Twitter is just another bloody MMORPG

*update – A video I’ve made that is going out as part of Massively Productive Education keynote. Relates to the stuff below. Gaming has an enviable problem. It provides too much flow and satisfaction missing in real life. Their predictive sense of achievement wired into instant feedback loops is an almost certain guarantee of engagement [...]

How to make sticky technology for PD

Last year I managed to scrounge some money to buy 30 or so iPads. I know lots of people are using them in education, but I thought I’d share why I wanted them. I don’t actually care about educational apps. As most people only use evidence arguments to avoid agreement with what you’re proposing – [...]

1000 Ways to teach with technology

Ever sat in a meeting where people want to know the answer, or want to find the ‘way’ to do something or where to find more information about the ‘thing’? It seems we spend a great deal of time trying to come up with the right answer. I have a problem. I want to figure [...]

What if the world was 100 people?

Anya Kamenetz wrote a great article on the case for generosity, saying “Couch-surfing is only the beginning, the Internet could unlock our natural impulse to share goals — and a global economy built on the kindness of strangers.” How do people who study network effects measure kindness. I know they endlessly look for patterns, collect [...]

You have no idea what it’s like

“A long time ago, in 1944, there lived a scientist in Austria called Hans Asperger. Hans asperger spent many years studying all kinds of people and the ways in which we are all different, and he discovered a group of people who in some ways are very special. He found that these people were often [...]

Quick Cite – Life Hacking Bookstores and Libraries

One of the constant questions from under graduates is how to cite or reference a book. There are numerous tools to help with this at the writing stage such as End Note and web based tools such as BibMe. What if you could get the reference from your iPhone? Quick Cite ($1.19) in the Australian [...]

Hiding in the crowd

One thing that amazes me constantly about knowledge ‘experts’ is their low levels of understanding about digital-knowledge. Not the content, such that was held in the hallowed pages of print, but the way it now exists online. Even if you never knowingly add to it, you do — every click you make, every download you [...]

Changing minds, changing tools

I’ve been using WordPress for a good number of years. Before that I used a now ‘dead’ service. All up I’ve been ‘blogging’ for about a decade – but didn’t really call it that for five or six years until Judy set me straight. In fact in the first half of the naughties, I wasn’t [...]

Think about Flow, Substantives and Verbs

According to Flow Theory, when people reflect on how it feels when their experience is most positive, they mention at least one, and often all, of the following: 1. We confront tasks we have a chance of completing; 2. We must be able to concentrate on what we are doing; 3. The task has clear [...]

I’ve adopted a Blood Elf Priest

I eagerly read the Horizon Report for 2011, which has identified Game Based Learning as having a 1-3 year adoption in education. This must have been written by educators, not gamers. The blindman and the elephant It was six men of Hindustan To learning much inclined, Who went to see the Elephant (Though all of [...]