sandhini

Week 9

This weeks really gave me a hard look at all the ways I could have been educated in high school and made me wonder if I would have different interests if my school had a very different approach to education. I loved reading about the maker movement and the digital fabrication paper. I can see… Read more Week 9

Week 8

The Zimmerman piece was extremely interesting because it showed gave good guidelines for how ‘learning’ and ‘fun’ can be seamlessly integrated. It was interesting to note how science can informally be integrated in other activities a child engages in. I found the concept of place-based education to be very relevant. Something that I have heard… Read more Week 8

Week 7

I found the article on the cool-math games website extremely fascinating. It reminded me of Luminosity which was recently sued for millions of dollars for claiming to make games that improve your ‘brainpower’ when in actuality they did nothing. Cool-math games also seems to have an empty claim like this and what is even worse… Read more Week 7

Week 6

The reading on fan-based spaces struck a particular cord with me because not only was I regular visitor on neopets in my middle school days but an active contributor to the Harry Potter fanfiction websites in my high school days. It was interesting to view something that I just did for fun analyzed in an… Read more Week 6

Week 5

The reading that was most surprising to me this week was the one by Isabella Granic. I have always viewed playing video games to be an unproductive activity. It was interesting to see video-games can actually develop important skills of cognitive, social, emotional and motivation. The fMri studies that they cited such as the one… Read more Week 5

Review and Redesign- Toca Kitchen 2

Toca Kitchen 2 For my review and redesign I have chosen the application Toca Kitchen 2. This app has over 210,000 downloads only on the iStore and is aimed for children between 3-8 years-old. With an approximate rating of 4.3 stars, this app seems to be extremely enjoyable. The usage of the app is simple:… Read more Review and Redesign- Toca Kitchen 2

Black et al- Reading Response

There was a lot that I found chilling in this weeks readings. The Black et al paper and the Kahn et al paper in particular brought to light some disturbing facts and theories. It was disheartening to read the Black et al paper and seeing that even though politically and theoretically we have achieved gender… Read more Black et al- Reading Response

Week 3

I found the readings for this week really interesting. I felt that the rubric for measuring an app presented in the Hirsch-Patek et al. paper was particularly interesting. I thought that the pillars of science of learning and the way they could translate to apps were particularly interesting and helped provide some insight into how… Read more Week 3

Parasocial Activity

Sirius Black I remember crying when his character in the Harry Potter novels died. I was undoubtedly (probably still am) very attached to him. This was probably because I loved how he portrayed an adult with all the safety, security and wisdom that an adult embodies while at the same being childlike, playful and someone extremely… Read more Parasocial Activity