This
is a subject that's near and dear to me for a couple of reasons. Not
only do I have two young, school-age children, but for a short period
of time I ran an afterschool program that targeted at risk kids. So
education is a big deal to me. Facebook, video games, google,
wikipedia – it's a whole new ballgame compared to when we were
growing up. Digital Media in education is the cutting edge right now,
and I definitely think it's the direction that we're going to see
more and more schools take as we progress further into the digital
age.
One
aspect of this that's really interesting to me is the use of video
games as learning tools, and I'm not just talking about deciding
whether or not to ford that river in Oregon Trail. They are
developing games as we speak that engage kids in a whole new way,
enabling them to learn through play in a very sophisticated, yet fun
fashion.
A
great example of this is the game service DimensionU.
DimensionU
is a content provider that provides educational mmorpg's in the
fields of math, science, and literacy. For those of you not familiar
with this term, mmorpg means massively multiplayer online role
playing game. But this is not your typical video game; it's not World
of Warcraft or the Sims. DimensionU games utilize the psychology
behind other successful mmorpgs – interaction with other players,
competition, goal-seeking, progressive storytelling – but are
structured in such a way that the children playing are achieving
educational gains as they continue to progress in the game. To give
you an idea of what I mean, here's a short video clip of one of the
DimensionU games that are available.
Imagine
how much more fun algebra class would have been if you could have
learned all those axioms while playing an engaging, exciting video
game. DimensionU provides teacher tools as well, allowing educators
to monitor students' progress in real time and flag areas that
require further review and instruction. So it's a win win situation
for everyone involved.
We're
going to see more and more tools like this being used in education as
our generation becomes more and more technologically savvy. At the
same time, however, I think that it's vital that we make sure these
resources are made available as widely as possible, particularly to
kids in economically distressed areas. To this end, we need our
generation and the one about to come into adulthood to prioritize the
creation of open-source and economical digital media tools and
content that can be made available to children everywhere, regardless
of their socioeconomic standing.
One
such application that is already available now in the United States
is the MIT OpenCourseWare programming.
To quote their
website - “MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW) is a web-based publication
of virtually all MIT course content. OCW is open and available to the
world and is a permanent MIT activity. MIT OpenCourseWare is a free
publication of MIT course materials that reflects almost all the
undergraduate and graduate subjects taught at MIT.”
Now just imagine
that for a moment. MIT, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is
one of the most prestigious science schools in the world. And yet
they have chosen to make their coursework, containing thousands and
thousands of dollars worth of educational material, available to
anyone with an interest in the field. That's mind boggling.
And yet that sort of direction is exactly what we as a society need
in order to effectively reach out to all of our youth.
I'm so excited to
see where we go next and what developments we'll make in the area of
digital media in education as we continue to move forward. I would
love to hear from the rest of you about this as well. Do any of you
know of any interesting educational resources that are up and coming
now as well?
Posted By:
Natasha Phelps
No comments:
Post a Comment