WoW in Schools - Not in Corporate Training

I like playing wow. There I said it. Judge me if you must. I see a lot of learning possibilities in wow. But it's not what you think. I don't think everybody should start playing wow as part of their job. And while I'm convinced kids do learn a lot while playing the game, I'm not convinced that those skills transfer completely into the real world.

What I do know is that unreachable, hyperactive, "problem" kids can sit for hours fully focused, communicating with others, functioning as part of team, and feel successful in a world that most perceive as just a game. But I'd argue that Chess is just a game.

But no time for that argument here. I just thought this video might interest some of my friends in education.

Amplify’d from www.convergemag.com

World of Warcraft Invades Language Arts Class Read more at www.convergemag.com

 

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DevLearn 2010 - Reviewing The New Face of Learning

Thanks to everyone who made DevLearn 2010 such a huge success. Bill Brandon's recap of the event is a great reminder of it's success.

The eLearning Guild is already hard at work brainstorming DevLearn 2011 in Vegas at the Aria. I look forward to seeing you all again.

Amplify’d from www.learningsolutionsmag.com

“Rather than simply recapping everything that went on (an impossible task), you’ll find links to what others said (and are still saying) about DevLearn 2010 in the rest of this article. And here are some more photos for you as well.”

Many e-Learning professionals think of The eLearning Guild’s conferences as the intellectual equivalent of a meal with friends, a feast of ideas. If you’re one of them, the DevLearn Conference & Expo might be your idea of that meal with a luscious dessert. With whipped cream and a cherry on top.

With a record 1,600+ e-Learning professionals attending, DevLearn 2010 continued the tradition of being on the “cutting edge” of e-Learning. This conference has become international in scope, demonstrating the growing importance worldwide of advanced technologies in e-Learning. This year, 9% of those attending came from outside the United States – representing 29 different countries.

We hope to see many of you in Orlando March 23-25, 2011 for the Learning Solutions Conference & Expo (practical, proven approaches to e-Learning design and delivery, what is being used now, plus some theory and basics), in San Jose June 21-23, 2011 for mLearnCon (mobile learning), and in Las Vegas November 2-4, 2011 for the next DevLearn. Read more at www.learningsolutionsmag.com

 

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Learning Typography - Understanding Font Design

Fonts are a magical design element often overlooked by so many instructional designers. Often because we have no choice but to make sure we use the font that exists on our end users machine. But do you really?

Some text, such as dynamically generated text fields have these limitations. But when you are designing a message meant to generate an emotional reaction, then you must consider the more subtle message being delivered by your selected font.

This link is probably the best list of resources for learning about font creation that I've found in a long time. Definitely worth bookmarking this one.

Amplify’d from www.smashingmagazine.com

Web Typography: 100 Educational Resources, Tools and Techniques

So You Want to Create a Font Alec Julien’s introductory piece on how you can create some beautiful fonts with a little hard work, a lot of knowledge and a little inspiration. The series covers font editing software, transition from paper drawings to screen drawings, vertical and horizontal metrics and kerning. Don’t forget to check out part 2 as well. Read more at www.smashingmagazine.com

 

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Life Lessons from Wheel of Fortune

Pattern-finding is something our brains do automatically. Honing that ability and consciously applying it to reach a goal takes motivation, desire, and tenacity.

Esquire magazine wrote a great article about the 26 year old fashion editor that purposefully created "luck" combing preparation and opportunity on the TV game show Wheel of Fortune.

Amplify’d from www.esquire.com

Was the Wheel of Fortune One-Letter Solve Really a Miracle?

See more at www.esquire.com

 

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Social media trends for 2011 - How will these impact eLearning?

I only clipped a couple to show you. It's well worth reading the entire article. The virtual goods and currency is intriguing to me. I often wonder how learning could leverage these virtual markets.

Amplify’d from www.imediaconnection.com

Micro-trend 1: Social commerce Shopping, whether it is for a pair of pants, diapers, or seeds, fertilizer, and a plow on a virtual farm, is inherently social. And while social commerce is not new (in fact, I've written on the topic before for iMedia Connection), the trend is going to escalate and expand in 2011. Social commerce with the end goal of increasing conversions, leads, and sales started to gain attention years ago with consumer reviews and began to escalate with the introduction of social shopping sites and functionality such as Facebook Connect. Storefronts on Facebook are swiftly escalating, and we recently saw this concept extracted to YouTube with what was described as the first "YouTique" launched at the end of September, by French Connection.

Micro-trend 2: Virtual goods and currency New media models are being built based on virtual goods and currency, currently connected directly to the increasingly popularity of social games. As a category, social gaming has grown incredibly quickly, becoming one of the dominant drivers of usage on Facebook. The current leader moving this trend is Zynga, which is building a new media model from micro-transactions -- millions of people buying seeds, sheep, tractors, weapons, skill points, and other virtual goods.

See more at www.imediaconnection.com

 

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MotionMath: Have you tried this?

This looks cool! I'm looking for feedback on the design, or game mechanics, or your kid's reaction with it.

All you mLearning gurus! I'm looking at you!

Amplify’d from motionmathgames.com

Motion Math creates movement-based learning games that give players an intuitive sense of math. Our bouncing star game – the first entry in our suite – helps learners perceive and estimate many forms of fractions.

See more at motionmathgames.com

 

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Authoring Tool for Creating iPhone/Android Apps

It's a little pricey at $350 but if it does what it says it does you can bet i'm going to check it out. They also have a 30 day trial.

If you have used this to create an elearning experience or serious game PLEASE let me know.

Special thanks to Nick Floro for pointing this out. MLearnCon is in SanJose June 2011 so I'd love to see this tool and others like it in the expo.

Amplify’d from www.anscamobile.com

Monetize 10 times faster.

Corona gets your app to market faster because you'll write up to 90% less code! We've done all the hard work so you don't have to. You'll be amazed at how easy simple tasks are. From loading an image into OpenGL to playing an mp3, it only takes one line of code. Even complex tasks like animating objects or adding physics take just a few lines not hundreds.

Multiple platforms. Multiple screens.

And it's not just the code. It's your assets too. With automatic content scaling, Corona dynamically adapts the images in your app for any screen, resolution, or aspect ratio. You'll spend less time pushing pixels and more time creating great apps on all the top platforms.

Corona is the only complete cross-platform solution on the planet for both graphics and code. You can write your application once, make edits on-the-fly, and preview your app in real-time on Corona's own simulator.

See more at www.anscamobile.com

 

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Social Game Studies is eLearning

We (eLearning Designers) can learn a lot from game designers. Maybe you're sick of hearing that. But I'm obviously NOT getting to some of you

Those people attending the DevLearn pre-conference certificate program by Brenda Brathwaite were treated to what I see as the future of Learning Design.



I'm guessing there were a few in that workshop that had no idea they were in the presence of greatness...seriously. Accomplished game designers are few and far between. In case you didn't know, you had the pleasure of spending an ENTIRE DAY with one of the GREATEST! Oh yeah, and that guy with the long hair that stopped by to say hi ... John Romero? Yea, he's sort of a big deal in the game world.



The next wave of change in eLearning is the acceptance of game design as learning design. We're close, but not quite there yet. Lots of stigma to overcome.



Just found this nice report - There is very little data currently available in this space so its nice to see people talking about it and recording their thoughts.

Amplify’d from socialgamestudies.org

Social Game Studies: A Workshop Report

As social games represent a very new hybrid game genre, research on them is still few and far between. Therefore, the Hans Bredow Institute for Media Research convened a one-day academic workshop with selected researchers at the 2010 Games Convention Online in Leipzig, Germany to build a solid overview of the current state of the field, and to identify promising areas and methodological approaches of future research. Read more at socialgamestudies.org

 

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Kids like to create with technology

Duh! Right? No. Most parents just think their kids want to play games when in fact kids would like to create games.

What can we learn from this?

Amplify’d from www.readwriteweb.com

Interestingly, kids' drive to create - and the expectation that technology will assist creative expression - was highly under-acknowledged by parents. When we asked participants' parents outright what their children's favorite computer activities were, only 7% chose some form of creation or design as an option while, not surprisingly, 70% selected gaming. By contrast, children's own inventions revealed artistic design as a close second to gaming. Read more at www.readwriteweb.com

 

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TED Talk about Gaming

I love this talk. Tom Chatfield is great.

Amplify’d from engagedlearning.net

See more at engagedlearning.net

 

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DevLearn 2010 - Friday Closing Session caricature by Kevin Thorn

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Marriott Marquis room view - SanFran after Giants win!

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DevLearn10 - Certificate Programs Start the Week off Right!

The eLearning Guild Academy got under way this morning in San Francisco. The optional intensive programs give DevLearn attendees a chance to deep dive into a specific topic the 2 days before the Conference & Expo begins.



Follow @devlearn & track the hashtag #dl10 to "see" whats going on. You can also follow me @bschlenker. I will be tweeting and posting as much as I can this week. Its going to be a fun and filled with learning!

Amplify’d from www.elearningguild.com

DevLearn 2010 Pre-conference Certificate Programs

Optional Pre-conference Certificate Programs offer new skills and knowledge that you can immediately put to work in your organization. Every participant will receive a certificate documenting their participation in the workshop from The eLearning Guild Academy. This year we are offering both one-day and two-day certificate programs. Workshops will be held on Monday and Tuesday, November 1 and 2, from 8:30a to 4:30p. Separate fee-based registration is required. The new eLearning Guild Academy offers certificate programs for e-Learning professionals that are led by key industry leaders. Stay tuned for announcements about new face-to-face and online workshops. Read more at www.elearningguild.com

 

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