Being that we work for a federal land grant institution – making education games – I feel like the ‘the White House Education Game Jam’ is something we should be taking part in. It’s happening this weekend. but it also seems like they basically forgot to mention it online. anywhere. WEIRD!
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Author Archives: Warren Blyth
About Warren Blyth
UNITE 2014 – session videos
It looks like the Unity3D team has posted videos of most of sessions from their UNITE14 conference here: http://news.unity3d.com/TzCYl0W04000sSm10o5WGS0
(58 total). Just mentioning in case anyone wants to check out a talk they couldn’t reach during the show. And for those who didn’t go.
My top five picks: Continue reading
Soil health and management module
I’d like to explain how I made this module, by covering 4 memorable moments.
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We can revisit and revise multimedia
This week we added 24 new birds to this “silhouette shape recognition” interactive for FW312.
This is the 3rd time we’ve expanded this tool, and it serves as a nice reminder that Ecampus can continue to help improve your course materials year after year.
PROGRESS: ANTH345 + recently completed items (temp post)
current work:
ANTH345 “Bunny Buddies” game technically works with “programmer art placeholders”.
hoping to have it polished enough for use by early next week (adding hand holding messages, dice and card animations, and decipherable start and end game screens), so I can discuss with teacher. Then continue improving as long as time permits.
https://courses.ecampus.oregonstate.edu/anth345/game/bunnyBuddies.html
MB230 – Virtual Lab #4 : “Streak Plate”
What is it?
This “Streak Plate” interactive is based on the 4th lab exercise for this class. You must sterilize a wire loop, acquire a bacteria sample, and drag it across a petri dish, thrice, in order to create clumps of pure bacteria. This interactive ends with an image of the growth results, and a checklist of the various (dozens of) steps.
The real world lab requires an overnight incubation period, and students often make mistakes along the way, so it was ideal to let them practice on their own.
CS5.5 Flash PROBLEM: TextField editing (with AS3) leads to BAFFLING MYSTERIES OF DARK MAGIC!
SUMMARY:
I was baffled to find that when I edited the text of a TextField using ActionScript 3 (AS3), I was left with RANDOM GIBBERISH. Hours were lost snooping around in my epic project, trying to figure out how anything could cause this problem.
Turns out it’s a feature in CS5!?!
(help?)
AN EXAMPLE: Continue reading
(SPC:Day3)- Looking Ahead: How to Rethink and Change the System
OFFICIAL SESSION NAME: (10:30am)
“Engage, Empower Students with 21st Century Skills” – Susan Meeks, Breakaway Games
SUMMARY:
The speaker covered some problems in the current education system(s), it’s antiquated goals, and the incomplete theories that form its foundation. Also covered several new inventions and innovative ideas for reform.
ECAMPUS TAKEAWAY:
While there are two must-see videos about the current American school system, I think the most interesting aspect of this talk was: the weird reactions (especially, the things it made me think about – zany brainstorms included below).
The question at the end (about presenting our long term assessment metrics to upper management, in a useful manner) struck me as one of the more profound takeaways of the whole conference.
RAW NOTES: Continue reading
(SPC:Day3)- Assessing Your Education
OFFICIAL SESSION NAME: (9am)
“The Role of Assessment”
– Alex Games (Education Design Director, Microsoft), Zoran Popovic (Associate Professor, University of Washington), James Portnow (CEO, Rainmaker Games), Bob Dolan (Senior Research Scientist, Pearson)
SUMMARY:
Some really insightful thoughts on how to assess the effectiveness of any education.
ECAMPUS TAKEAWAY:
several useful quotes from some smart speakers (thinking of education as a process instead of a product, to the ideas around how games can assess for the rest of your life to… much more).
RAW NOTES: Continue reading
(SPC:Day2)- Data Mining Your Distance Learning (and Communication)
OFFICIAL SESSION NAME: (6pm)
“Mining Student Interactions for Evidence of Collaborative Problem Solving.”
Ellen Strain-Seymour, Bob Dolan. Pearson Assessments
SUMMARY:
A delightful dissection of some serious statistics gathering – followed by a fun audience participation in a communication experiment.
ECAMPUS TAKEAWAY:
There were several ponderous examples of how-to-do feedback statistics gathering. There was a fun example of distance learning engagement in action. It is also interesting to ponder the specific terms and concepts they thought were worth tracking during the student experience.
RAW NOTES: Continue reading