3 Components for Developing a Great eLearning Game

As technology has advanced, lots of innovative ideas are being tried in the education domain to make the experience of children pleasurable. Keeping this in mind, this article focuses on crucial components for developing a great e-learning game.

Combining education with entertainment is not a cup of tea for ordinary developer. It requires lot of creativity and patience. The smooth layouts and graphics add to the visuals of the game. But the major purpose of the e-learning game should be to impart knowledge to the students. But it is quite subjective to define a good e-learning game. It is still an unknown entity which has not been answered properly. This article talks about different components which help in developing a great e-learning game. Let us look at these components in detail:

• Perfect combination of learning and entertainment: Always ensure that there is a perfect blend of learning and entertainment while developing an e-learning game. Care should be taken that the learning objectives behind developing the game is fulfilled. For example; for English you can have various word jigjaw puzzles and memory games to strengthen the memory of the student. Always try to integrate all the crucial aspects that are important from the learning perspective to be present in the game.
• Give impetus to the students to play the game: Children are the most difficult target audience to attract because they genuinely like or dislike the game. Hence, it is very important to provide proper impetus to the students to play the games. For example; if there are puzzles in the game each level needs to present different challenge so that children do not get bored with the games and play to learn something from it. Engagement and attraction are two things which make children focus on the game.
• Target the essential elements of learning in the game: Always focus on the learning aspect in the game. Try to eradicate those portions wherein the learning aspect gets diverted. For example; if you are playing a game on grammar which deals with identifying verbs and nouns from a group of sentences. If you are constantly clicking on the ground to walk around, examining surroundings to identify boxes and then picking them up, the verbs that get collected are not of relevance as they are not part of the learning mechanism.

Context is of prime importance in an e-learning game. An experienced e-learning provider would follow the points mentioned above and create extravagant e-learning games for children.

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emPower  is a leading provider of comprehensive Healthcare Compliance Solutions through Learning Management System (LMS). Its mission is to provide innovative security solutions to enable compliance with applicable laws and regulations and maximize business performance. empower provides range of courses to manage compliance required by regulatory bodies such as OSHA, HIPAA, Joint commission and Red Flag Rule etc. Apart from this emPower also offers custom demos and tutorials for your website, business process management and software implementation.

Its Learning Management system (LMS) allows students to retrieve all the courses 24/7/365 by accessing the portal. emPower e-learning training program is an interactive mode of learning that guides students to progress at their own pace.

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Online-education lawsuit misfires on state funding

Washington state must embrace online learning, “the future of education,” but a lawsuit against funding cuts interferes with the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction’s right to decide where to allocate dollars.

MANY students in Washington’s K-12 public education system take classes online, some never entering a traditional brick-and-mortar school.

Our state’s challenge to serve these students while creating accountability in one of the fastest-growing sectors of education is complicated by a lawsuit filed by online-learning advocates protesting budget cuts.

The Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction was ordered by Gov. Chris Gregoire to reduce education spending. The result: Previously, traditional and online schools received the same funding; now, online schools receive an annual average of $4,250 per student — 15 percent less.

We don’t like cuts to any part of education. But OSPI had the right, and responsibility, to decide where to allocate education dollars.

Moreover, the complex funding formulas for online education and traditional schools should be different. For example, the state should not allocate transportation dollars for virtual learning. Numerous other examples abound, enough to make a convincing case that online education can be funded fairly and differently from traditional schools.

Meanwhile, cuts in online learning have spurred school districts to rethink how they serve online students. More districts are focusing on serving students in their district, a step away from the current, large, statewide online schools. Steilacoom is an example of a small district with 2,000-plus students in its online-education program. That’s more students than Steilacoom’s physical student population.

About 18,000 students took at least one online course last year, according to Karl Nelson, director of digital learning for Washington state. About 9,000 students are enrolled full time in online schools. More than 50 school districts around the state offer online programs — mostly through for-profit companies.

Online education is popular for disabled students, accelerated learners and at-risk students who don’t mesh well in typical school environments. Working students who must do their schooling on a different schedule are also among those enrolled in online education.

The National Association of State Boards of Education called online learning the “future of education” in a much-touted 2001 report, “Any Time, Any Place, Any Path, Any Pace.”

Washington should continue to support online learning, but a lawsuit wrongly challenges the state’s right to develop a fair funding model and accountability system.

Highlander Hosts Technology + Learning Conference in Providence

With the push for digital learning stronger than ever, a conference for next steps in Providence.

Providence will host educators seeking to better incorporate digital technologies into their schools this month, when Highlander Institute, a regional provider of high quality professional development in education, presents the Blended Learning & Technology Conference on Saturday, May 19, 2012 from 8:30am-4pm. This day-long, hands-on conference will give educators practical insight on adopting blended learning models. Blended eLearning integrates the best of online learning with face-to-face instruction, expanding opportunities for the teacher and student.

Integrating tech in the classroom: not always easy

“Integrating technology with tried and true classroom instruction is not always intuitive or easy, but when it is done well it helps the teacher understand a student’s abilities at a whole new level,” said Shawn Rubin, director of technology integration at the Highlander Institute and co-founder, Metryx. “Teachers can then use this input to create a much more individualized learning environment for the student, which leads to greater learning outcomes.”  Further, Rubin said, ” “blended learning recognizes that technology is something today’s students already enjoy. It uses tools that are intuitive to them and increases their engagement in their own learning.”

A national push toward digital learning

Pointing to the trend towards digital learning environments, President Obama, the U.S. Dept of Education and the Federal Communications Commission announced recently a 70-page guide for schools to begin transitioning to digital learning. Locally, the RI Dept of Education will soon announce the winner of the Model School Grant award funded by U.S. Dept of Ed “Enhancing Education Through Technology (E2T2)” funds, for the redesign of a school that uses technology as the catalyst for transformation.

Conference details

The Blended Learning & Technology Conference, subtitled “From Theory to Practice”, will bring together the practitioners, education technology gurus, and the people behind the tools for integration. Attendants will listen to educators already integrating technology in their teaching environments, and have the opportunity to “tinker, test and explore” applications and software on iPads, SMARTboards, and Android tablets.

“At Highlander, we understand the integration of technology for some educators and schools will be a gradual process. But the trend is moving quickly. This conference offers a comfortable environment to learn about these tools, and jumpstart the process,” Rubin said.

Featured speakers

Conference speakers include Jennie Dougherty from edUPGRADE, a nonprofit that brings beta technology to teachers in exchange for feedback; Melissa Pickering, recent manager of Tufts Center for Engineering Education and Outreach, and founder of iCreate to Educate; and Mohit Midha, COO of Mangahigh.com, a games based teaching resource for K-12 math.

Vendors and sponsors include: Broadband RI, Educreations, Engrade, K12, Learn Zillion, Lesson Writer, and Metryx.

For more information on the Blended Learning & Technology Conference, visit www.blendedlearningconference.com, call 401-831-7323, or email admin@highlanderinstitute.org.

The digital teacher

By Maureen Downey

In every district, in every school, in every grade, there is that great teacher who all parents want for their children. So, parents cross their fingers and hope that their child is lucky enough to end up on that teacher’s roster.

What if every student in the class could get that terrific teacher rather than a fortunate few?

That is one of the promises of online elearning, said Bryan Hassel, co-director of Public Impact and a speaker at last week’s Thomas B. Fordham Institute’s panel on Education Reform for a Digital Era.

Hassel said that only about 25 percent of classes have one of these top-tier teachers at a given time. That means the other 75 percent don’t.

Education can enlarge the classroom of the teachers achieving the best results with students and pay them more for doing so by multiplying their reach through technology, Hassel said.

Relieve those great teachers of noninstructional tasks, use video to reach more students and incorporate smart software to personalize instruction.

While the panelists differed on how digital learning should be introduced, they agreed that it represents the future.

“There is a lot of hope and a lot of hype. We have yet to see too many programs in practice live up to their promise,’’ said moderator Michael Petrilli, executive vice president of the Fordham Institute. “To get it right, we need a much more fundamental and compelling school reform agenda than we’ve got today.”

Today, there is one computer for every three students across all k-12 schools. There is connectivity. There is hardware. Yet, of 55 million students total, it’s estimated that fewer than a million have taken an online course.

Most schools function as they always have — a single teacher overseeing a classroom with, on average, 23 students. That’s in contrast with every other industry in the country in which technology plays a larger and larger role in how work is done.

“Technology is inevitable,” said John Chubb, distinguished visiting fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution and a founder of EdisonLearning. “We can’t put our fingers in the dikes and stop technology from coming.”

The role of skeptic on the panel was assigned to Emory University professor Mark Bauerlein, author of “The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future; Or, Don’t Trust Anyone Under 30.”

Bauerlein outlined several obstacles that caused initiatives such as statewide laptop programs to stumble, including 50-year-old teachers who didn’t get on board or a lack of schoolwide coordination.

But the toughest challenges come from students who regard technologies as social tools and resist their conversion to learning tools.

“These tools have intense social meaning for them. They are largely mediums of peer pressures, peer absorption, peer fixation and peer topics — coming into their lives 24 hours a day,” he said.

“Try to control that classroom with 25 laptops open and keep students from drifting into social habits,’’ he said.

If technology became as integral to the academic lives of students as it has to their social lives, Chubb said, “this imbalance that clearly exists now would begin to change. There is not the option of keeping technology out. The challenge is how to make technology work for schools. Or schools will become, in the eyes of students, irrelevant.”

Today, teachers face classrooms that have students who are reading at below grade level and students reading at a college level. “Digital learning allows students to learn at their own level … to customize instruction,” Chubb said.

Under rigid rules on teacher pay and class size, Hassel said there aren’t strong incentives now for teachers to embrace technology or become involved in shaping it. “There is no way they can use it to leverage their time. But if they can use technology in time-saving ways and take on more students and earn more, they will become active shoppers and become a driver of quality.”

That research suggests digital learning is not being done very well yet doesn’t mean that it can’t be improved, Chubb said.

“If we wait for definitive evidence that this new model works better than the old model, we will never get there,” Chubb said.

“What we want is to give educators, principals, school districts and charter school heads more flexibility and more incentive to try to figure out how to adopt technology. This is not something policy makers will figure out. Educators will figure it out.”

This article was originally posted at http://www.ajc.com/opinion/the-digital-teacher-1424150.html

My Takeaways from the 2012 Digital Learning and Media Conference

On March 2 and 3, I attended the third annual Digital Media and Learning Conference in my home city of San Francisco. Though I missed the first day of the conference, I got so much out of days two and three, connecting with educators and thinkers and other folks who are passionate about how we can use technology in smart ways to improve education and expand elearning beyond the classroom.

I won’t summarize all the panels I went to and the conversations I had, but instead will talk about two panels in particular that I found especially inspiring and that highlighted a concept frequently at play throughout the conference: Learning partnerships do not have to begin in the classroom to affect what happens there, and learning partnerships will be integral to the future of education.

The first of these panels, DML: Case Study in Digital Media and Learning Partnerships: A Youth-Centered Design Framework in San Francisco, featured Jill Bourne, Deputy City Librarian for San Francisco; Elizabeth Babcock, Chief Education and Digital Strategy Officer at California Academy of Sciences; Ingrid Dahl, Director of Next Gen Programs at Bay Area Video Coalition; and Matthew Williams, Educational Technologist at KQED. These four individuals, and the institutions with which they are affiliated, have come together to contribute the room, the resources and the expertise required to train youth to create digital media. Bourne explained that San Francisco’s main library would be allotting some 5,000 square feet to develop a teen-friendly space for young people to learn all manner of media production under the guidance of instructors from Bay Area Video Coalition. Cal Academy is hoping some of what the students will produce will be interesting multi-media productions aimed at helping children and teens get excited about science. And by airing the content the teens create, KQED can help bring these productions to a broader audience.

Here’s what I love about this partnership: First, each group brings something to the collaboration, and they each get something from it as well. And second, the partnership fills a need. Most schools do not have the money to buy and maintain the kinds of equipment necessary to do high-quality video and audio production, and they also lack the staff with the expertise required to teach these skills to students. This collaboration among various parts of the community helps to fill a void in “traditional” education. Jill Bourne, the Deputy Librarian, told me that she has recently formed working relationships with three different public high schools in San Francisco. I’m excited to track the progress of this partnership and see what the teens produce and how the teachers work with the group to incorporate media projects into their curricula.

The second panel discussion that had me feeling all fired up was Short Talk Panel: Playful interventions: libraries, college access, after school and media arts, which focused on creating richer learning experiences through games. “Gamification” (“Is that seriously a word?” a friend asked, when I was telling her about the conference. “Yes it is,” I replied) was a popular theme at DML2012, and I’ll be honest when I say people might be a little too game-crazy right now, for my taste. Learning activities need more than just badges to be innovative. Still, I also subscribe to the Alfred Mercier notion that, “What we learn with pleasure we never forget.” And I’ve been know to create games in my own classes when teaching elements of syntax and sentence style, and I’ve found those games to be quite effective in reinforcing the “nuts and bolts” of solid sentence structure. So I was down to hear what the folks on this panel had to say about the role of games in teaching and learning.

Adam Rogers, Emerging Technology Services Librarian at North Carolina State University, gave a lively and interesting presentation about how he and his colleagues redesigned freshman library orientation at NC State by using iPods with the Evernote app installed. Freshman Composition instructors singed up their classes for orientation, and the students in the classes were broken up into teams of four or five students each, with one iPod per team. The students were also given maps of the library and a list of scavenger hunt questions to answer and activities to complete. They logged their answers using Evernote, which allowed them to do things like capture pictures of themselves with a librarian and make note of information contained in certain volumes in the library. It was a fun, engaging way to introduce the students to the library, its staff, and even each other, as they worked together to complete the scavenger hunt. I told Adam that I thought his game had potential to be reworked throughout the year to help students become really good at research. Teachers in various disciplines could work with the librarians to craft a similar game that results in the students collecting preliminary research on a specific topic, further helping them internalize where various kinds of information are to be found in the library, and where to turn if they need help finding better information than what their own search yields.

What both of these panels highlighted for me is the idea brought up at one of the plenary sessions–that education is moving from a one-to-many model to a many-to-many model. That is to say, it really does take a village to raise our youth and educate them and give them the skills they’ll need to survive and succeed in this rapidly changing world. Districts can and should capitalize on the potential of this “many-to-many” model by evolving traditional professional development days into learning partnership days. Teachers often have very little time or space for networking with others–inside and outside of their schools–and yet building relationships with other educators and with those who could contribute to education beyond the school walls helps to make the educational experience for both faculty and students so much richer. I left DML2012 full of hope for the future of teaching and learning and fully ready to be part of that future. My hope is that schools will embrace this future by thinking outside the classroom to find innovative ways to help the village contribute resources and expertise to the educating of our youth.

This article was originally posted at http://verbalcupcake.net/2012/03/my-takeaways-from-the-2012-digital-learning-and-media-conference/

Nelson’s digital learning bill advances

By Post-Bulletin staff

ST. PAUL — Legislation that encourages more online learning in the classroom passed the Minnesota Senate on Thursday with broad bipartisan support.

Sen. Carla Nelson, R-Rochester, sponsored the digital learning bill. It would require the Online Learning Advisory Council, with the help of the Minnesota Department of Education, to develop a catalog for teachers of all the digital learning materials indexed to Minnesota academic standards. There will also be a system set up that will allow teachers and students to rate the material. The bill also requires a study to determine how to link student performance to the digital learning materials.

The bill also allows basic skills revenue to be used for digital elearning, and it encourages every Minnesota student to take at least one online class before graduating.

Nelson’s bill calls for a review of state regulations to identify any that might impede digital learning in the classroom.

The Senate passed the bill 53-11. The measure now goes to the House and, if it passes there, the governor.

This article was originally posted at http://www.postbulletin.com/news/stories/display.php?id=1490120

New Report Urges Online Learning Expansion in Texas

Texas Insider Report: AUSTIN, Texas – The Texas Public Policy Foundation would like to see Texas follow Florida’s lead in increasing access to virtual schools.

A report from the Texas Public Policy Foundation suggests that virtual education and blended elearning both present the opportunity for cost savings and academic gain in Texas.

“At the K-12 level, the potential of virtual education is enormous,” said the report’s author, James Golsan. “Through the use of technology, students in rural districts would have access to the same educational resources as students in more populated areas. Familiarization with technology could prepare students for the work force more quickly.”

While there is some concern about the ability of existing traditional institutions to convert to blended learning facilities, it’s a popular model for new start ups. Virtual education is already a success story in Florida and the TPPF wants Texas to follow Florida’s lead.

“Florida has one of the longest standing and most successful virtual education programs in the country,” Golsan said. “As Texas seeks to improve its own digital learning environment, an examination of the Florida model provides the state with an example by which to fashion, at the very least, its public virtual education after.

Several benefits to a virtual education model are highlighted in the report, such as increased course availability and access to quality instructors. Although virtual education institutions have come under fire in the past for high dropout rates, the report believes that dropout recovery could be best served in the virtual arena.

Another highlighted benefit to Texas expanding its digital education offerings is the potential for huge cost savings. Not only does the report claim that educating students online is cheaper than traditional in-person methods, but that cost efficiencies of scale accrue more under a digital learning platform.

“Currently, Texas funds its students at a rate of around $11,000 per pupil,” Golsan said. “Research suggests that full-time virtual students can be educated for between $1,500 and $3,000 less per student than those in traditional brick-and-mortar settings.”

The perceived benefits of online education have recently come under scrutiny from Great Lakes Centre for Education Research and Practice, but the TPPF remains enthusiastic.

The report also recommends the easing of the course approval process for digital coursework, the promotion of private provider participation in digital learning, the creation of a scholarship program for digital learners, and the opening of the Texas Virtual School Network to private and home-schooled students.

This article was originally posted at http://www.texasinsider.org/?p=59580

Faculty Initiative: Technology in the Classroom

Colleges and universities across the country are rising to the challenge of utilizing technology in the classroom and meeting the demands of students in the technology age. St. Norbert College is not far behind the pack with a new faculty initiative.

Last February, President Kunkel and the Office of Faculty Development led a forum called “eLearning in the Digital Age.” This forum was held to raise awareness of the growing trend in higher education to make use of digital technologies in the classroom.

Dean Jeffery Frick then appointed a panel of faculty members called the “Digital Learning Initiative” task group (DLI) to continue with the discussion.

Members of the task group include Paul Johnson, associate professor of philosophy, Reid Riggle, associate professor of education, Gratzia Villarroel, associate professor of political science, John Frohliger, associate professor of mathematics, Blake Hensen, assistant professor of music and Kristin Vogel, director of the library.

The group has released a DLI report on technology in higher education. The report includes the context of the discussion up until now: a history of digital learning, the group’s guiding principles, the group’s recommendations, and the group’s vision statement.

The vision statement of the DLI is: “St. Norbert College shall work to establish and foster a culture of collaborative entrepreneurship across the campus which incentivizes, supports and acknowledges the development and successful incorporation of digital learning skills and technologies into the educational Mission of the College.”

The task group is interested in the pedagogy, or the teaching techniques, implementing technology in classroom and what this can bring to education.

One of the guiding principles in the document is, “Change is imminent, and St. Norbert College must adapt.”

“Until now, the discussion was kept to faculty and staff at St. Norbert College,” said Johnson, “but now an important next step in the process is to involve the students to broaden the conversation.”

The committee plans on taking the next step of involving students through general surveys and forums which students along with the St. Norbert College community would be invited to attend.

“I would like to see student focus groups,” said Riggle. “I think a focus group would be more structured and the dialogue would contain specific questions or concerns.”

An example of one of the questions the DLI has is the use of social media in higher education. Social media does not always transfer to the classroom and the task group needs the students’ opinions and thoughts on why this is.

There are two ideas the DLI has presented to boost technology in the classroom. The first is to provide faculty with a small stipend to promote the use of technology. The second is to delegate one faculty member in each discipline to be the technology advisor.

“The committee has the idea of the full spectrum pedagogy,” said Johnson, “One end of the spectrum holds the traditional professors and the other end holds the entrepreneur professors with all the colors in between.”

The committee values both ends of the spectrum because both are extremely valuable to the Liberal Arts experience.

Something the task group is aware of is the push and pull of the spectrum. “If we lean far towards technology then what do we lose in the classroom?” said Johnson.

“It’s important to maintain balance,” said Riggle, “We don’t want to leap into technology, but what is the best course environment as we progress into the future?”

The school plans to place implementing technology into higher education high on the school’s Strategic Plan.

This article was originally posted at http://www.snctimes.com/news/faculty-initiative-technology-in-the-classroom-1.2808205#.T1Wmml21uT4

West Prairie Board approves three-year technology plan

Sciota, Ill. —

West Prairie School District’s three-year technology plan, approved by the district’s board of education Thursday night, includes steps to move the district towards implementing a one-to-one digital learning program that would provide students with their own device, such as a laptop computer or iPad.

The plan, which is submitted to the Illinois State Board of Education for approval, will allow the school district to access federal E-Rate funds for lower telecommunications and Internet costs. The E-Rate program discounts range from 20 to 90 percent, depending on the cost of eligible services, the low-income level of the district and urban/rural status.

Scott Sullivan, the district’s technology coordinator, prepared the technology plan and presented some details to the board. The plan not only includes a purchasing plan for network upgrades and new hardware, but instructional goals for integrating technology in the classroom to enhance learning.

Sullivan said the district spent about $114,000 last year on network upgrades, including a new computer server, and will spend around $150,000 the next fiscal year. Network upgrades that will next be completed include new switch boxes — devices that connect computers to a network and enhance connectivity between buildings.

Sullivan said those upgrades are necessary as the district moves towards a one-on-one digital learning environment.

While the district has not yet decided what kind of device, such as an iPad or laptop computer, will be used, Sullivan said the cost will be about $2.50 per student, per day, and added that cost is comparable to what other school districts have spent to implement one-to-one digital learning programs.

He also said he doesn’t expect the district to begin looking at purchasing any devices until this summer for possible implementation in the fall, starting with the high school.

Sullivan has visited a number of other school districts, including Mendon and United, to see how they have implemented one-to-one digital devices.

“I think this is going to help us move forward,” Sullivan said about the technology plan.

Superintendent Jonathan Heerboth said students in high school agriculture teacher Corinne Galvan’s classes are already getting to experience one-to-one digital learning with their own iPads to enhance instruction.

“It’s kind of a first baby step,” Heerboth commented.

In other business Thursday night, the board:
• Accepted the resignation of Eunice Lutz, middle school principal.

• Set a special board meeting for 7 p.m. Wednesday, March 14, at the West Prairie Middle School in Colchester to discuss personnel matters, maintenance matters and long-range planning. The next regular board of education meeting will be held at 7 p.m. Thursday, March 22, at the West Prairie High School.

Sen. Rogers: Digital Learning Can Make Georgia a Leader in Education

Digital learning, teachers are the main subjects of Sen. Chip Rogers weekly legislative address.

Rogers said SB 289, the Digital Learning bill, will give Georgia the opportunity to be a leader in education instead of continuing to trail the nation.

The Republican senator said most of the time digital learning would take place in the classroom, at each student’s own pace.

Places in the state without the abiltiy to pay teachers for small numbers of students in subjects such as physics and languages such as Japanese will be able to offer them through digital learning, Rogers said.