Navta Associates

MovingLearningGamesForward, by Eric Klopfer, Scot Osterweil, and Katie Salen With contributions by Jason Haas, Jennifer Groff and Dan Roy, is one of the most useful reports about games in education that I’ve read in a long time.  This is an Education Arcade paper, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The report intelligently answers questions regarding the use of video games in education, and provides numerous resources for continued investigation. “Educational games” are placed in rich context, including historical background and recommendations for implementation in the “classroom”. Very much a must-read for anyone even vaguely interested in this timely debate.

Jodi Hilton for the New York Times

This morning’s NY Times contained an article that I found particularly inspiring. Turns out that MIT is giving a TEAL (Technology Enhanced Active Learning) a try. A few forward-thinking professors are embracing new technology, which replaces the traditional “Physics 101″ model, consisting of an auditorium filled with 300+ where students listen to a lecture, then are left to their own devices to figure it out afterwards.

TEAL represents a new model, in which groups of about 80 students meet in a classroom where networked computers, whiteboards, and large-screen displays are utilized to create a collborative, dynamic, hands-on learning environment. Read the article for exact statistics, but the results are encouraging.

The TEAL classrooms are expensive, and only time will tell if the investment in the technology pays off. Will that be measured in terms of student success? increased enrollment? more prestige and the accompanying benefits for MIT?