I will protect your pensions. Nothing about your pension is going to change when I am governor. - Chris Christie, "An Open Letter to the Teachers of NJ" October, 2009

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Motivating Students Through Blowin' Stuff Up

From the nice folks doin' nice things who are gonna teach our kids through X-Boxes:


I want these kids to be talking about what they got out of the Dimension U system in the same breath that they're talking about what they got out of World of Warcraft; what they got out of Halo - 'cause it's the same psychological motivations.
And what are the "psychological motivations" inherent in Halo?


Well, OK then. Bet he won't forget to add inside the parenthesis first next time...

I guess this is the school system Rupert Murdoch envisions for our future. Nice.

Oh, did you notice the video is brought to you by the University of Phoenix? Your free-market education system at its best!

2 comments:

Ms. Serdy said...

This one gives me pause. As a tech leader in my school, a mom, and a former WoW player, I can understand this message. Without thinking about the messenger (I know it's hard) this is one more tool in the toolbox. Is technology the silver bullet? No. Is Lesley University's Literacy Collaborative the silver bullet? No. Clearly we know the tests aren't silver bullets either. Education, as we know, has no real silver bullets (poverty elimination comes close). However, these are all tools and as a working professional I can never have enough tools in my toolbox. I may not need that tool today or tomorrow but maybe next year I'll have a student who needs it. I agree, by itself their technological vision is a disaster but do we have room for it and there will be times it's appropriate. I've seen what can and has been done with gaming in education and it's exciting when used properly.

Duke said...

I hear you, and I guess my late-night glibness keeps me from making my point:

I'm all for the tech. It's great. But there is a systematic program in place to put tech on a pedestal so it can replace US.

And the "values" of our current interactive world populated by kids - consumerism, violence, sexism, homophobia - well, we need to push back.