EdClub – happy hour

Went to the EdClub meeting Monday afternoon.

“The Education Club engages Stanford business and education school students in discussions about education issues, their role in education, and business’ role in education.”

Interesting to find out more about the joint MA/MBA program.

Edmodo – Interview

On Monday I interviewed with Edmodo for an internship position to work on their beta product called Spotlight” – a resource sharing center for all of their teachers. Two positions available research on understanding the needs teachers have or research on how teachers are using the tool and how it could be better.

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Tech 4 Learners – Week 3 – Reading Assignment

Reading: 

In-Game, In-Room, In-World: Reconnecting Video Game Play to the Rest of Kids’ Lives
Reed Stevens, Tom Satwicz, Laurie McCarthy (2008)

Notes:

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Response:

“How designers could perhaps leverage the types of interactions in the vignettes to create engaging learning experiences”

I believe kid’s learning experiences can be more engaging if they encourage kids to teach each other, empowers them to ask questions, enables collaboration in the discovery process and offers tasks that are learnable.

In the first vignette we see Rachel getting her information on a need-to-know basis making her experience flow better. In the second vignette Mikey teaches Maddy very efficiently how to use the code correctly. In the third, the boys used their ZPD and pulled each other through the task. In the fourth vignette, modeling was used to teach.

With video games, kids engage in these behaviors naturally and perceive the task of learning as part of the enjoyable task.

“Relevant” learning objectives can be inserted into the already familiar game mechanics of video games in a way that they become challenges within a larger context that the kid is in control of. For example – trigonometry – the in-game character has to built his own bridge to cross a river. To do so he must understand angles and calculate how much material he would need to complete the task.

What stroke me most was the potential learning between the younger and older kids. Perhaps this interaction has not been fully explored yet. Many learning experiences have been designed for the parent-child interaction but maybe not as many have been designed for kid-to-older-kid interactions explicitly. Experiences where kids of varying ages can play/learn/teach together with the explicit goal of showing off what they know and/or learn from each other.

Why not a video game room in the school where teachers act as coaches and facilitators to explore and make evident these positive interactions that lead to learning and sharing knowledge? With careful curation, teachers could potentially find games that illustrate key concepts and encourage the kids to teach each other.

The “kidification” of education 🙂

 

Brazilian Education – Week 3 – Reading Assignment

Reading: 

“EDUCATION POLICY BEGINS AT HOME: WHY DIFFERENCES IN STUDENT PERFORMANCE AMONG U.S. STATES ARE MORE USEFUL FOR EDUCATIONAL POLICY THAN INTERNATIONAL COMPARISONS”

Martin Carnoy – Stanford University
Emma García – Economic Policy Institute
Tatiana Khavenson – National Research University Higher School of Economics

September 14, 2015

Notes:

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note: the crossed heart is not part of the notes 🙂

Qualitative Research – Week 3 – Reading Assignment

Reading: 

  • Geertz, C. (1973). “Thick Description, “The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books. pp.3-30.

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  • Taylor, S., & Bogdan, R. (1998). “Participant Observation, In the Field,” Introduction to Qualitative Research Methods. (Third Edition). New York: John Wiley & Sons. pp. 45-53, 61-71.

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LDT Seminar – Class Notes

Good session again today. Who am I? sessions started. We had that pleasure to listen to:

Matej Jan – funny – here’s his rehearsal video

Colin – languages

MingMing – motivational

On the second half of the class we had the visit of EdCareers for some valuable information about internships, available resources and how to plan for post Stanford.

Class Notes: 

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Notes Followup:

  • Look at EdCareers Database
  • Read/Follow EdSurge.com
  • Join GSB/GSE EdClub
  • Goto and/or setup Coaching with BEAM

Homework:

Think of 3 people and write about what they need to learn, why and how you propose they might learn it.

____, is a _____.

He wants to ___.

In order to do so, ___

To address this challenge I seek to ___ in a way that ___.

Party on the Edge

Last night we went to a party (9-12pm) at the Stanford’s Canto Art Center – music, performances, food – bike valet service – all free for students. The most impressive though, is the museum itself and its collection. Apparently it’s the largest Rodin collection outside of Paris – 200 original pieces including The Thinker and The Gates of Hell.