MORE ON DGBL Marc Prensky, an instructional game designer and founder of games2train, argues that computer games are more effective learning tools because they sustain interest and attention in settings where people are normally bored." Marc Prensky.com Digital Game-Based Learning (DGBL) consists of two parts. In the first part, Prensky argues that the prevalence of video games has actually rewired our brains and made traditional learning methods less effective. In the second part, Prensky makes the case that DGBL can be used successfully by corporations to train people and offers practical advice (based on vast experience) about how to deploy game-based training methods. Throughout the book, Prensky examines aesthetic, cognitive and pedagogical questions surrounding such games and provides dozens of case studies to illustrate his points.

Prensky argues that current learning methods for young learners fail to engage learners used to interactive media. Learners now expect interactivity. Prensky writes:

Games Generation workers rarely even think of reading a manual. They'll just play with the software, hitting every key if necessary, until they figure it out. If they can't, they assume the problem is with the software, not with them—software is supposed to teach you how to use it. This attitude is almost certainly a direct result of growing up with Sega, Sony, Nintendo, and other video games where each level and monster had to be figured out by trial and error, and each trial click could lead to a hidden surprise. Games are almost all designed to teach as you go.
Prensky believes that the instructor-led classroom and the teach-test method are actually historical artifacts no more than 200 or 300 years old. The teach-test instructor-led class and its instructional methods arose partially from the rise of the printing press and the widespread availability of reading material.

Why then does the teach-test method still prevail? One reason may be the generation gap and technology gap between learners and teachers. Even technologically savvy educators have biases towards methods that worked while they were learners themselves. The way we learn is to some extent a byproduct of the cultural and technological milieu we mature in. ...

How will my kids turn out? John Derbyshire on Child-Raising on National Review Online the author looks at the troubled teenagers of friends, who are model parents and wonders how his own children will make it through the upcoming years.

Wired 11.05: View The US spends almost $50 billion each year on education, so why aren't kids learning? Forty percent of students lack basic reading skills, and their academic performance is dismal compared with that of their foreign counterparts. In response to this crisis, schools are skilling-and-drilling their way "back to basics," moving toward mechanical instruction methods that rely on line-by-line scripting for teachers and endless multiple-choice testing. Consequently, kids aren't learning how to think anymore - they're learning how to memorize. This might be an ideal recipe for the future Babbitts of the world, but it won't produce the kind of agile, analytical minds that will lead the high tech global age. Fortunately, we've got Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and Deus X for that.

Today's issue of The Reading Eagle has an article on a debate at Wilson. The issue is whither a student can be penalized at school for breaking the law outside of school. Similar policies are in place in schools across Pennsylvania, including the Exeter, Gov. Mifflin, Oley Valley and Schuylkill Valley districts in Berks County.

What Dick and Jane can't read 'Cancel the kitchen scraps for lepers and orphans, no more merciful beheadings and call off Christmas!"
You'll never read that delicious line from "Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves"--or even its components "lepers," "orphans," "beheadings" and "Christmas"--in America's textbooks and standardized school tests. The sensitivity police of American educational publishing, as rigid and ill-tempered as the sheriff of Nottingham, won't allow it. To them those words are just too controversial.
Nor will you see in your children's textbooks such things as "birthday cake," "hot dog," "fireman," "brotherhood," "you and your wife," "England ruled the seas, her navy was huge," "the deaf," "mentally ill," "the elderly," "bitch" (in reference to a female dog), "first baseman," "Chief Sitting Bull" and even "bookworm." Why, you can't refer to Africans as slaves or Jews as classical musicians.

Allentown Morning Call - The 'swinish multitude' gets what it deserves Paul Carpenter column is about the Lower Saucon Twp. but it could be about Brandywine School Borad. Do these tactics look familiar: "Other ploys include the scheduling of protracted ''presentations'' or reports by solicitors, committee chairmen, paid contractors or others who are allies of the presiding politicians. These interminable recitations drone on, redundantly, into the night until at least some members of the public give up and go away." ?

Happy Easter - Peep Research As we plunge into the 21st century, it is time we take a closer look at the technological wonders we create. Here, we try to discover just a little bit more about the world around us through the miracles of science, technology, and preservatives.
We hope you enjoy this educational tour as we work to characterize everybody's favorite Easter candy, the Marshmallow Peep.

ewww101 This year, second and fourth graders at Hayden Valley Elementary School in Colorado have started keeping tabs on the ex-animals, mapping their locations with GIS technology. The program, called Critter Control, plays on kids’ fascination with the grody, but it’s real science.

NBC5.com - News - Students Hooting At Parent For Protesting Hooters

U CN TRNSL8 A TXT SA? From Scotland's Sunday Herald a portion of an essay on one's student summer vacation written entirely in cell-phone text-message hieroglyphics


My smmr hols wr CWOT. B4, we usd 2 go 2 NY 2C my bro, his GF & thr 3 :-@ kds FTF. ILNY, its gr8.

Bt my Ps wr so:-/ BC o 9/11 tht they dcdd 2 stay in SCO & spnd 2wks up N.

Up N, WUCIWUG - 0. I ws vvv brd in MON. 0 bt baas & — — -.

AAR8, my Ps wr :-) - they sd ICBW, & tht they wr ha-p 4 the pc&qt...IDTS!! I wntd 2 go hm ASAP, 2C my M8s again.

2day, I cam bk 2 skool. I feel v O:-) BC I hv dn all my hm wrk. Now its BAU

Rethinking Schools - Just For Fun Map GameAfter months of seeing the Middle East in the news can you place the country with its name.

Education Index especially good for elementary and middle school students an annotated guide to the best education-related sites on the Web. They're sorted by subject and lifestage, so you can find what you're looking for quickly and easily.

Grades and Homework Online: Florida's Matrin County School Board has a new way of post a student’s grades online for a parent to check.Pinnacle is the name of the program. Not only does Pinnacle log student’s grades, but also attendance and conduct. The way grades are accessed are by inputting the first 6 digits of your social security number and the first 5 letters of your last name. One student/victim writes "This has been making my life a living hell for the past 2 months, every night my parents go on and check to see if i have any homework and won't let me do anything till it's done"

April Board Meeting Correction the meeting will be at 8:30. The property comm. meeting will be held from 7:00 - 7:30, interviews from 7:30 - 8:30 and then the board meeting. Heaven help us if they would make attending public board meetings easy. The school's web site now include a link to this month's agenda, thanks I knew you could do it. or you can link here

APRIL BOARD MEETING; The April Board Meeting postponed from last Monday will be held tonight at 7:30

AP Photograh
Not another flag has such an errand, carrying everywhere, the world around, such hope for freedom - such glorious tidings." - Henry Ward Beecher

April School Board Meeting Tonight meeting is postponed to Wednesday, Aprol 9th due to weather.

Florida Band Trip Received a call from the offspring on the bus to the hotel rubbing it in that it was 80 degrees and sunny in Orlando.