Handheld Learning

Handheld Learning takes place in London from October 13th to 15th. Nintendo have sponsored the event - and early registrations will receive free Nintendo DS’!

Aside from that, the speaker list is pretty impressive too… including the likes of Stephen Heppell and John Seely Brown. Looking at the programme I see that Derek Robertson will be speaking too. Although my own work hasn’t really had much involvement with mobile technologies, I have to say that I’m tempted.

Dr. Kawashima, Schools and Media

Having chatted with Derek Robertson recently, thought I would update on some Consolarium news.

Byron Report, Media coverage of games issues, and classroom use of Dr. Kawashima’s Brain Training and Nintendogs all below…

CFP: Novel Approaches to Promoting Student Engagement

Novel Approaches to Promoting Student Engagement

A one-day workshop hosted at the University of Ulster’s Coleraine campus, on 30 October 2008, by the School of Computing and Information Engineering and the Higher Education Academy.

Testing Times

BBC Education reports on a Commons Committee findings, with the headline “Tests ‘damaging’ to schools system“.

Much the same old story… MPs investigate an issue and find that an overemphasis on the results of tests leads to a narrowing of the curriculum as teachers ‘teach to the test’, with students learning enough to pass tests but without necessarily developing wider skills and deeper understanding that might be achieved otherwise. And a proposed new testing regime is no better in the eyes of the MPs:

Dissecting Club Penguin

I’m not the only one disconcerted by the extent to which childrens’ virtual worlds appear to be training grounds for tomorrow’s unthinking consumers. Via recent discussion at RezEd:

At Shaping Youth, the question is asked: Virtual Worlds Are Still Unwritten: Can We Move Beyond Consumption?

This is a good discursive post - and draws on a wide range of writing, reports and commentators to illustrate why marketers are stampeding towards the creation of virtual worlds for children - and why we need to be concerned.

At Feeding Change, Liam O’Donnel has similar concerns (some crossposting between the two), and Liam has gone so far as to create a second blog to host his studies into Club Penguin - to look at how Virtual Worlds are redefining literacy for children. Considering, for example, the literacy of status which seems to be a major force in the design/success of Club Penguin.

From all of which common themes emerge - children are engaging with new literacies of status and with messages that reinforce the idea that ‘you are what you own’. Something that educators and parents really should be more aware of.

Grade Guru - Facebook for learning?

While Facebook started off as a social networking platform for students only, it never really had much of a focus on supporting learning - and has had relatively limited take up as a collaborative learning tool (which may even be tailing off as more adverts and controversies over privacy and IP ownership occur).

Courtesy of Shona Mullen of McGraw-Hill I had a peek at ‘Grade Guru‘ yesterday - a new social networking app focussed on note sharing and collaborative learning.