New Ideas Awesome Podcast

It is cold in Winnipeg right now. The thermometer only reads -20 Celsius but there is a north wind that is moving large trees right now. I do not know how to explain wind chill to people who have never experienced it. The best way I can describe it is the driest, coldest feeling you have ever imagined. No I know an analogy... remember Han Solo in carbonite. That is extreme wind chill. With the wind chill today it was colder than -40. Friday when I arrived at school it was -37 without the wind chill and -50 with it.(It is at times like this that I think of Graham on a beach at +40).

So it was exercise day at the gym instead of out on the streets. I love running outdoors but this is too much. I went at 7 am, my wife left at 8:30 and we took the kids to swimming lessons at the same place at 11:30. Why do I bore you with this information..... because I have just listened to the most amazing podcast (twice!!)

Podcast117: Engaging Brains with Games and Simulations 51:52 Wesley A. Fryer 13/01/07 This podcast is a recording of a presentation by Dr. Bernie Dodge at MacWorld 2007 at the K-12 Educators Market Symposium.

Wes Fryer recently attended Mac Expo in San Francisco. He was stalled in Denver on a Flight and posted an excellent presentation by Dr Bernie Dodge. It is incredible. I have listened to it twice and am going to use pieces of this presentation in my classes.

I plead with the few readers I have to listen to this presentation. There are excellent notes at Wes's site Moving at the Speed of Creativity.

There are some excellent resources at Wes' site. Here are the show notes:

Show notes for Wes' podcast include:

1. Dr. Dodge’s handouts and links from this session
2. My notes from Dr. Dodge’s session
3. MacWorld Speaker Bio: Dr. Bernie Dodge
4. Beginner’s Guide to Interactive Fiction with Inform7
5. Star Logo TNG
6. Second Life
7. Teen Second Life
8. QuestGarden: Where Great Webquests Grow
9. WebQuest Portal.

The messages that hit home for me were the following:

(Learning Power = Attention x Depth x Efficiency) The first few times I listened to this seeing it was about gaming was to hear..... death instead of depth. Video games killing.... I wasn't too far off was I?

Create your own Choose your own adventure story using Google Docs. Boys are reluctant writers and I used these stories to hook them on reading in the early 90's. Now using Google Docs they can create interactive stories with their friends. They can collaberate with people from around the globe too. Wow look out Cam (my son) you will be doing this soon.

For my class work the last part of the presentation was about Glass Bead. It was a game described in a Herman Hess novel.

Glass bead to me is like 7 degrees of separation (you know the Kevin Bacon Game). You have to place ideas on a board and show how they are linked to other ideas that are already on the board. The more creative the idea the more points you can accrue.

I plan to use this game as a review for units and have the students find connections between the ideas that I have given them. How is this 2.0? You can use Gliffy to create this game. Once the student has placed their piece on the board they will blog about it and explain why the piece/topic was put in that position. The more creative and mathematical the answer the better the response. I'll write about it more after I have tried it out.

Please listen to this podcast. I really enjoyed it.

Wes Fryer will be the guest of the Women of Web 2.0 on Tuesday. I am sure he will be talking about this topic then.