Fast Company magazine recently featured this article, from design studio Frog’s Fabio Sergio, on how mobile devices will provide learning opportunities for people across age and income spectrums. It offers a nice overview, from a design perspective, on how mobile is opening new opportunities for learning. He details the following:
1. Continuous learning
2. Educational leapfrogging
3. A new crop of older, lifelong learners (and educators)
4. Breaking gender boundaries, reducing physical burdens
5. A new literacy emerges: software literacy
6. Education’s long tail
7. Teachers and pupils trade roles
8. Synergies with mobile banking and mobile health initiatives
9. New opportunities for traditional educational institutions
10. A revolution leading to customized education
Second Life Gets a Second Chance (article)
Yes, there is still “life” in “Second Life.” Alina Padilla-Miller, a PhD student in the School of Journalism and Communications at the University of Oregon, had given up on Second Life. Then she got involved with a project that forced her to document a training program in Second Life over two years. What she found surprised her but was undeniable. “It has become quite clear that giving Second Life a second chance for educational professional development was right on the mark,” she writes in Second Life Gets a Second Chance, “and this could very well be the next hottest 21st century learning trend.” At Global Kids, we always appreciated its values. For example, staff recently returned from Seoul, South Korea, after running a training for the World Bank with municipal government officials from four countries (in virtual ATVs). Of course, Second Life is now only one of many ways virtual worlds and games are being used for real world training. A recent article in The New York Times, Virtual Reality Goes to School, explores a virtual reality simulator software used to train vocational students car painting.
Flip This Lesson! (web-based tool)
TED has always been reliable for thought provoking, innovative content that we share with youth on a regular basis. With their new feature “Flip This Lesson,” the folks at TED-Ed are giving educators autonomy over the lessons provided on the site. This open platform allows for people to create a lesson from any video available in their library with the ability to add questions, attach quizzes, and provide commentary. The lesson is saved as a private link for students while educators can track their progress. With the 1000+ repository of incredible talks, all educators should be taking advantage and Flip This Lesson!
The Living Room Candidate (web-based tool)
The tool is not new, but its content is never old, and it is perhaps never more timely than now, as the latest election cycle begins to heat up. Created by the Museum of the Moving Image, in Queens, N.Y., The Living Room Candidate: Presidential Campaign Commercials 1952-2008 is an online exhibition presenting more than 300 television commercials from every election year since 1952, when the first campaign TV ads aired. You can organize them in all sorts of ways, from campaigns to topics (i.e. Biographical, Children, Commander in Chief, Documentary, Fear, and Real People). The site is packed with excellent lesson plans and activities for educators. At Global Kids, we are most excited by AdMaker, which not only lets you remix your own campaign ad using past video & audio clips, from Eisenhower to Obama, but lets you bring in your own original content, all web-based, all rapid fire fast. We intend to use it this summer as part of our Race to the White House program, in which youth will be creating a geolocative game sending geocache-related objects associated with electoral issues on a race to D.C.
Global Kids does a great job each month pointing us to helpful resources; Juan Rubio and Joliz Cedeno contributed to this month’s list. Please share what you’re reading and watching, too! Global Kids’ NYC-based programs address the need for young people to possess leadership skills and an understanding of complex global issues to succeed in the 21st century workplace and participate in the democratic process.
Banner image credit: Global Kids
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