Category: Uncategorized

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 8 Response

I love the idea of place-based mobile learning apps as presented by Zimmerman (2014) in theory. It’s a very natural use of new technologies, and a location-based approach is a logical but powerful way of helping users connect with learning in informal settings. Unfortunately, the actual images (particularly Figures 1 & 2) of the apps she describes are… Read more Week 8 Response

Week 8 Thu Ngo

As someone who loves video games and mmorpgs, the Steinkuehler reading was a very exciting and motivating read. The parallels it drew between players collaborating and contributing knowledge towards the scientific community contributing to “collective intelligence” is something that I never would have considered. This leads to me a few questions. The first is if this… Read more Week 8 Thu Ngo

Experiential Education

I found Zimmerman’s study of place based learning to be particularly interesting because it rests on a similar educational philosophy as that of Programs like Outward Bounds of SPOT. The motivating philosophy behind outdoor educational experiences is that, with the guidance of an expert, people may push themselves to adapt to often inclement or less… Read more Experiential Education

Week 8 Reading

The Steinkuehler study examined how World of Warcraft promoted scientific ways of thinking by providing a simulated world whose systems can be observed and investigated through social knowledge construction and experimentation. The article provides empirical evidence that the WoW fosters informal learning, particularly science literacy. If we assume that this study is correct, that games… Read more Week 8 Reading

DQC Week 8

It was sad, but not shocking, to read in the research report by Crowley et al that parents are explaining STEM topics to boys three times more often when compared to girls. While wondering around the California Science Museum, young boys are being engaged more often by their parents sharing explanations that may inform a boy’s interests and… Read more DQC Week 8

Week 7

I would first like to note that I found the Berkowitz reading to be fascinating. Particularly due to the success of this app and the clear demonstration that interaction with parents around math leads to math achievement. I suppose this is interesting to me because I am the daughter of a math teacher. Thus, my… Read more Week 7

Week 7 - Thu Ngo

The Keith Devlin video gave me a totally new perspective on math and symbols. The first is that I’ve always seen math as what Devlin describes as “the representation of math”. The second is that the symbols that we use to use represent math is artificial. This second realization was huge for me. Mathematical symbols… Read more Week 7 - Thu Ngo

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

Bedtime Books and coolmath

I found the Berkowitz study to be interesting mainly because I find it hard that they were able to find “math” books that did not also have an effect on children’s literacy. Separating the two seems impossible to me. To Berkowitz’s point though that mathematical skills lag behind literacy due to lack of parent interaction… Read more Bedtime Books and coolmath