Tag: education

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Are virtual worlds the future of the classroom? | CNET News.com

Are virtual worlds the future of the classroom? | CNET News.com

In this good article from CNET, the concept of multiuser virtual environments, or MUVE, is discussed.

Below is a quote from the article:

MUVE is a genre of software games created to inspire children to learn about math and science, among other subjects. Unlike most game software and social networks, which elicit negative associations for some parents and teachers, MUVEs are structured environments with rules for behavior, yet no pat formula for action. Designed to provide problems to solve that don’t involve slaying monsters, MUVEs compel kids to figure out the issues to succeed in the environments or have time to socialize.

I’m really interested in this. In Denmark there’s a serious gap here. To the best of my knowledge nothing even closely similar to the Whyville virtual world, that is being discussed, exists.

Educational games should include some kind of social experience, and the possibility for the children to work together towards a common goal.

Projects like Whyville, that provides content from a number of private and public institutions looks like a good place to look for inspiration.

The Danish perspective

All this made me think of the situation in Denmark.

In Denmark the computer use is quite widespread, even in the classroom, but they’re mostly used to teach children skills like Microsoft Office. And if you observe that the children do when they’re sitting in front of a computer, well they’re mostly engaged in playing mindless games, using a MySpace like service called Arto or MSN Messenger.

To put this into perspective, this weeks edition of Harddisken, a Danish radio show that is also available online, visited a Danish school, Skovvangsskolen in the Copenhagen suburb of Allerød.

Skovvangsskolen is very proud of their integration of IT into the classroom, and the fact the school is participating in the so called “Pupils ICT License”, link to a PDF document in English. The school has also developed a lean version of the ICT License (ITC License pixi version – a pun on the cartoons for kids called pixi books).

So what’s wrong with that? Well nothing really, and the school is quite open about their programme. But when I look into the details I’m not too impressed. For one, the web-site is basically empty, nice navigational links but there’s no related content. The goals of the ICT License looks nice, especially the part about information searching and the evaluation of sources are really important.

But if you listen to the tasks that the children are focusing on, it’s things like downloading nice fonts for their PowerPoint presentations, and they were also quite proud that they knew about advanced features of Microsoft Word. And the teachers were saying that learning skills like the detailed workings of the Microsoft Office tools is very important for the children to learn. This really doesn’t fit too well with the intention to teach the children to pick the right tool for the right job, if you only introduce them to a few specific products, instead of teaching general skills.

The quality of the educational games that do exist, in Denmark at least, is, to the best of my knowledge, also generally quite low, focusing on very basic skills.

I think that we need a Danish Whyville.

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Blogs Education/Undervisning Historier/Stories Lektiehjælpen (Danish)

Jeg har fået lektier for

Cirkelareal LektieI går var der et af børnene fra Mjølnerparken, en 8-klasses dreng, der gav mig lektier for, til på tirsdag.

Jeg skal finde arealet af det område der fremkommer når man tegner fire cirkler, (som vist på billedet). Hmm…Det er jo kun to af cirklerne der skærer hinanden…Hmm jeg nummerer cirklerne som I-IV følgende et standard koordinatsystems kvadranter. En oplysning er at cirkel I og III skærer hinanden ved cirkel IIIs 0 og 90 grader, og at cirkel II og IV skærer hinanden ved cirkel IIs 0 og 270 grader osv. Det er ikke helt tydeligt udfra tegningen.

Er der nogle der kan hjælpe?

Jeg mener det kan løses med geometri, trigonometri (det kender drengen faktisk, hvilket han demonstrerede, da jeg prøvede at løse en trigonometri opgave, med forholdstals regning) eller integral regning (det tror jeg ikke han kender).

Han spurgte mig også om hvad pH værdi er for noget. Jeg forsøgte noget med et mål for styrken af syrer og baser, men han sagde: “det er den negative logaritme af koncentrationen af brint-ioner” – den er da vist lige i skabet.

Interessant, det er paratviden og udenadslære, noget der faktisk ikke bliver så stor brug for i fremtiden, eller tager jeg helt fejl her?

Det er da nyttigt at kende grundbegreber, men detaljerede informationer, som f.eks. definitionen på pH værdien, kan man da bare slå op på Internettet?

Alt i alt var jeg imponeret over drengens viden, det virker som om han elsker/kan lide viden, og det er da relativt sjældent blandt de børn jeg kender.

Nå drengen mente at man kan få 13 hvis man kan sige ting som definitionen på pH værdien. Jeg nævnte så at jeg en gang var tæt på at få 13, nemlig mit 11 tal i Biologi fra Gymnasiet.

Tilsidst nævnte jeg at jeg var en mislykket ingeniør studerende…”Og nu er du lektiehjælper? Hvad gik galt?” “Tjoh…Jeg lavede ikke mine…LEKTIER!” Så kan de lære det ;-).

Nåeh hvis det mislykkes med geometri opgaven, så kan jeg da i det mindste fortælle ham hvad jeg har fundet ud af om HTX.

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Blogs Education/Undervisning Kim Blog (English) Lektiehjælpen (Danish)

Native language?

“Jeg forstår ikke hvordan sådan en lille dreng kan forstå sådan et fremmed sprog” (English translation: “I don’t understand how such a small boy can speak such a foreign language”). This was what I just heard a small 8-9 year old boy say after he heard a woman speak Spanish to her child, a child that I estimate was 2 maybe 3 years old, but the child also spoke Danish.

Kids are great, and it is indeed very difficult to understand how it is possible for a three year old boy to understand both Danish and Spanish.

Children are such fast learners, it is estimated that it takes something like 7 years to learn how to speak a language, and if you acquire a language during adulthood it is very difficult to learn how to speak it like a native.

So does this child master two languages equally well? The teacher of the course I attended this Monday, claimed that you always have a native, or preferred, language. I tend to agree with her, but that being said, it is indeed possible to have perfect grasp of several languages, this is rather rare in Denmark, but quite common in countries that recognise several languages as native, like Canada, Belgium and Luxembourg.

The earlier a child is introduced to several languages, the better the child will master it, at least in pronunciation, but it is very difficult to maintain a working language without being in a culture that speaks it all the time. It’s a fact that many children of first and second generation immigrants living in Denmark, have great difficulty mastering both Danish and the language of their parents, since they’re not using the latter very frequently, and the parents aren’t able to pass a “functional”, e.g. reading and writing skills, Danish language on to their children.

One way to improve reading and writing skills is to use a method that I was introduced to while attending the aforementioned course. The method is called LTG (Læsning på Talens Grundlag – Reading on the Foundation of Speech”, the idea is that you use the strength of the spoken language that the children have, to strengthen the “functional” reading and writing skills.

The method can be labelled as: A short break, where you also manage to produce a reading text..

The student tells about an event or something that occupies him/her

* the text is told spontaneous, and you should avoid completely to correct the storyteller. The content can be anything: an experience, a nice day, “someting that made me feel sad”, a picnic the possibilities are many.
* you (the tutor) capture the story in writing, completely the way it’s told, but with correct spelling.
* the story is produced with a focus on building sentences
* the “selfproduced story” is now ready to be used to train reading skills.

The strong side, the spoken language is used, and the reading of the story is made easier, because the student is aware of what it means – we’re utilising the “known” to train the “difficult”.

It’s my intention to try to use this method in the tutoring of children.

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Blogs Bookmarks Education/Undervisning Lektiehjælpen (Danish)

Klubben i Mjølnerparken giver etniske børn nøglerne til bedre integration

Kronikken “Når klubben i Mjølnerparken giver børn fra etniske minoritetsgrupper nøglerne til at blive bedre integreret i det danske samfund”, skrevet af Journalist Monica C. Madsen og offentliggjort den 7-Nov-2005 på vildelaereprocesser.dk, er et interview med Sjakkets leder, Khosrow Bayat; Klub 36s leder, Assad Keblawi, og medarbejder i Klub 36, Nadim Barakji.

Continue reading “Klubben i Mjølnerparken giver etniske børn nøglerne til bedre integration”