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Last week, I had the privilege to visit one of the schools (Cape Fear Middle School) involved with the gaming research I am conducting here at UNCW. We were able to get the local media to visit the school as well. They put together a news story about the game intervention and the research program. Here is a link to the news article and video: http://www.wect.com/global/story.asp?s=10091886. This is exciting because it is drawing some attention to the product, DimensionM, and is also raising awareness about gaming in education.

Recently, we hosted a teacher cadets program at UNCW. This program brings high school students interested in becoming teachers to campus to learn about the field. I was asked to do a short workshop on games in education and was interviewed by the local news channel. Here is the link to the article and video clip: http://news14.com/Default.aspx?ArID=605339. The product that was demonstrated was DimensionM which they did not mention in the video.

I just received my teaching evaluations for my first academic semester at UNCW. I am delighted to say that the students felt I did a good job teaching my first semester. This makes me extremely happy as I was very concerned that teaching in a new environment would be devastating for my teaching evaluations. Not to mention I became deathly ill for part of last semester. Anyway, according to my students, I did pretty well for my first term. A big thank you to my students for making the teaching effective. After all, it takes two to tango!

I recently came into contact with a software program called Wordle. This software basically does content analysis of key terms that emerge in a written prose. The more frequently words occur, the larger they appear on the word diagrams generated by Wordle. The software randomly generates colors and alignments of the terms on the diagram as well. For example, I took one of my journal articles titled the “effects of time-compressed audio and verbal redundancy on learner performance and satisfaction” and plugged it into Wordle. A thumbnail of the resulting word illustration is shown below. You can click on it to see a larger picture.

As you can see, the softare summarizes the key terms in a visual and spatial format that allows an observer to make meaning from the diagram. This is fun and interesting software that certainly has a place in summarizing the vast quantities of text published on a daily basis. Enjoy!

ISTE and many other professional associations have applauded both houses of US congress for slating $1 billion for educational technology funding this upcoming year. Here is the news link. While I feel this is a great way to spend federal stimulus dollars, I have to question whether $1 billion is enough money to have a national impact on school technology integration when Florida alone slated $1.25 billion last year for the technology infrastructure of classrooms. We have schools that have inadequate Internet connections, computers with barely 256 MB of RAM, and teachers lacking the professional development to effectively integrate technology into their instructional practice. If we are to invest in a stimulus package to have an effect on our future, I think more money is necessary to equip our schools for the 21st century!

I made it to Florida yesterday. I will be here during the holidays. I have plenty of work to keep me occupied, but will also be spending some time with friends and family. Look forward to seeing you!!!

I will be teaching a new course this upcoming semester for the Watson School of Education. The course is called Games, Simulations and Virtual Worlds and will focus on connecting principles of learning to these media. I created a flyer and it is attached. If you are a student in our program, please consider enrolling in the course. Topics include the characteristics and terminology of games, simulations and virtual worlds; development life cycles; design principles; evaluation; and an emphasis on connecting principles of learning to the design games, simulations and virtual worlds. Students practice these concepts in several assignments. The course culminates with teams creating a functional prototype.

I have recently become very interested in the relationship between school district information technology departments and innovative teachers. What I have observed in the past several years are inherent contradictions between the nature of the information technology department and the vision of 21st century teachers. This contradiction can often lead to many hardships for innovative teachers and misunderstandings for all that are involved. I have thus become interested in systematically investigating this phenomenon by collecting the narratives of teachers who have experienced trials and tribulations in relation to information technology departments.

Specifically, the idea is to make a request for narratives from teachers using a well-designed instrument. The narratives would then be qualitatively analyzed to identify the emergent themes. This information would then be used to build a system of understanding and balance to assist teachers in reaching their goals and to inform other stakeholders in how to support this process. This is not to say that information technology departments are to blame for these problems, but rather, to communicate the interests of each of the stakeholders with the overall goal of improving the relationship.

Is it possible that because one does not fit into a particular “position” that they should be immediately removed and shunned from an association without regard to one’s true intentions? The very thought of such an action would imply one is not understanding and one does not understand the old adage “do not judge a book by its cover”. First impressions are not always what they appear to be. A person’s true intentions cannot be understood in a matter of days, weeks, or months, but rather years of devotion and hard work towards a meaningful cause. If one is to succeed, we must afford one time to accomplish goals - judging a book by its cover is a known path to failure.

To everybody and anybody that is interested in linking learning to gaming, there will be an interesting presentation and demonstration on UNCW’s campus on 9/25/2008. The event is open to all but everyone must RSVP. Please take a look at the attached flyer. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me. [DimensionM_Flyer]