learning game websites

Who are the biggies in this area?

There's:

PrimaryGames.com with their "Mondrian" design that fits so much advertising and content onto the page that it makes my head spin. I think they are very savvy commercially really working the revenue maximizing side of the puzzle. Their graphics suggest a younger kid focus.

sheppardsoftware.com is more aesthetic and cute. I can't tell whether they've selected topics by interest or for revenue. They have an remarkable structure of lessons and activities with different levels. It squeezes the maximum content and perhaps value out of the materials. I can't tell if it's databased or each one is standalone.

The LearningGamesforKids.com educational games website is very sweet. It's smaller and less commercial than the rest but only slightly.

CleverIsland.com is the most commercial of all. Want to see something interesting? Google free learning games and click on the CleverIsland paid advertisement. Give them your name and email so that you can see the free games. Use a variation of your real name. Then count how many people email you using that name variation. They're really aggressive.

To research:

funschool.kaboose.com
thekidzpage.com
learningplanet.com/
prongo.com/games
alfy.com/games/learning

funbrain.com

Gamequarium has collected all sorts of games and links. They are doing a little crowdsourcing with their add-a-link effort: gamequarium.org/cgi-bin/search/addurl.cg

BTW - Should I write a blog post for: learninggames.wordpress.com/2009/10/23/oer-in-games-sims-and-virtual-worlds

From Online to in the flesh - Campaigns are multimedia

Today, I went to a political rally. It's actually the first political rally that I've been to since I was about 20 (I'm 50 now).

I won't share my politics with you but I will say that it really made me think about the process and people as I stood there in a crowd, a very mixed crowd, in the sun at mid-day.

There were old and young, mostly old. Many volunteers. Some children. I assumed that they were homeschoolers since it was a school day.

It's 15 days to election day and being in Florida, we hear A LOT of political ads on the TV and radio. It makes sense to me that in addition to enormous amounts of online work, they hit the crowds and radios, and the TVs and the newspapers. There is no mor multimedia effort than a presidential campaign.

Science education - need a new approach

The general approach to science in our schools is a bust. It doesn't attract enthusiasm or many students. And our need as a society for a scientifically fluent citizenship and for scientifically-strong professionals is vital.

The curriculum for science continues to get short-changed as the schools increase their focus on the more testable math and language arts. Starting in middle school and in high school, the science labs continue to get back due to budget cuts, lack of teachers, and the perceived danger of actual science labs with acids and bases and fire.

Fortunately, there is a solution: computer-based instruction. This can be personalized which will solve the problem of students progressing in science at dramatically different rates. We can do simulations of experiments with amazing capabilities. It can be inquiry based and socially relevant.

So far, there are bits and pieces of great curriculum but no consensus. Right now, I'm reviewing the Jason curriculum from National Geographic to see if it can be used as the basis for some sort of "Time4Science" (ie an online interactive science curriculum)





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Christian Homeschool

Many Christian parents who are just beginning to homeschool start out seeking a curriculum that not only meets their learning needs but one that also fits in with their Christian beliefs. As time goes by many of those parents find that their homeschool curriculum is really good at one... or the other... but not both.

As Kerry from North Carolina says in her article about Homeschooling as a Christian "We are Christians, but aren’t really homeschooling for religious reasons..." and I suspect the difficulty finding curriculum to handle both concepts may have had a hand in making that decision. Either the religious content is first priority and the educational content suffers or vice-versa.

Religion is personal. Your education is something you will show to everyone you ever come in contact with. When it comes to homeschool curriculum and religion, I see them as completely different animals who should be contained in two separate cages for the sake of the trainers (parents) and the audience (students).

Kumon

I just read an old article about Brian's experience working at a Kumon center: "Educating Ali". Basically, while inside the Kumon machine, he found a child who needed a little focused one-on-one attention and gave it to him.

I think it makes the basic point that with a little special help, many children's education can be greatly improved.

It struck a different cord with me. It was while sitting in a Kumon Center that I decided to launch myself as an entrepreneur. I was there with my 6 year old son and was very impressed by how crowded the waiting room was. Parents were lining up in droves for Kumon. I looked Kumon up in the almanac and found it was the single largest franchise in the US (in terms of number of centers).

A Kumon Jr. session for my son consisted of him sitting at a low table with 3-4 other kids and filling out simple worksheets while a para-professional watched and encouraged them. Then, the kids were given a large number of worksheets to fill out at home with the parents during the week along with a reading book.

For this, we were paying $250/month. There was nothing magic about the worksheets. They looked identical to the free ones on the net or the ones that you can get in a 200 page book for $4.99 at a discount store.

I asked myself why were all these parents paying so much for so simple a product. After considering a few possibilities (we were all dumb...?), I concluded that the answer was that it's not the worksheets per se, it's the fact that the kids get the right worksheet at the right time along with a motivational system that makes it valuable and effective. It was when I realized that and I looked at all these parents lining up for help. And I thought about all that driving and parking and followup by us parents at home that I decided to make the plunge and start Time4Learning.com.

For a little more info on the Kumon philosophy, here's a quote from Brian's blog...

Regular school maths usually seems to involve the children working through only a few rather hard problems. Kumon makes them do many more much easier ones. Instead of hoping that they get, say, about half to two thirds of their stuff right, Kumon says they must get nearly everything right. At the heart of the Kumon method is the difference between a child painfully working out that seven plus six equals, er, thirteen? (anxious glance at face of teacher), and knowing with real certainty that seven plus six equals thirteen, with no doubts or hesitations. The usual educational emphasis is on "understanding". The Kumon literature talks of "mastery".
Each child does a clutch of sums selected for him or her personally (there is no everyone-in-the-class-does-the-same-stuff rule) each day, which are supposed to take about twenty minutes to complete.

Or, as Time4Learning.com puts in (quoting from a page comparing Time4Learning & Kumon)

It provides a service for children and parents alike, based on the philosophy of repetition and self-motivated learning. This after-school program works primarily toward enrichment and a mastery of the basics through a standardized approach of workbook completion. The Kumon workbooks consist of several pages of sequential math or reading content. Students complete one workbook while at the Kumon Center. In addition, students are required to complete a workbook at home each day they are not in attendance (including weekends). Workbooks range from two pages a day to twenty pages a day, requiring a degree of parental supervision.