February 2008
MacArthur Gets Wired in Cambridge
As you likely already know, the MacArthur Foundation is in the midst of a five-year, $50 million initiative exploring the field of digital media and learning. And in December, the Foundation brought this initiative to Cambridge, MA's Brattle Theatre for the forum "Totally Wired: How Technology is Changing Kids and Learning."
The theatre was absolutely packed for the forum, and based on the evening's Q&A session, a good percentage of attendees were educators, all with a strong interest in finding out how digital media might help their students learn more and better. And it turned out that these folks definitely came to the right place. The panel MacArthur assembled for the night represented an all-star team of academics: MIT's Henry Jenkins (a great friend of the LG2G project), Harvard University’s Howard Gardner and the New School's Katie Salen. In addition, Foundation president Jonathan Fanton used the forum to introduce MacArthur's exciting and extensive series of new books on digital media and learning.
Some of the evening's highlights:
- Fanton spoke about how MacArthur is "agnostic, even skeptical" about the impact of digital media on kids; he stressed that the Foundation is, in fact, not made up of "cheerleaders," but rather "investigators" who are examining the subject.
- Jenkins discussed how while the so-called digital divide has lessened somewhat in recent years, it's still far from closed; the importance of this, he said, is that "it's not just about access to technology… but about access to the skills that working with that technology can help to develop in kids."
- Gardner used the paradigm of "digital natives" and "digital immigrants" to make an historical comparison; he believes that just as immigrants to the U.S. traditionally learned much about American life from their children, this is also "exemplified in the digital realm where digital natives [children and teenagers] teach the digital immigrants [the older adults]."
- Salen talked about how school subjects and new digital technology must be taught together; "There shouldn’t be a separate computer class to learn Word and then an English class to learn writing," she said, "it all needs to be integrated."
You can watch a video of the entire forum here and learn more about the five-year initiative at the MacArthur Foundation's website. MacArthur has also made its series of books on digital media and learning available to the general public – for FREE – at the MIT Press website.
Welcome to FatWorld!
So it's just after the holidays… and lots of people are, of course, thinking about trying to lose a few pounds. Could there ever be a better time to visit a place called "Fatworld"?
"Fatworld" is the new online video game created by Ian Bogost and Persuasive Games and published by ITVS (Independent Television Service) Interactive and PBS's "Independent Lens." As you might imagine, the game looks at obesity in America, but as you might not imagine, it also explores some of the socioeconomic factors that can cause people to become obese. And this is, of course, an incredibly important topic these days; recent statistics show that 30% of all Americans are obese and that about 70 million of the 300 million people currently living in the U.S. are indeed overweight.
"Existing approaches to nutrition advocacy fail to communicate the collective effect of everyday health practices," says game maker Bogost. "Video games are a remarkable medium for overcoming these failings. In a video game, we can simulate the passage of time and give players a view of their future selves based on their current habits." Video games are an especially good medium for dealing with complex subjects, Bogost explains, because "in a video game, we can simulate the interactions between multiple factors and complicated common views on nutrition and obesity."
Players in "Fatworld" make decisions about what and how much to eat, how much to exercise and about public policy issues that impact the health of their community in the game. And these decisions do have results in "Fatworld": players who get too fat become sick and die young, while those in better health live longer, happier lives in the game. "Fatworld" also includes a recipe exchange where players can share recipes and meal plans that they create in the game, and the game website features numerous links around the issues of food politics, health and nutrition.
To learn more about "Fatworld" and to play the game, visit http://www.fatworld.org/.
MIND Games
Matthew Peterson knows what it's like to fail in school… because he did. As a second grader, Matthew was way behind the other kids in class, so much so that his mother pulled him out of school during his third-grade year, mostly for the sake of his self-esteem. It turned out that Matthew had a mild form of dyslexia, but it also turned out that with help, he could learn just as well as his classmates. Today Matthew spends his life helping kids learn - without having to take the detours he was forced to take.
Matthew and his not-for-profit MIND Research Institute have invented hundreds of video games that help kids learn math. And so far, Matthew's games are being used in almost 300 schools with fantastic results. One low-income school in California actually saw its students’ math proficiency skyrocket from 26% to 70% over the course of five years while using Matthew’s games. The principal of that school, Marti Baker, says "if you ask any child in my school what their favorite subject is, they will say math," and she attributes this to MIND’s math games.
What is it about Matthew’s games that connect so well with kids and help them learn? Well, part of it seems to be that they don't rely on language. Each of the games centers around images and requires that students perform specific math processes to help a penguin named Jiji accomplish concrete, visual tasks like building a bridge or crossing a river. Another important element of the games is that they never have time constraints; students move at their own pace and take as long as they need to master each game before moving onto the next more complex one. About 48,000 K-5 students are now using Matthew's games, and soon middle-schoolers will be playing his games as well – he's just created 89 algebra-readiness games for this age group.
MIND’s work has gotten the attention of some major investors and the company is expanding. Still, Matthew Peterson could no doubt make much more money in the private sector than he does in the world of education. But that’s not for him. "Success in getting people to learn is way more important than success that is monetary," he says, "I'm perfectly happy."
You can learn more about Matthew Peterson and MIND at http://mindresearch.net/.