The last few weeks I've attended two conferences in the Netherlands. Firstly, the Alt C conference: New connections, New Challenges. A very intersting day, the main point is that we desperately need some research on tthe topics of the Net Generation, well I hope I can contribute to that. I was quite enthusastic about the key note from Angela Mc Farlane. She discussed the role of communities around video games and the role which certain communities can play in higher education. Her main argument was the difference between educational and private use: ASSESSMENT! If we want to establish certain rich learning environments as currently occurs in virtual communities around video games we need to think about the role of assessment. And again I felt lucky to have read Carl Rogers freedom to learn, because the kind of learning Rogers is striving to is currently happening in those communities! Rogers also points out the role of assessment, he thinks we should let the students assess themselves. I say  WHY NOT? Students are able to do that, we see it happening once they are engaged and feel that learning IS fun. What we as educators need to do is that we focus on the learning processes of our students. When we see a student struggling with cricitcal self assessment: help them how to do it better. Once we focus on helping students how to learn, instead of finding ways to assess them, they ARE going to be engaged and WILL like to learn.

 

I've also argued the above message in my presentation on the CVI conference in Veldhoven together with two dear colleagues of mine (is in dutch :-). Also the second day I talked about focussing on the learning process when using 360 degree feedback in your organization.

 

The last weeks have been a lot of reflection time for me. I've also had a meeting with Ida Wognum at the University about my reasearch proposal. I'm currently at the time that I've read enough literature, now it's time to write my own argument on the topic. DAMN thats hard! I've also had the honour to write an article on the topic ALLREADY :-). It's for the magazine on the knowledge economy "IK" published by essentials. I'm writing it with my colleage Marcel de Leeuwe, an expert on game based learning. This is a great learning experience for me and I finally feel that I'm up to writing my own thing now for my research.

 

So, that's the job for today. I'll keep in touch.

(by the way I'm moving to my own appartment in a month, you can view the photo's on this space)

Take a look at this article in the latest edition of Wired Magazine http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.04/learn.html. What a blast, I think I'll go to the sores immediately and by that game!

 

To be honest, I think Brown (writer of the book The Social Life of Information) and Thomas made a good point here. A bit in the extreme, they argue that a good player in World of Warcraft, and in specific a master of a large guild, posesses the right competences for a management position. I think they're right. It would be good to state on your CV that you're a good game player the same as you would mention that you're in the board of your football club. As Steinkuehler (2005) describes it, "succesfull gameplay is cognitively demanding, requiring exploration of complex, multi-dimensional problem spaces, empirical model building, the negotiation of meaning and values within the relevant gaming community, and the coordination of people, (virtual) tools and artifacts, and multiple forms of text - all within persistent virtual worlds with emergent sociological cultural characteristics of the players' own world."