The Gamification of Education….

Presentation at the Australian Society of Digital Librarians

Jeff Piontek, Hawaii Technology Academy

Abstract: Today’s world is constantly on the move and changing at such a profound speed that it’s hard to believe that what the eyes see as reality is already history. This keynote will introduce and closely examine the significance of several global exponential trends and challenge your assumptions about the world we live in and its future. Current technology trends are affecting our personal and professional lives, our youth and elderly, our learning institutions, the nature of teaching and learning and our definition of intelligence itself. This keynote will be a compelling glimpse into the bold, exciting and dynamic future that awaits us all!

Jeff Piontek is an author, keynote speaker and teacher (most importantly). He has worked with many at-risk school districts nationally as a consultant on affecting educational change and reform. Jeff started out as a Science teacher in the South Bronx, NYC and worked his way up to the Director of Instructional and Informational Technology in NYC.

Jeff’s book; “Blogs Wikis and Podcasts, Oh My! Electronic Media in the Classroom” has been well received by the education community and is in its second printing.

He has received many accolades including the latest from Governor Linda Lingle for Innovation in the economy for his STEM education work nationally. Jeff sits on the National Governor’s Association STEM committee as well as the State of Hawaii Economic Development Workforce Committee, which he was appointed to by the Governor.

Jeff has embarked on a new venture at Hawaii Technology Academy and the school has performed at the top of the public schools in Hawaii in its first year and doubled to 500 students in its second year. The school now has 1,000 students and over 2,000 applicants this past year.

The school was just designated as one of the 40 more innovative schools in the US in a recent study published by Innosight Institute (Michael Horn, author of Disrupting Class — innosightinstitute.org/blended_learning_models/

Jeff’s most recent presentations can be found on slideshare at slideshare.net/jeff.piontek

Over 100 Incredible Infographic Tools and Resources (Categorized)

1. Visual.ly – Awesome community for creating and sharing infographics.
2. Information Aesthetics – The relationship between design and information.
3. Visualizing.org – Making sense of complex issues through data and design.
4. Visual Complexity – A resource for the visualization of complex networks.
5. Daily Infographic – A new infographic every day.
6. GOOD Infographics – GOOD Magazine’s excellent infographics section.
7. Information Is Beautiful – Ideas, issues, knowledge, data – visualized.
8. Infographic of the Day – Fast Company’s excellent and long running series.
9. FlowingData – Exploring how designers, scientists visualize data.
10. Infographics Archive – A visual library offering infographics.
11. Visual Loop – There’s an infographic for it… even if it didn’t happen!
12. Infographr – All about infographics.
13. Newsilike – An infographics blog from India.
14. Video Infographics – Motion infographics that explain, educate or inform.
15. Datavisualization.ch – A news and knowledge resource for data visualization.
16. VisualJournalism – 80% of the news in infographics.
17. Eagereyes – Reflections on the visual communication of data.
18. Amazing Infographics – Cool information graphics.
19. Submit Infographics – Share and rate infographics.
20. The Infographics Showcase – Collecting infographics.
21. I Love Charts – A Tumblr blog about charts.
22. Well Formed Data – An infographics blog by a freelance data visualizer.
23. Best Infographics – Pointing you toward great infographics.
24. Infographic List – For those who love info graphics.

Data Visualization Tools and Software

1. Piktochart – Transforms your information into memorable presentations.
2. Infogr.am – Create interactive charts and infographics.
3. Gephi – Like Photoshop for data. Graph visualization and manipulation software.
4. Tableau Public – Free data visualization software.
5. Free Vector Infographic Kit – Vector infographic elements from MediaLoot.
6. Weave – Web-based analysis and visualization environment.
7. iCharts – Charts made easy.
8. ChartsBin – A web-based data visualization tool.
9. GeoCommons – See your data on a map.
10. VIDI – A suite of powerful Drupal visualization modules.
11. Prefuse – Information visualization software.
12. StatSilk – Desktop and online software for mapping and visualization.
13. Gliffy – Online diagram and flowchart software.
14. Hohli – Online charts builder.
15. Many Eyes – Lets you upload data and create visualizations.
16. Google Chart Wizard – Generate image charts.

Data Sources

1. DataMarket – Find and understand data.
2. WorldMap – Explore, visualize and publish geographic information.
3. Influence Explorer – Provides overviews of political influence data for politicians.
4. US Census Bureau – Measures America (people, places, economy).
5. Freebase – An entity graph of people, places and things from Google.
6. World Bank Data – The world at a glance (key development indicators).
7. Data360 – Telling compelling and data-driven stories.
8. Number Of – You ask, they count.
9. Gallup – Public opinion polls.
10. EveryBlock – Uncovers info on large cities contained in government databases.
11. Daytum – Helps you collect, organize and communicate your everyday data.
12. Google Public Data – Filter and animate data sets from around the world.
13. Gapminder – Displays time series of development statistics for all countries.
14. Munterbund – Graphical visualization of text similarities in essays.

Create Personal Infographics

1. Biogrify – Create a fun visual snapshot of your life.
2. Vizify TweetSheet – Your Twitter activity as an instant infographic.
3. Photo Stats – App for creating iPhone infographics out of your photo data.
4. Re.vu – A visual resume tool.
5. Vizualize.me – Visualize your resume in one click.
6. Kinzaa – Build your infographic resume.

JavaScript / Flash Infographic Tools

1. KeyLines – A JavaScript toolkit for visualizing networks.
2. d3.js – Free JavaScript library for manipulating documents based on data.
3. InfoVis Toolkit – A JavaScript tool for creating interactive data visualizations.
4. Flare – Makes it easy to create interactive data visualizations (ActionScript).
5. JS Charts – Free JavaScript charts.
6. FusionCharts – JavaScript (HTML5) and Flash charts.
7. amCharts – JavaScript and HTML charts.
8. Highcharts – Interactive JavaScript charts.

Great Infographic Studios and Designers

1. Column Five – Creating visual content that brings people to your site.
2. FFunction – Data visualization consulting.
3. Interactive Things – A user experience and data visualization studio.
4. Periscopic – An agency whose tagline is “do good with data”.
5. Fathom – Helps clients understand and express complex data.
6. JESS3 – Creative agency specializing in data visualization.
7. Visual Evolution – London-based infographic design.
8. Lemon.ly – Create understanding through visuals.
9. Prime Infographics – Creates custom infographics for businesses.

Infographic Articles and Tutorials

1. How to Create Outstanding Modern Infographics – Vectortuts+
2. Infographic: Do-It-Yourself Guide to Infographics – Marketing Tech Blog
3. A Few Rules for Making Homemade Infographics – The Atlantic Wire
4. The Do’s and Don’ts of Infographic Design – Smashing Magazine
5. How to Create a Great Infographics (Slideshow) – The Content Lab
6. Design a Magazine Infographic – Digital Arts
7. Create an Infographic Typography Animation – aetuts+
8. How to Create Great Infographics – .net magazine
9. The Anatomy of an Infographic – SpyreStudios
10. How to Strike a Balance Between Data and Visualization – The Daily Egg
11. 7 Steps to Make Your Infographic a Success – SEOmoz

Other / Miscellaneous / Overflow

1. Wolfram CDF – Create “infoapps” using always-current data.
2. KISSmetrics Infographics – Useful infographics by KISSmetrics.
3. Better World Flux – A beautiful interactive visualization of what matters in life.
4. Data Wrangler – Interactive tool for data cleaning and transformation.
5. Lyza – Analyze, socialize, decide.
6. A World of Tweets – Twitter visualization.
7. We Feel Fine – An exploration of human emotion.
8. Visual Economics – Unraveling complexities in financial data.
9. ComponentArt DV – Present, navigate and visualize your data like never before.
10. DOMO – Business intelligence platform.
11. Infochimps – Big data infrastructure made clear.
12. Evaluat3 – The best way to know your professional strengths (graphs).
13. Webpages As Graphics – An HTML DOM visualizer app.
14. Creately – Draw diagrams online using a collaborative approach.
15. Wordle – Create beautiful word clouds.
16. Tagxedo – Word clouds with style.

Our program on using google tools to engage learners…video by students.

Peekskill NY Article about Alternative Education models

Latest in online learning and education…

STEM Update 3

Study Shows AP Program Igniting Learning for Thousands of Youth
A rigorous study just released by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) finds that students who were part of the Advanced Placement Training and Incentive Program (APTIP) “took and passed more AP courses and exams, and enrolled in college in greater numbers. Most of this increase occurred at four-year colleges and private universities. Affected students were also more likely to persist in college, to earn more college credits, and slightly more likely to earn a bachelor’s degree. In addition, affected students were more likely to be employed and earned higher wages.”

Green Schools and Students’ Science Scores are Related
A nationwide survey shows a positive correlation between Green School practices and student achievement in science. The study was conducted by the University of Colorado Denver’s Department of Geography and Environmental Sciences and presented last week at the Green Schools National Network conference in Denver. Schools that took part in the survey observe GreenPrint core practices as defined by the Green Schools National Network (GSNN).

Low Retention of STEM Faculty Raises Concerns 
AWIS in Action! – February 2012
A recent study published in ScienceDaily indicates that men and women faculty members are now being retained in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) at roughly the same rate, with the exception of mathematics departments. Funded by the NSF-ADVANCE Program, this is the first large-scale longitudinal study on faculty retention, and researchers found that the median number of years male and female faculty stay at an institution is 11. This means that half of the faculty hired this year will be gone in 11 years, which is a real problem for research universities which have competitive startup packages and expensive recruitment strategies.

OpEd piece about Politics and Education..

I thought this piece was great and I am proud to say I worked for Klein during my tenure in NYC. We need to push more for our children and our country.

Two Great Opportunities for Students…

Doors to Diplomacy: Projects Due March 15
The U. S. Department of State and GlobalSchoolNet.org sponsor the “Doors to Diplomacy” educational challenge – to encourage middle school and high school students around the world to produce web projects that teach others about the importance of international affairs and diplomacy. Each student team member of the winning “Doors to Diplomacy” Award team receives a $2,000 scholarship, and the winning coaches’ schools each receive a $500 cash award. Additional prizes may be provided by sponsors.

http://www.globalschoolnet.org/gsndoors/aglance.cfm

International CyberFair:

International Schools CyberFair, now in its 15th year, is an award-winning authentic learning program used by schools and youth organizations around the world. Youth conduct research and publish their findings on the Web. Recognition is given to the best projects in each of eight categories. This White House-endorsed program encourages youth to become community ambassadors by working collaboratively and using technology to share what they have learned. Students evaluate each others projects by using a unique online evaluation tool. In partnership with the World Future Society, students are also encouraged to also share their dreams for the future – by thinking about the possible future, the probable future, the preferable future and the preventable future. Projects that best illustrate “future thinking” are invited to the World Future Society international conference in Toronto, Canada, July 2012, WorldFuture 2012: Dream. Design. Develop. Deliver.

http://www.globalschoolnet.org/gsncf/

Teaching Jetson Children In Flintstone Schools

Video from my talk at last year’s TEDxUBC in Vancouver.