I am involved in an Institute of Educational Sciences project with Seward Incorporated out of Minneapolis. We are currently building a simulation to support a Model Eliciting Activity (MEA). MEAs are predominantly used in STEM areas (science, technology, engineering, and mathematic). Here is a good read on how MEAs have been used. In short, these are activities that force students to [...]

While doing research with Dr. Edward Brantmeier, I ran across this interesting information from Cole and Crawford (2007) in an article called “Building peace through information and communication technologies.” The table below details some of the authors’ main points.

Ways of Promoting Peace and Reconciliation through ICTs

Examples of ICTs

Provide information

Internet connectivity
Mobile phones and personal data assistants [...]

Education Futures is the repository of Global Leapfrog Education (formerly ISSN 1933-0200).
Contents available online are
Volume 1, Number 1 (December 2006):

Editors Welcome: Arthur Harkins and John Moravec
Learning 2.0: Juan Cristobal Cobo Romani (reviewed by Suzanne Miric)
Facilitating 21st Century Education: Leapfrogging Culture and Time through Simulational Learning: Arthur Harkins, John Moravec, and George Kubik (reviewed [...]

Twenty years ago, playing games over a distance might have meant that you played turn-taking games like chess over email, and you were cutting edge. I remember people playing chess through snail mail! You would make your move and wait for a reply.
What is happening now is taking place in real-time in virtual environments that [...]

For those of us in Minneapolis/St. Paul, this looks good:
eLearning Games and Simulations workshop

May 24: 8:30 – 4:00
Normandale Community College

Learn what your students already know
Games and simulations are powerful tools – changing the way we learn
Hands-on Instruction Enables You to Play the Games Yourself
Seated at your own computer, with an instructor as your guide, [...]

I just received this note from Janet Cohen:
John -
You are going to love this one – from the Feb 2007 Wired.
A Second Life for MTV by Mark Wallace
article is not online yet, but this article explains the part you’ll like, MTV is calling their Virtual MTV a Leapfrog Initiative!
http://www.mediavillage.com/jmr/2006/12/04/jmr-12-04-06/
I’ll try to [...]

The Los Angeles Times recently ran a story on the adoption of technology in California’s higher education institutions. Gaming and simulation technologies are being explored to provide “more individualized instruction” that cater to both emotional and learning needs of students. Carol Twigg at the National Center for Academic Transformation is looking at online education. [...]

Arthur Harkins and I deivered a presentation on “Facilitating 21st Century Education: Leapfrogging Culture and Time through Simulational Learning” at the 30th Annual Pacific Circle Consortium meeting at Mexico City on July 13. Read on for the abstract or download the PowerPoint slides.

This is a great article!
Online education often provides too much explicit knowledge and too little tacit knowledge and social interaction. In this article, John Seely Brown and Douglas Thomas identify an avenue for tacit knowledge production in virtual settings. As virtual reality is becoming more-and-more preferred over the real world, perhaps the “Leapfrog U” [...]

From the IST program:
If computers could create a society, what kind of world would they make? Thanks to the work of an ambitious project that adds a whole new meaning to the phrase, ‘computer society’, in which millions of software agents will potentially evolve their own culture, we could be about [...]