Outlook Magazine, Fall 2007

https://digitalcommons.wustl.edu/outlook/1169/thumbnail.jp

Games for and by Teachers and Learners

With the advent of social media it is widely accepted that teachers and learners are not only consumers but also may have an active role in contributing and co-creating lesson materials and content. Paradoxically one strand of technology enhanced learning, i.e. game-based learning, aligns only slightly to this development. Games while there to experience, explore and collaborate are almost exclusively designed by professionals. Despite, or maybe because, games are the exclusive domain of professional developers, the general impression is that games require complex technologies and that games are difficult to organise and to embed in a curriculum. This chapter will make a case that games are not necessarily the exclusive domain of game professionals. Rather than enforcing teachers to get acquainted with and use complex, technically demanding games, we will discuss approaches that teachers themselves can use to build games, make use of existing games and even one step beyond use tools or games that can be used by learners to create their own designs, e.g. games or virtual worlds

Kids Who Code: a systems analysis of visual programming interfaces used to teach programming concepts to K-12 students

This study is an in-depth evaluation of interfaces used by six interviewed educators to teach K-12 students how to code. Through examination of these discovered interfaces and interviewees' experiences with them, their utility and effectiveness for coding education is analyzed. The study reveals that much of an interface's utility relies upon the information needs of the specific educational environment. It also reveals that an interface's effectiveness, as defined by the educators interviewed, has less to do with relaying specific programming concepts and more to do with creation, exploration, student interest, and fun. The results of this study may be of help to educators interested in starting coding education programs, and need to find an interface that fits their students' needs.Master of Science in Information Scienc

An Exploratory Study of the Impact of Self-Efficacy and Learning Engagement in Coding Learning Activities in Italian Middle School

In Italy, teaching coding at primary and secondary levels is emerging as a major educational issue, particularly in light of the recent reforms now being implemented. Consequently, there has been increased research on how to introduce information technology in lower secondary schools. This paper presents an exploratory survey, carried out through an intensive workshop on coding, which was designed to introduce the basic principles of computer science to be included in the future school curriculum. Specifically, the paper examines three key aspects of the coding unit for lower secondary schools: (a) the students’ perception of their self-efficacy in carrying out coding; (b) the involvement of students’ cognition and perception; (c) the principal obstacles students might encounter while coding. The results are encouraging as they demonstrate that coding turns out to be both highly interesting and motivating for students

Improving girls’ perception of computer science as a viable career option through game playing and design: Lessons from a systematic literature review

The objective of exposing girls to Computer Science as a career option has led to research directed towards gaming activities for girls. These activities include both game play and game design. Research about gaming activities for increasing girls’ interest in computer science has gained much attention over the past few years and has resulted in a number of contributions. We follow up with an overview of the status of research through a Systematic Literature Review. We investigate the relation between the various game playing or designing activities and their impact on girls’ perception of Computer Science as a career choice. We further present the design consideration for the games and related activities to potentially improve the perception of girls towards a Computer Science career. The applied method is a Systematic Literature Review through which we investigate which contributions were made, which knowledge areas were most explored, and which research facets have been used. We identify 25 papers to distill a common understanding of the state-of-the-art. Specifically, we investigate the effects that the game play/design activities had on girls’ perception about Computer Science; and what are the key design factors to be kept in mind while designing a serious game to improve girls’ perception about Computer Science. The results of this systematic literature review show that game playing or designing could indeed improve how girls perceive having a career in CS. The key aspects that such activities require are personalizing, opportunity for collaboration and the presence of a female lead characterThis work has been done during the tenure of an ERCIM Alain Bensoussan fellowshi

Mama\u27s Boy

Mama\u27s Boy is a book of fiction and nonfiction by Jamie Berger. It deals with mothers and sons and feminism and pornography and poker and love and New York and San Francisco and Western Massachusetts

Here for Life: A Chapter & Stories

Four short stories and a novel chapter

The middle of everything

The Middle of Everything is a collection of personal essays about language, place, and memory. The thesis is framed by stories of Alzheimer\u27s disease and divided into sections that travel to different places to consider what memories, stories, and people are important. The settings of the essays range from Wisconsin to Spain, from Iowa to Mexico, and the narrator explores the relationship between people and places, the way place influences individuals and the way individuals impact place. The collection is also a personal journey about learning to deal with losses and about learning what home means. It explores personal history alongside the history of cities and societies

Knuckle Sandwich & Other Stories

Knuckle Sandwich & Other Stories is a collection of fiction written in the years between 2005 and 2008. The characters in these stories find themselves trying--and often failing--to cope with loss: loss of a romantic relationship, of a loved one, of youth, of innocence