Now researchers can watch how children’s brain respond to those tasks without them needing the verbal skills to respond.

Another benefits of the MEG is it could measure brain activity on a millisecond by millisecond response time, Professor Crain said.

“So it’s very accurate,” he said.

Report: NSA Broke into Yahoo, Google Data Centers

The Information Age has its own share of dangers and risks that come with us leaving our digital footprints. It’s sometimes unnerving to think that all of our collected information is available so easily and in only a few key domains where it is conglomerated and stored. How do you feel when you read the following article from the NZ Herald? What thoughts come into your mind, both about your own personal responsibility to yourself as a digital citizen, and the responsibilities of others, especially organizations of power and influence?”

via The New Zealand Herald

The National Security Agency has secretly broken into the main communications links that connect Yahoo and Google data centers around the world, the Washington Post reported Wednesday, citing documents obtained from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

A secret accounting dated Jan. 9, 2013, indicates that NSA sends millions of records every day from Yahoo and Google internal networks to data warehouses at the agency’s Fort Meade, Maryland, headquarters. In the last 30 days, field collectors had processed and sent back more than 180 million new records ranging from “metadata,” which would indicate who sent or received emails and when, to content such as text, audio and video, the Post reported Wednesday on its website.

The latest revelations were met with outrage from Google, and triggered legal questions, including whether the NSA may be violating federal wiretap laws.”

Although there’s a diminished standard of legal protection for interception that occurs overseas, the fact that it was directed apparently to Google’s cloud and Yahoo’s cloud, and that there was no legal order as best we can tell to permit the interception, there is a good argument to make that the NSA has engaged in unlawful surveillance,” said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of Electronic Privacy Information Center. The reference to ‘clouds’ refers to sites where the companies collect data.

The new details about the NSA’s access to Yahoo and Google data centers around the world come at a time when Congress is reconsidering the government’s collection practices and authority, and as European governments are responding angrily to revelations that the NSA collected data on millions of communications in their countries. Details about the government’s programs have been trickling out since Snowden shared documents with the Post and Guardian newspaper in June.

The NSA’s principal tool to exploit the Google and Yahoo data links is a project called MUSCULAR, operated jointly with the agency’s British counterpart, GCHQ.

In the last 30 days, field collectors had processed and sent back more than 180 million new records ranging from “metadata,” which would indicate who sent or received emails and when, to content such as text, audio and video …

The Post said NSA and GCHQ are copying entire data flows across fiber-optic cables that carry information between the data centers of the Silicon Valley giants.The NSA has a separate data-gathering program, called PRISM, which uses a court order to compel Yahoo, Google and other Internet companies to provide certain data. It allows the NSA to reach into the companies’ data streams and grab emails, video chats, pictures and more. U.S. officials have said the program is narrowly focused on foreign targets, and technology companies say they turn over information only if required by court order.In an interview with Bloomberg News Wednesday, NSA Director Gen.

Keith Alexander was asked if the NSA has infiltrated Yahoo and Google databases, as detailed in the Post story.”Not to my knowledge,” said Alexander. “We are not authorized to go into a U.S. company’s servers and take data. We’d have to go through a court process for doing that.”It was not clear, however, whether Alexander had any immediate knowledge of the latest disclosure in the Post report. Instead, he appeared to speak more about the PRISM program and its legal parameters.

In a separate statement, NSA spokeswoman Vanee Vines said NSA has “multiple authorities” to accomplish its mission, and she said “the assertion that we collect vast quantities of U.S. persons’ data from this type of collection is also not true.”The GCHQ had no comment on the matter.The Post said the NSA was breaking into data centers worldwide. The NSA has far looser restrictions on what it can collect outside the United States on foreigners.David Drummond, Google’s chief legal officer said the company has “long been concerned about the possibility of this kind of snooping.””We do not provide any government, including the U.S. government, with access to our systems,” said Drummond. “We are outraged at the lengths to which the government seems to have gone to intercept data from our private fiber networks, and it underscores the need for urgent reform.”Google, which is known for its data security, noted that it has been trying to extend encryption across more and more Google services and links.

Yahoo spokeswoman Sarah Meron said there are strict controls in place to protect the security of the company’s data centers. “We have not given access to our data centers to the NSA or to any other government agency,” she said, adding that it is too early to speculate on whether legal action would be taken.

The MUSCULAR project documents state that this collection from Yahoo and Google has led to key intelligence leads, the Post said.Congress members and international leaders have become increasingly angry about the NSA’s data collection, as more information about the programs leak out.Alexander told lawmakers that the U.S. did not collect European records, and instead the U.S. was given data by NATO partners as part of a program to protect military interests.

More broadly, Alexander on Wednesday defended the overall NSA effort to monitor communications. And he said that as Congress considers proposals to scale back the data collection or provide more transparency to some of the programs, it’s his job to lay out the resulting terrorism risks.”I’m concerned that we give information out that impacts our ability to stop terrorist attacks. That’s what most of these programs are aimed to do,” Alexander said. “I believe if you look at this and you go back through everything, none of this shows that NSA is doing something illegal or that it’s not been asked to do.”Pointing to thousands of terror attacks around the world, he said the U.S. has been spared much of that violence because of such programs.

“It’s because you have great people in the military and the intelligence community doing everything they can with law enforcement to protect this country,” he said. “But they need tools to do it. If we take away the tools, we increase the risk.”

Associated Press writers Mike Liedtke in San Francisco and Raphael Satter in London contributed to this report.

Can The Blended Classroom Help Instill ‘Grit’?

Can The Blended Classroom Help Instill  ‘Grit’? first appeared on Navigator by Compass Learning on April 24, 2014.

By: Kurt Bauer

There has been a lot of talk over the last couple of years about ‘grit’ and its place in the classroom. ‘Grit’ has more or less officially entered the lexicon of edu-speak. ‘Grit’ has been equated to perseverance or resilience, or both. As defined by psychologists, grit is “an individual’s passion for a particular long-term goal . . . coupled with a powerful motivation to achieve” that goal. For decades, these same psychologists, along with educators and others, have debated whether grit is an inherited trait or a quality that can be introduced and fostered. Putting aside the nature-versus-nurture contentiousness for a moment, let’s assume that this attribute, combining desire with stick-to-itiveness, is both worthwhile and teachable.

The idea that grit is a good thing for a student to possess is pretty hard to argue with. Plenty of studies suggest that students who set high goals and don’t become discouraged by setbacks are statistically more likely to achieve academic success than classmates who cannot articulate a goal or find it difficult to overcome failure, almost regardless of comparative levels of intelligence. The idea of grit generally appeals to our common sense as well. So how does one go about instilling grit in one’s students—or encouraging and developing the trait in students who appear to possess it?

In a traditional classroom, an educator could encourage risk-taking and create an environment that students might recognize as supportive by instituting risk-free homework grading policies; that is, credit is given for completion of practice tasks, with no final grade penalty for making mistakes. Alternately, one could give opportunities to regain score points lost to wrong answers on practice assignments, homework, or assessments by reworking missed problems or questions, encouraging students to keep trying. But if these well-worn models are at least theoretically workable, how much better might a blended learning environment be for instilling grit?

In a blended setting, where teacher-directed instruction is combined with digitally-delivered content, practice, and assessment, customizable and adaptive digital instruction systems contribute the multiple advantages of easy, student-controlled review, repetition, and reinforcement of content, student performance tracking, and mapping learning paths that precisely address student learning gaps based on results. This automation frees the teacher to serve as a coach and mentor, to encourage students to keep trying, and to use the precise data generated by the digital tools to focus his individualized efforts with each student.

But all educators are aware that simply creating, or attempting to create, a learning environment that encourages risk-taking and grants a ‘license to fail,’ seldom suddenly or magically motivates unmotivated students. Michael Horn argues that digital delivery of a mastery-oriented curriculum mitigates the gloom of failure, though, and turns the periodic, repeated discouragement of falling short into a daily, incremental opportunity for encouragement and motivation. When the student immersed in such a blended environment has the opportunity the very same day to circle back onto an analogous but not repetitive learning path and prove herself on another assessment, the looming boogeyman of test anxiety doesn’t have the chance to be quite as scary.

And what’s more likely to put grit into students—trying, learning from mistakes, trying again, and succeeding, every day, or dreading the unit test lurking out there in the murky distance?

Seems like the blended model is worth a try.