Level Up, Not Grades

This article talks about the integration of games into education.

A professor at IU has decided to not give grades, but you need to level up your avatar to pass the class.

"Games and real life are colliding in unique ways. One professor at Indiana University, Lee Sheldon, doesn't give grades. Rather, students start as a level one avatar and level up through the class based on attendance and performance, like in a role-playing game. And the students' performance in class seems to indicate that the system works."

Interesting idea.

Remediating the Classroom

This seems like such a no-brainer, to update the way knowledge is taught from the knowledge gained over the last...hundred to two hundred years.

I think the perfect solution would be a device with a small screen that could be 'docked' to a larger screen, keyboard and other peripherals as needed. I just don't think carrying around a keyboard and large screen, especially for younger kids.

Such use-cases could be a large touch or stylus screen for art focused lessons, digital instruments for music, the advance of digital microscopes (how cheap are they now?)

With the availability of inexpensive and task specific hardware, it would just need a coherent vision and software to make this possible.

Yes, I am an optimist.

Apple's iPad: Newton the Next Generation

The new Apple iPad is like the Apple Newton, but modern. The only feature I would want is handwriting recognition.

I was glad to see the art application they demoed, but think a dual input (such as touch and pen, like Wacom's graphics pads) would have been killer.