LTGR Ep. #93: “Gamification Part 2: Digital Literacy for Life in New York City”
In this second show on gamification, Dan and guest co-host, Jonathan Finkelstein, interview Michael Preston, Ph.D., director of Blended Learning at the Office of Postsecondary Readiness at the New York City Department of Education (NYCDOE). They discuss their rollout of DIG/IT, a social and fun community learning space designed to support Digital Literacies, a course for learning about digital citizenship in schools across New York City.
Play Podcast:
Show Notes:
Michael Preston, Ph.D.
Jonathan sets the stage by describing how the LearningTimes team approached the design of the course. He also walks through the philosophy of the underlying BadgeStack environment in which the experience unfolds for students. In particular, Jonathan extracts one piece of inspiration from games: that they allow you to substitute in a new set of “rules” to influence how people learn.
Michael describes his vision around using the platform and this new approach with non-traditional high school students to teach Digital Literacy and tech skills for life and college readiness.
Jonathan explains the four key content areas explored in the course. Learners complete Quests and earn Badges for demonstrating newly acquired skills and for supporting others in the community as they work together.
Dan probes how teachers are responding and implementing the platform for learning.
Listeners, please add to this topic by posting game-like elements you are using in your learning environments in the Comments below or call us at 1-800-609-9006 x8055 (US and Canada) or 678-255-2174 x8055 (outside US and Canada) to record a message by phone.
October 4th, 2011 at 8:26 pm
My immediate question for gamification in education is, how do you get the cash to develop something like this?!! Your guest is working on a level of funding that is well beyond the reach of many people in educational contexts. So, my question would be, how do we harness games for education without the 100 thousand (hyperbole)? What if you only have the 100?