Flashback Friday: "Apps and Games for STEM Learning"

Happy Flashback Friday! Every Friday we focus on Speak Up data, articles, and press releases from the past. This week we're looking at National Environmental Education Week's blog post, "Apps and Games for STEM Learning" from April 2014, which features data from one of our Speak Up 2013 reports. Check out a snippet of it below:

According to Project Tomorrow's latest Speak Up report released this week, "girls and boys across all grade levels see digital games as having significant learning benefits if employed within a school environment, including greater engagement in learning and making it easier to understand difficult concepts." 

One-quarter of teachers said that they are integrating digital games into their classrooms, and students are playing games outside of school to support their own learning. "Approximately one-quarter of middle school students have played an online game outside of school on their own, specifically to learn something. The percentage jumps to almost 50 percent amongst boys and girls who consider their technology skills advanced.

Interestingly, the report also showed that nearly one-third of high school boys say that they are very interested in a job or career in a STEM field, but only 19 percent of girls share that same vision for themselves. 

Be sure to check out National Environmental Education Week's original post, "Apps and Games for STEM Learning," their guide to the "Apps & Games for Environmental Engineering," and last year's Speak Up report The New Digital Learning Playbook: Understanding the Spectrum of Students’ Activities and Aspirations for more information.

Are you a teacher or student who uses apps and games for in the classroom? Let us know by participating in Speak Up 2014! Speak Up provides an easy way for students, parents and educators to participate in local decisions about technology, as well as contribute to the state and national dialogue about educational technology. Data from the surveys - including data regarding online classes - will be released in February 2015. Click here to register for Speak Up 2014 and mark your calendars for the survey's launch date on October 6!

Free webinar: Engaging Students, Empowering Learning – New Roles for Digital Content and Games in the Classroom

What: Engaging Students, Empowering Learning - New Roles for Digital Content and Games in the Classroom

Who: Julie Evans, Robert Miller, and BrainPOP

When: Wednesday, September 17 at 3:30PM EST

Register here

Research tells us that engaging students in learning has the potential to improve achievement; teachers know that instinctively.  But how to increase student engagement is still often an elusive concept in many classrooms.  Promising new developments in the use of digital content, and specifically digital and online educational games, in elementary and middle school classrooms aim to make that connection between student engagement and empowered learning more explicit.  In this webinar, Julie Evans, CEO of Project Tomorrow, will introduce a new white paper that highlights Speak Up research findings around teacher and student use of digital content and games for learning, and how administrators are increasingly supporting those efforts.  And Robert Miller, 5th grade teacher from Daytona Beach, Florida, will share examples of how digital content and games are transforming his classroom today.  With a combination of research findings and classroom practices, this webinar will provide you with new strategies and ideas to use in your classrooms this year!

About BrainPOP: Founded in 1999, BrainPOP creates animated, curricular content that engages students, supports educators, and bolsters achievement. Their award-winning online educational resources include BrainPOP Jr. (K-3), BrainPOP, BrainPOP Español, and, for English language learners, BrainPOP ESL. BrainPOP is also home to GameUp, an educational games portal for the classroom.

How games can work in the classroom

While the use of educational technology is a great way to prepare students for the future, none of that is possible without a good teacher. However, teaching and learning should not just be about academic content and retention - it should involve other ways of learning that differ from the traditional "sage on the stage" classroom model.

One method of moving away from a top-down practice of teaching is by incorporating video games into the classroom. While some may see it as a distraction, video games can actually be useful in the classroom because they encourage students to understand knowledge not just through memorization but through interaction. Of course, in order for video games to be effective, teachers will need to continue working directly with students and can then use games as a supplement that increases one-on-one learning.

ST Math - otherwise known as "Jiji math" due to its penguin mascot named Jiji - is just one example of successful game implementation in the classroom. Created by the MIND Research Institute, ST Math provides a fun game-based program that teaches math without using words. The company's founder, Dr. Matthew Peterson, says his company stays successful by incorporating three classic principles of good teaching:

1. Interactivity. The students need to come before the curriculum and learning needs to be interactive in order for students to create their own solutions. Rather than having students regurgitate information learned in class, they should be able to generate their own answers in order to have higher retention.
2. Informative feedback. Unfortunately, the majority of educational games lack in offering feedback other than simple rewards and scores that are no different than standardized test results. Informative feedback provides instant explanations about why an answer is right or wrong so that students can learn from their mistakes.
3. Intrinsic motivation. The cost of providing informative feedback is that students are no longer motivated by rewards. However, this may not be a bad thing - rather than being motivated by gold stars and smiley faces, students are now motivated to solve the problems instead of just passing the test.

Check out MindShift's original article, "In the Bustling, Interactive Classroom, A Place for Digital Games" and check out their guide to games and learning here. Educators, how do you use games in the classroom? Let us know in our comments section or on Twitter!

Around the Web Wednesday

Happy Around the Web Wednesday! Browse all the links below for the latest news and topics trending in education and technology. Be sure to let us know which article intrigued you the most!

Be sure to check back each week for our Around the Web Wednesday series. Have a great day!

- The Project Tomorrow Team

Why Do Americans Stink at Math? - The New York Times

In the Bustling, Interactive Classroom, A Place for Digital Games - Mind/Shift

What Happens When School Design Looks Like Game Design - Mind/Shift

4 ways games make it ‘OK to play’ - eSchool News

Coding classes: Overcoming obstacles to add computer science - eSchool News

Hire Education: Mastery, Modularization, and the Workforce Revolution - Clayton Christensen Institute

Computer Science in K-12 Classrooms Needs to Catch Up - Huffington Post

Five ways colleges can use digital technology to improve communication - The Guardian

Julie Evans featured at this year's Serious Play Conference

What: Julie Evan's presentation, "By the Numbers: New Research on Games & Learning," at the 4th Serious Play Conference

When: July 22nd at 10:30am

Where: SCI 108 within the USC School of Cinematic Arts

Register here

The Serious Play Conference is a leadership conference for professionals who embrace the idea that games can revolutionize learning. Produced by the Serious Games Association, an international organization for everyone in the serious games industry, the Serious Play Conference will be held at USC from July 22nd to July 24th.

This year, Julie Evans is a speaker at the Serious Play Conference and will be presenting "By the Numbers: New Research on Games & Learning," which features data from Speak Up 2013. If attending, don't forget to take the conversation online and mention @SpeakUpEd and @ProjectTomorrow!

Educational Media's Biggest Users

If you visit the education category on the iTunes and Android app stores, you may notice that several of the apps consist of basic spelling, counting, and coloring. Given that these apps are geared towards young children and even babies, it is no surprise that children from the ages of 2 to 4 are educational media's biggest users.

"At a younger and younger age, kids are accustomed to using [televisions and mobile devices]," said Victoria Rideout, the author of the report that explains the findings by the Joan Ganz Cooney Center. "Companies see this trend and are creating much more content that is for the very youngest kids and marketing that content as educational."

However, the large use of educational media drops once children enter school. While children between the ages of 2-4 spend an average of one hour per day watching television or using online programs, this number drops to fifty minutes per day for 5-to-7-year-olds, and to 42 minutes per day for 8-to-10-year-olds. Furthermore, while 13% of 2-to-4-year-olds use devices for educational activities, only 6% of 8-to-10-year-olds do. The study explains that when children enter school they are able to access more smartphones, game consoles and e-readers, and are therefore more easily distracted by video games and other online entertainment that do not contain educational material.

Are you surprised by this information? Let us know your thoughts by commenting on this post! To read the article "2-to-4-year-olds are most frequent users of educational media, study finds" by Cecilia Kang (The Washington Post), click here. To learn more about the Joan Ganz Cooney Center, click here.

GoldieBlox - Building Games for Girls to Inspire Future Engineers

Happy Monday! 

We hope you had a wonderful weekend! With the short work week we thought we share something fun to brighten your Monday! And with the winter holidays right around the corner possibly a gift inspiration for your daughter, niece or other young ladies in your life!

Read more about GoldieBlox in Today.com's article: GlodieBlox: Rebelling against dolls, the pink princess and the toy complex.

Need an activity before Thanksgiving Break? Out of school for the week? Take the Speak Up survey!! Surveys are open to anyone interested in having a voice on critical education and technology trends. Go to www.speakup4schools.org/speakup2013 to take the survey today. Surveys open to students, parents, educators and community members!

Enjoy your day.

-The Project Tomorrow team