Learning Solutions

The Nintendo Wii has made significant inroads in the video gaming market.  The main reason is the Wii remote, which turns a sedentary entertainment experience turn into a workout, thus encouraging all ages to participate.

How to leverage this phenomenon in the classroom?  Wired.com chronicles how some companies are combining the Wii Remote with Second Life to create virtual simulations on the cheap.

Take a look at this ingenious learning solution in which Johnny Chung demonstrated how you can re-engineer the Wii remote and turn it into an interactive whiteboard.

Years ago, Lightspan created learning games which could be played through the Playstation console.  Schools had to purchase the whole catalog, so it never caught on like it should.  And, being platform specific caused some backlash as well.

Hopefully, the use of video gaming in learning is not just making its cyclical path through the pedagogical strategy merry go round.

Need reading material on this subject?  Start here.

“Give A Way Of The Day” is a site that provides commercial software, usually utilities for free. The catch is you have to install it the day of the giveaway. This is not stolen or pirated software, the developers are using it as a way to get their product out in front of the people. Most of the software is developed in Europe and Russia, occasionally China.

For example, last Thursday’s software was Video Get, which captures the video from sites like myspace and youtube and saves it in a format such as MPG, WMV, and AVI. With Video Get, you can easily embed video into power point presentations that you find on the web. This tool is perfect to capture videos to incorporate into a lessons.

There is also a sister site for Games.

How is it that some people just get it, and others are way off in the weeds? Often I come across educational tools that are great in concept, but when you take it for a spin, it just does not perform the way you expect.

Not with Ustream.tv

• Low learning curve - check
• Plug and play ready - check
• Easily shared - check
• Low cost of entry - check (FREE!)

From the website:

Experience live video. In just minutes, you can broadcast and chat online with a global audience. Completely free, all it takes is a camera and Internet connection.

I came across this learning solution from a colleague, who uses it to stream and record his teacher workshops and conference proceedings, most recently from NECC 2008. I have dabbled with it during my PowerPoint Jeopardy workshop, and was amazed at how easy it is to set up a live video stream and record it for future playback.

Possible impact is the use of this as a classroom lecture capture system, and an easy way to deliver staff development in just-in-time fashion.

Did I mention it was free?!?