May 17, 2016 Between this post about children's sensory atrophy and the positive practices of Vitamin N...nature, I feel compelled to send another shoutout on Twitter to "Get 'Em Outside!" (video embedded below) Kids faces beam with energy and fun making informal learning a 'vitamin E' for environment+ education...all in show-n-tell hands-on form. The excitement is … [Read more...]
Virtual-to-Real World Play Patterns; Sims Used For Solutions?
Shaping Youth Correspondent Sara Grimes (at left) our hands-on research pro in the gaming arena and a smart as a whip academic to boot, (here's scholarly Sara at ACT Lab) has helped us ALL by distilling the findings from a new study on kids, toys and online play, which she posted on her blog Gamine Expedition. (always on our sidebar if you lose the link!) Here’s the … [Read more...]
Kids’ Gaming Ethics and Immersive Virtual Worlds (Part 2)
Are "cheat codes" a symbol of impatient multi-taskers incapable of working through frustration that need to leap frog over the hard part of life? Or a conduit to open new challenges at higher levels of engagement at a self-motivating pace? With fuzzy ethics, blurred boundaries and zig-zags aplenty in immersive gaming environs, I'd say "cheats" is a loaded term in and of … [Read more...]