Blog

Hi, Matthias Brendler here, transdisciplinary designer blogging what's interesting or significant relating to: Design, Education, Culture, Technology and Business (as well as anything that's really cool).

Noisy Jelly: Making sound tactile for kids of all ages

Saw this product 8 years or so and am happy to finally get it into the blog. More good stuff to come.

“French design students Raphaël Pluvinage and Marianne Cauvard have created the ultimate chemistry kit that allows kids (or the Devour staff) to cook up their own musical jellies in just 10 minutes. Fight the urge not to snack on your science.” –

At this awesome new museum, the exhibits respond to the sound of your voice

“Planet Word didn’t want to model a library, but the museum does include one. The space is designed to look traditional, with the wooden walls and shared reading tables you might imagine. The difference here is that, when you pull one of 100 books off the shelf and lay it down to read, that book comes to life with graphics that literally spill off the page while a narrator discusses the work.”

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PLAY: Minecraft x Classroom: “engage students and drive new ways of thinking”

MineCraft x Social Studies

Making allows students to learn by doing and solve problems by tinkering, trial and error. Minecraft is a 3D sandbox game, which has made its way into classrooms because it engages students across a range of subjects. Imagine the learning that happens when these two popular education movements are combined.

The outcome is a powerhouse of student engagement, says Mike Washburn, head of computer science at Richmond Hill Montessori & Elementary Private School in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.  In his mind, games shouldn’t be relegated to the fringes in classrooms. Educators should leverage them to engage students and drive new ways of thinking.

Source: https://www.iste.org/explore/articleDetail...

PLAY: “ChangeGamer”: PROMOTING GAMES TO INSPIRE UNDERSTANDING OF TODAY'S REAL + COMPLEX CHALLENGES

ChangeGamer promotes the use of computer games to study themes such as energy, climate change, natural disasters, the environment, economics, politics, history and science.  The main function of ChangeGamer is to find high-quality games, and to create student activities for each of those games.  The vast majority of games are free, browser-based, and playable on a number of different platforms (e.g. PC, Mac, Chromebook, etc.).  All of the posted activities are free and have been tested in middle and high school classrooms (Gr.7-12). We have created answer keys for a number of the student activities where applicable - if you are a teacher and require any of these email us through the contact page using your school email address. 

In addition, ChangeGamer:

    
ChangeGamer is comprised of teachers and academics who volunteer their time to further the use of computer games in subjects such as Social Studies, Geography, and Science.  ChangeGamer was founded in 2014 in Toronto, building on the experience of teachers who have been using computer games in their classrooms for up to 10 years.   

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