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the blog voyeurism, the podcast ventriloquy, and Raymaker Land Management are all not affiliated with, or sponsored by, Linden Research.
on behalf of the development team behind the citizenship education videogame Space Station Leonis, i'd just like to thank Josh Fouts for his very complimentary piece on his overview of digital media, games and learning in Singapore (in general), and on Leonis in particular, in his recent entry in the Spotlight blog.
the Spotlight blog documents digital media and learning, and is supported by the MacArthur Foundation.
thank you, again, Josh :-) we truly appreciate your encouragement :-)
i attended a conference on National Education (citizenship education), today.
happily, i have two takeaways from it.
the first is the sense of camaraderie that i felt from the development team of Space Station Leonis. we are a very diverse team, and i had always regarded them as more than colleagues, but today was truly special.
my second enduring memory from today is Hossan Leong's live performance of "I live in Singapura".
Hossan was my junior in school, although we never properly met.
for those of you visiting this blog from overseas, few things typify the best of what Singapore has to offer, than this video :-)
the impetus for this, is the Lion City sim - a place which anyone with an interest in Singapore can visit to get a taste of the urban landscape of the tiny city-state which is my Real Life home.
i discuss just what constitutes 'home', laud the growing diversity of accents and voices that we encounter in our Second Life adventures, and elaborate on how i feel about the relative importance of realism with regards believability in learning environments.
specifically, i belatedly add my voice to the critique of Rebecca Boone's piece on how some schools are changing their views on media-players on campus.
on a happier note, i mark the occasion of a visit by Singapore's Minister for Defence - Teo Chee Hean - to the National Institute of Education's Learning Sciences Lab, during which he was briefed on the citizenship education videogame - Space Station Leonis - that my colleagues and i are developing.
this episode also previews some encouraging results from the analysis of data obtained from the piloting of the Leonis learning ecosystem, so hopefully you'll find the 4.5 MB download well worth your while :-)
the ninety-ninth episode of ventriloquy is inspired by the story of seven-year-old Matthew Hansen, who lives in the Falklands.
prior to reading his story, i must admit that i had not given much thought to how learning and schooling take place in really remote locations. the unique curriculum that has been developed for Matthew has made me ponder anew the extent to which simulations and virtual worlds contribute to, or indeed detract from, a true education (regardless of how the latter is defined).
i can't help thinking of a 1994 episode of the television series SeaQuest DSV. in 'playtime', mankind has destroyed itself in the 23rd century, due to its dependence on computers for entertainment. the only humans left on the planet are two adolescents, who are playing out their nihilistic tendencies through a videogame which is no longer a virtual representation. an exaggerated allegory for sure, but nonetheless one which is just as relevant in the age of Second Life as it was for a culture on the brink of the debut of the original PlayStation.
please do join me in this 4.6 MB download, which was recorded using a Belkin TuneTalk and an iPod nano.
today marks the international debut of the citizenship education videogame Space Station Leonis.
Leonis is being developed by my colleagues and i at the National Institute of Education's Learning Sciences Lab, here in Singapore.
our team leader - Associate Professor Yam San Chee - presented the game during the 6th Annual International Symposium of the Consortium for School Networking, which is taking place in San Francisco today. the theme of this year's symposium is 'Using Games and Simulations for Engaged Learning', and Prof Chee talked about the game during this morning's session entitled 'Innovative Examples'. the video that was shown during the talk can be found below.
i'd just like to take the opportunity to extend a very warm welcome to all delegates of the CoSN symposium, who are visiting this blog from foggy San Francisco :-)
the ninety-fifth episode of ventriloquy is precipitated by a brutally candid question from a member of the citizenship education videogame - Space Station Leonis's - target demographic.
like all good questions, it prompted me to revisit some very fundamental assumptions about the learning environments i've been trying to design.
the ninety-third episode of ventriloquy honours Captain Ahmedou Mohamed Lemine of Air Mauritania.
his story serves as a launch pad for me to introduce you to the blog that has been set up to support and extend learning from the citizenship game Space Station Leonis.
this 3.8 MB download also gives you a sneak preview of my next pedagogical research intervention exploring podcasts in geography, this time in preparation for a paper that i've been invited to present at the annual international conference of the Royal Geographical Society - Institute of British Geographers (RGS - IBG), in August.
if you happen to be in London in a couple of months' time for the conference of the British sub-committee of the International Geographical Union - Commission for Geographical Education (IGU-CGE), i'll be there too - this time, as an attendee, not as a presenter :-)
a power failure in school prompts me to reflect, in this ninety-second episode of ventriloquy, just how much we are taking for granted in our classrooms today.
the parallels are too close for comfort in digital worlds two hundred years apart.
the ninety-first episode of ventriloquy describes how an earnest question asked by a teacher during my recent workshop prompted me to realize the implicit assumptions i was making about teaching, learning, education technology in general, and the pedagogical applications of videogames in particular.
the workshop in question was one designed to familiarize teachers in the schools piloting the citizenship education videogame - Space Station Leonis - that my colleagues and i at the Learning Sciences Lab, at Singapore's National Institute of Education, are developing, with the key theoretical underpinnings behind the relationships between serious gameplay and the construction of epistemic knowledge, skills, and values.
yesterday was especially significant for my fellow curriculum writers - Billy Tan and Isaac Ho - and myself, because it marked the signing off of the activity book which is designed to support learning from the game. Billy and Isaac have gone way beyond the call of duty in the effort they've put in, and i don't think they will ever quite fathom the degree to which i've been inspired by their input and enthusiasm.
how else can one explain a learning resource which combines teddy bear droids and manga-esque artwork within its pages?
