Educational Projects for Waygate
A collection of projects and exercises that will eventually go into the Waygate education application that uses gamification to encourage children to learn.
Folksonomies: education learning gamification
Memes
28 JUL 2014
How to Make Slime
Mix up a batch of 50/50 water and glue, dissolve a spoonful of Borax in more water, then mix the whole mess together. (If you want real numbers, mix 1/4 c water with 1/4 glue & dissolve 1 tsp Borax in 1/8 c water, but really, you can be pretty slapdash about this.) As you knead it, the slime will quickly start resembling silly putty. For extra awesomeness, consider mixing in some iron filings to create your own batch of magnetic putty.
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Something to do with the kids.
24 DEC 2013
Google Translate as a Broken Telephone
Another delightful pastime is overtransforming an information artifact through digital algorithms—useful, if used sparingly—until it turns into something quite strange. For instance, you can use one of the online machine-translation services to translate a phrase through a ring of languages back to the original and see what you get. The sentence “The edge of knowledge motivates intriguing online discussions” transforms into “Online discussions in order to stimulate an attractive national know...Jaron Lanier describes a game you can play with google translate, transforming a sentence through a variety of languages back to its original to see what is produced.
27 NOV 2013
Arthur Benjamin Explains the Fibbonacci Set
Now these numbers can be appreciated in many different ways. From the standpoint of calculation, they're as easy to understand as one plus one, which is two. Then one plus two is three, two plus three is five, three plus five is eight, and so on. Indeed, the person we call Fibonacci was actually named Leonardo of Pisa, and these numbers appear in his book "Liber Abaci," which taught the Western world the methods of arithmetic that we use today. In terms of applications, Fibonacci numbers appe...And provides new insights into its web of patterns and numerical relationships.
22 NOV 2013
Game That Adds 7.5 Minutes to Your Life
Now, I could tell you what these four types of strength are, but I'd rather you experience them firsthand. I'd rather we all start building them up together right now. So here's what we're going to do. We're going to play a quick game together. This is where you earn those seven and a half minutes of bonus life that I promised you earlier. All you have to do is successfully complete the first four SuperBetter quests. And I feel like you can do it. I have confidence in you.
So, everybody read...Quick game that hits on four aspects of a healthy life. The speaker then suggests using those seven minutes on actions that will get you even more longevity.
22 NOV 2013
Sid Myer's "Civilization" as an Educational Tool
[Kurt D.] Squire has studied middle school kids who played Civ3. He found that some students who were able to spend the hours needed to learn the game began to identify “rules” by which history progressed; rules that apply to such issues as resource allocation, the tradeoff between aggressive military expansion and diplomacy, and technological exchange among societies. Weir, who had college juniors and seniors playing every day for three weeks in a summer course, says some of the game scenari...Perspectives from a selection of Professors who use the game to teach history, be it the trade-offs in growth, the way modern culture colors the portrayal of history in the game, and the way the game allows for speculation about alternative histories.
09 JUL 2013
Fun Computer Science Tasks
C is a big language with a lot of features, and it’s easy to get lost in how fun it is. But you can’t really appreciate a feature without knowing what it’s like to do without. So do things with limited resources. Make a binary adder using falling dominoes. Make a functional digital clock with neon bulbs, resistors, capacitors, diodes, wires, and a wall plug. Make a Turing machine with LEGO blocks. (Use a crank to run it.) If you’re really ambitious, make some logic using fluidics with a rou...Folksonomies: education computer science
Folksonomies: education computer science
Projects to learn CS and appreciate its underlying structures.
29 JUN 2013
The Hypersociality of Collectible Card Games
Yu-Gi-Oh! demonstrates how pervasive media technologies in everyday settings
integrate the imagination into a wider range of sites of social activity.
Far from the shut-in behavior that gave rise to the most familiar forms of antimedia
rhetoric, this media mix of children’s popular culture is wired, extroverted,
and hypersocial, reflecting forms of sociality augmented by dense sets
of technologies, signifiers, and systems of exchange. David Buckingham and
Julian Sefton-Green (2004) have argue...CCGs are a very social game, involving not just game play but trading, bargaining, getting out to find cards, etc.
References
28 JUL 2014
You Know What Today Needs? Slime.
Electronic/World Wide Web>Internet Article: McKinnon, Mika (7/27/2014), You Know What Today Needs? Slime., Retrieved on 2014-07-28Source Material [space.io9.com]
Folksonomies: education experiments
Folksonomies: education experiments
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19 DEC 2013
This Will Make You Smarter
Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book: Brockman , John (2012-02-14), This Will Make You Smarter, HarperCollins, Retrieved on 2013-12-19Source Material [books.google.com]
Folksonomies: science
Folksonomies: science
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27 NOV 2013
The magic of Fibonacci numbers
Proceedings of Meetings and Symposia>Speech: Benjamin, Arthur (June 2013), The magic of Fibonacci numbers, Ted Talks, Retrieved on 2013-11-27Source Material [www.ted.com]
Folksonomies: mathematics inspiration
Folksonomies: mathematics inspiration
2
22 NOV 2013
Not Just Child's Play
Periodicals>Journal Article: Epstein, David (November 28, 2005), Not Just Child's Play, Inside Higher Ed, Retrieved on 2013-11-22Source Material [www.insidehighered.com]
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22 NOV 2013
The game that can give you 10 extra years of life
Proceedings of Meetings and Symposia>Conference Session: McGonigal, Jane (July 2012), The game that can give you 10 extra years of life, Ted Talks, Retrieved on 2013-11-22Source Material [www.ted.com]
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09 JUL 2013
What Does It Take To Be An Expert In Computer Programming?
Electronic/World Wide Web>Internet Article: Pepke, Eric (7/08/2013), What Does It Take To Be An Expert In Computer Programming?, Forbes, Retrieved on 2013-07-09Source Material [www.forbes.com]
Folksonomies: computer science
Folksonomies: computer science
1
29 JUN 2013
Technologies of the Childhood Imagination
Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book Chapter: Ito, Mizuko (2007), Technologies of the Childhood Imagination, Retrieved on 2013-06-29
Folksonomies: culture geek culture
Folksonomies: culture geek culture
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