I have been using Quizizz for three school years, a learning platform that allows you to create very versatile digital teaching materials, slide presentations that help to explain concepts, videos, interspersed with quizzes and questions that allow students to consolidate and at the same time verify learning. At the end of the lesson, always very participated and active, I reward the first three with a sticker. Engagement is very strong, also because I propose the same lesson to review at home. But reading the article I was struck by the passage about the criticity of gamification, which actually made me rethink the attitude that some students have during the game lesson: the commitment is often motivated above all by the perspective of arriving first and winning the prize, while learning itself is secondary.
Indeed, gamification cannot be the only learning strategy, it must be accompanied by slower events that promote reflection and in-depth study, as well as cooperative work.
Thanks. Gamification has great promise!!! But it is gets complicated once students become dependent on it. How to game without the game? That is the quest moon moving forward? How to make learned exciting? That too.
Nice piece, Nick. One of the elements that ties some of the analysis together is how focused so much ed-tech is on individualized experiences. It seems to me the potential for generative AI is in creating social experiences that involve teams of students guided by teachers tackling some problem or situation embedded in an LLM. The focus on the screen is displaced by the human interaction that surrounds it. Young children focus on a caregiver to understand the symbols and contextualize them. The engagement loops are not mediated by algorithms but guided by humans.
Love the summary on the (lack of thoughtful) integration of AI tools in classrooms and how the upshot seems to be increased engagement, but not necessarily learning. Clearly, they go hand in hand, but sometimes one hand does not know what they other is doing ....
The rise of rubbish AI generated material on children's youtube channels highlights a significant risk / ethical dillema. It's not designed to be educational and it's completely nonsensical but it's visual and audio cocaine to a developing mind.
I agree, Michael. This article hit home really hard. It is actually really hard to know where to start in the hard work of pushing through the rubbish when you see how systemically the foundation has been laid out. iPads and cell phones are not our children's friends. The statistics on mental health and academic declines are beyond concerning. Hopefully, our generation will be the one that finally wakes up!
I have been using Quizizz for three school years, a learning platform that allows you to create very versatile digital teaching materials, slide presentations that help to explain concepts, videos, interspersed with quizzes and questions that allow students to consolidate and at the same time verify learning. At the end of the lesson, always very participated and active, I reward the first three with a sticker. Engagement is very strong, also because I propose the same lesson to review at home. But reading the article I was struck by the passage about the criticity of gamification, which actually made me rethink the attitude that some students have during the game lesson: the commitment is often motivated above all by the perspective of arriving first and winning the prize, while learning itself is secondary.
Indeed, gamification cannot be the only learning strategy, it must be accompanied by slower events that promote reflection and in-depth study, as well as cooperative work.
Thanks. Gamification has great promise!!! But it is gets complicated once students become dependent on it. How to game without the game? That is the quest moon moving forward? How to make learned exciting? That too.
Nice piece, Nick. One of the elements that ties some of the analysis together is how focused so much ed-tech is on individualized experiences. It seems to me the potential for generative AI is in creating social experiences that involve teams of students guided by teachers tackling some problem or situation embedded in an LLM. The focus on the screen is displaced by the human interaction that surrounds it. Young children focus on a caregiver to understand the symbols and contextualize them. The engagement loops are not mediated by algorithms but guided by humans.
Love the summary on the (lack of thoughtful) integration of AI tools in classrooms and how the upshot seems to be increased engagement, but not necessarily learning. Clearly, they go hand in hand, but sometimes one hand does not know what they other is doing ....
Thanks, Nigel!!!
The rise of rubbish AI generated material on children's youtube channels highlights a significant risk / ethical dillema. It's not designed to be educational and it's completely nonsensical but it's visual and audio cocaine to a developing mind.
I agree, Michael. This article hit home really hard. It is actually really hard to know where to start in the hard work of pushing through the rubbish when you see how systemically the foundation has been laid out. iPads and cell phones are not our children's friends. The statistics on mental health and academic declines are beyond concerning. Hopefully, our generation will be the one that finally wakes up!