Star Schools Session

Brian Lekander provides a brief overview of the Star Schools program and an introduction to today's presentation.

Tim Best: Matrix Learning Project in Ohio
Middle school Achievement through Technology-Rich Interventions (x represents the unknown). Tim compares traditional SES to the primative medical practice of applying leaches - if someone is sick you apply leaches, if they get sicker you apply more...and often people die. So I guess drill and practice is like the educational technology equivalent of a leach. Research shows that middle class kids have extrinsic motivators, are empowered, and find that content is relavent to them (more or lesss) but kids in lower socio-economic groups often lack these core requirements to be successful in math. They are creating a "stealth-math" product to tackle this challenge. Traditionally the continuum in schools runs from coverage/mastery of basic skills before fun stuff can be done - but this project seeks to provide engaging and fun contexts for learning content rather than leaving the fun stuff til the content is mastered. They will be providing 106 hours of programming (during the summer months) and their product will include a robust learning management and assessment tool that will facilitate things for the faciliators (recognize the fact that this is not the primary profession for most of them).

Scott Wilson - University of Oklahoma - the K20 Center, an interdisciplinary research center. Specifically they are studying the effects of Lesson Study - a Japanese profesional development methodology). Started out trying to program for handhelds - now working with UMCP (Ultra-mobile personal computers), there was also a shift from applets to Massively Multiplayer Onlie Games, and a change in game engines. They will have one control group (lesson study only), treatment groups with games and lesson study groups, and a comparisson group with neither (about 1000 students in each group). Why create engine? Wanted to have a unique toolset e.g. interactive map, charts/graphs/spreadsheets for organization and analysis of data, etc. Teachers were invovled in the development of the game and the elaborate backstory that underlies game-play. Undergraduate students at the University of Oaklahoma are assisting in the development as well. Scott played a clip that explains the back-story and has video images four students watching the clip super-imposed and then provided a quick demonstration of the game itself.



Javier - PREL/JUMP Project (again - see notes from today's first post for more info). Developing for Nintendo DS platform - a vocabulary game for 4th graders. The trailer looked fantastic - very engaging and definitely age-appropriate. It has branching dialog in comic book format in which words are presented in compelling ways.

Tracy Lau MPT - Learning Games to Go (in partnership with MIT - Scot Osterweil), the program is directed by Gail Long. Game: Labyrinth, will be focused on improving math and literacy in pre-algebra. Goal: creating stuff that will actually get used. COTS titles aren't being used/can't always be used in schools...and stuff being created for schools is often "deadly dull" so creating something that brings the best of both of commercial and educational games is truly a challenging design problem. Teachers are often interested in games but "have a healthy skepticism...therefore barrier to entry is rather high." Solution: games that teachers can ease into, that tackle major content/curriculum standards, technologically easy to use (flash-based, therefore no installation required - don't just want a trickle-down model - i.e. products designed for the best schools that have the best technologies that will eventually trickle down to the poorer schools and students), and activities that don't demand a lot of in-class time...that can be played independently by students - but are also easy for teachers to use in-class. You can make people "play" without them having any fun - their goal is to make games that people can play and have fun. The game also encourages students to think about their problem solving strategies and write about it - they can share with their colleagues but their colleagues will have slightly different challenges so info about how to think about or solve the problem is more effective than "pick the red door." Scot feels that the evaluation/research component is slowing things a bit, but feels there is great benefit to being able to finally have research that shows the effectiveness of games in education.