Kinesthetic Learner Video

Found this while researching something else. It's from About.com.

Note the blurb for field trips and museum visits.  ;)

It also brings back memories of teaching in an all-girls school!

Role Playing is Gaming with the Whole Body

Fighters with rapiers and daggers at a reenactment, 3 September 2007, 11:57, Crossed Blades, Jean, upload by Herrick, from Wikimedia Commons

Apparently, role-playing is undergoing a "renaissance."

Which is a wonderful play on words, as a lot of these stories are really medieval.

According to the WBUR story "You Be the Dragon Slayer":
The term interactive storytelling is used to describe all manner of games where both the audience and actors are part of the performance: live-action role-playing (LARPs); alternate reality games (ARGs) that often mix in technology or mobile devices; interactive theater; and everything in between, including old-fashioned role-playing games (RPGs) like D&D.

There is also the Society for Creative Anachronism.
(Sorta the anti-sport fencing.)

The connection here to museums is pretty clear, as there are a number of living history museums -- Old Sturbridge Village, Conner Prairie, and Plimoth Plantation to name a few -- that use role play as interpretation.

And there is a host of information coming out about gaming as educational, as well.
(Or not.  There is some debate.)

So is there some way we can combine these?

Higgins Armoury Museum already is.

Can we at indoor, non-armoury museums use this experience?

More Wii Research in Motion...!

This just in:

Wii use helps surgery students translate the 2-D to 3-D world of laparoscopy surgery.

A recent study by Dr. Gregorio Patrizi, a professor at the University of Rome Medical School, "found that the gamers performed significantly better than another group of residents who didn't undergo this grueling video game training" according to a February 28, 2013 NPR story "Nintendo Wii Helped Budding Surgeons Move To Head Of The Class."

Additionally, "Several earlier studies suggested that playing video games can boost laparoscopic skills, but those studies were largely based on surveys of surgeons' prior video gaming habits. Patrizi's study is one of the first randomized trials that had some surgeons undergo a structured game-playing routine and also maintained a separate control group.

"Patrizi and his team had surgical residents play three Wii games — tennis, ping pong and one that involved shooting balloons from an aircraft. As the researchers write in their article published online by PLOS ONE, they chose these games because they all required strong hand-eye coordination and three-dimensional visualization of a space."

Playing Beck means PLAYING Beck

http://www.beck.com/index.php/song-reader-the-exhibition

Today on WBUR's RadioBoston show, there was a piece about Beck's "Song Reader," the album that isn't.

Well, it is, if you actually play the music yourself, because "Song Reader" is boxed sheet music.
Which makes it a "box set" in the original sense.

As Beck's website for the music says, "Only you can bring Beck Hansen's Song Reader to life."

Making people actually play the music both democratizes and experientializes* it.

Listen to the story here.



*yes, I know this isn't a word, but what would you say here?

Treadmill Desks -- Work It!!

Completed desk upgrade to treadmill workstation in my office cubicle by Joe Hoover, from Wikimedia Commons

Local NPR Station WBUR had this story on Morning Edition today (Monday, November 19, 2012):

Can You Move It And Work It On A Treadmill Desk?

It's tempting. The research cited in the story is solid. Check it out!


Others report success with a treadmill desk.

In fact, the New York Times ran a story back in 2008.  
Mutual of Omaha was one workplace using them.

Here's DIY build instructions.

Too much sitting can lead to bad things, like cancer. (Or maybe not cancer, but definitely health problems.)

Reread the March 2012 study of how sitting too much can lead to... um... death.

Ask the boss for a real working desk... or a walking meeting!

Playworks

"Go outside and play!"

How many times did you hear this growing up?

Do parents even say this anymore?

There is a foundation now dedicated to helping make play happen, especially during the school day.

Playworks, based in Oakland CA, provides supporting research in their promotion of play.  See their page "Why Play Matters."

They also have a free online book of activities.

While play should be a spontaneous thing, promoted by those doing it, it is better to protect and promote active, outdoor recess than not.

Love Your Child and Let Them Go -- Mind and Body

Back from hiatus...

Yesterday, a piece on NPR's Morning Edition neatly summarized a beginning of the school year lesson for us all.

As heard on Boston's NPR station WBUR, "'Children Succeed' With Character, Not Test Scores" pretty much made the argument for why brain science supports what resiliency studies and character education have been saying already: love 'em up and let 'em go, they'll be better for it.

Paul Tough* make this argument in How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity and the Hidden Power of Character.  His interview is a clear, cogent, loving, and well-argued.

He is, also, a parent of a toddler.

Being allowed to fail, and knowing you are an okay person who has others to watch your back, is an important part of growing up.

Experiencing individuation from your parents is another significant part of the growing up process.

[Don't believe me?  Watch the current cycle of America's Next Top Model: College Edition and see what Victoria does in Episode 2.  Her "closeness" to her mother is psychologically unhealthy. 
It is the antithesis of what Tough argues....]

Character-building failure is not encouraged in the high-stakes testing model of education we are experiencing now.

I've had that, and a company of supporters to help me through...

I guess that makes me, Henry Ford,  Thomas Edison and Mattie in True Grit,  among others, great company!

Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.
Henry Ford

*Anyone besides me notice the fabulous appropriateness of his name??