Video Game–Based Learning: An Emerging Paradigm for Instruction

Interactive digital media, or video games, are a powerful new medium. They offer immersive experiences in which players solve problems. Players learn more than just facts—ways of seeing and understanding problems so that they “become” different kinds of people. “Serious games” coming from business strategy, advergaming, and entertainment gaming embody these features and point to a future paradigm for eLearning. Building on interviews with leading designers of serious games, this article presents case studies of three organizations building serious games, coming from different perspectives but arriving at similar conclusions. This article argues that such games challenge us to rethink the role of information, tools, and aesthetics in a digital age.     

Literature of broadcasting: Books in review

BEST TELEVISION PLAYS. Ed. by Gore Vidal. New York: Ballantine Books, Inc., 1956. 250 pp. 35c.

TELEVISION PLAYS BY PADDY GHAYEFSKY. By Paddy Chayefsky. New York: Simon and Schuster. 1955. 268 pp. $1.50 (paperback).

TOP TV SHOWS OF THE YEAR, 1954–55. Ed. by Irving Settel New York: Hastings House, 1955. 269 pp. $5.50.

TELEVISION SCRIPTS FOR STAGING AND STUDY. By Rudy Bretz and Edward Stasheff. New York: Hill and Wang, Inc., 1953. 332 pp. $4.95.

TELEVISION'S IMPACT ON AMERICAN CULTURE. By William Y. Elliott. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press 1956. 382 pp. $4.95.

MASS COMMUNICATIONS. By Erik Barnouw. New York: Rine‐hart and Company, Inc., 1957. pp. 280. $4.00.

CONSUMER RESEARCH WITH PROJECTIVE TECHNIQUES. By Dietz Leonhard. Shenandoah, Iowa: World Publishing Co., 1955. 151 pp.

ON HUMAN COMMUNICATIONS: A Review, a Survey and a Criticism. By Colin Cherry. New York: The Technology Press of Massachusetts Institute of Technology and John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1957. 333 pp.

TELEVISION TECHNIQUES, revised edition, by Hoyland Bettinger, revised by Sol Cornberg. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1955. 236 pp. $3.75.

TV MEASUREMENT FOR THE SPONSOR. By American Research Bureau, Inc., 1956. 53 pp. (Free.)

FOUR THEORIES OF THE PRESS. By Fred S. Siebert, Theodore Peterson, and Wilbur Schramm. Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 1956. 153 pp. $3.50.     

The Future of Educational Neuroscience

The primary goal of the emerging field of educational neuroscience and the broader movement called Mind, Brain, and Education is to join biology with cognitive science, development, and education so that education can be grounded more solidly in research on learning and teaching. To avoid misdirection, the growing worldwide movement needs to avoid the many myths and distortions in popular conceptions of brain and genetics. It should instead focus on integrating research with practice to create useful evidence that illuminates the brain and genetic bases as well as social and cultural influences on learning and teaching. Scientists and educators need to collaborate to build a strong research foundation for analyzing the “black box” of biological and cognitive processes that underpin learning.     

Ein Hoarding-Verfahren für ortsbezogene Informationen

Zusammenfassung.   Mit der zunehmenden Verbreitung mobiler Endger?te w?chst auch der Bedarf in mobilen Umgebungen auf entfernt gespeicherte Informationen zuzugreifen. Da dieser Informationszugriff meist über drahtlose Netzwerke erfolgt, treten in mobilen Informationssystemen h?ufig Probleme wie geringe Bandbreite, gro?e Verz?gerungen oder Verbindungsausf?lle auf. Hoarding-Verfahren versuchen diese Probleme zu l?sen, indem sie Informationen, auf die der Benutzer voraussichtlich zugreifen wird, im voraus übertragen. Dazu müssen sie jedoch vorhersagen, welche Informationen der Benutzer ben?tigen wird. In diesem Beitrag stellen wir ein Hoarding-Verfahren vor, das für diese Vorhersage die Ortsabh?ngigkeit von Informationszugriffen ausnutzt. Wie wir durch Simulationen zeigen, wird der Speicherplatz auf dem Endger?t dadurch sehr effizient genutzt. (Die hier vorgestellte Arbeit ist mit Unterstützung der DFG im Rahmen der Forschergruppe Nexus sowie des Graduiertenkollegs Parallele und Verteilte Systeme entstanden. Eingegangen am 2. Februar 2001 / Angenommen am 1. Juni 2001     

Examining teachers’ use of computer-based technologies: A case study

This paper presents a case study that illustrates the extent to which technology is used in and out of the classroom in the elementary schools of Turkey. The data were collected through interviews, observations and document analyses. The results show that teachers use technology for administrative purposes, technology education, non-educational purposes, instructional preparation, teacher-directed instructional delivery, student homework and instructional assessment. This study further reveals that teachers’ use of technology is very limited. If teachers use technology for instruction, it is almost always to support their traditional teaching methods.     

Through the Looking Glass: Twenty Years of Chinese Internet Research

This article is a report on a research project that collected detailed information on articles, book chapters, books, and so on, published by academics on the Chinese Internet between 1990 and early 2013. The findings of the meta-review of 20 years of Chinese Internet research, as gleaned from quantitative and qualitative analysis of the collected body of publications, are presented and discussed in this report. It engages with the conclusions drawn by previous meta-studies, and seeks to shed a critical, self-reflexive light onto the main discursive formations of their research field. The article concludes that there is still a lot of scope for growth in studies of the Internet in China and lists several of the identified research gaps.     

Alterations in neuromuscular activation patterns associated with walking in short-leg walking boots

BackgroundShort-leg walking boots are a common intervention for acute and chronic lower extremity injury. Few studies have examined the neuromuscular adaptations associated with short-leg walking boots and no previous study has investigated timing characteristics of muscle activation during gait. The purpose of the current study was to examine the timing and amplitudes of muscle activation of the extrinsic ankle musculature during walking in two types of short-leg walking boots.MethodsEleven healthy young adults performed five level walking trials at a self-selected pace in each of three conditions: normal walking, Gait Walker and Equalizer short-leg walking boots. Ground reaction forces were collected from a force platform while surface electromyography (EMG) was collected from the tibialis anterior, peroneus longus and medial gastrocnemius. EMG signals were rectified and smoothed using the root mean squared with a 20-ms smoothing window and were normalized to the largest mean of the normal walking trials. A repeated measures analysis of variance was used to assess the effect of short-leg walking boots on the onset, duration and amplitude of muscle activation.ResultsShort-leg walking boots were generally associated with earlier onsets of muscle activation and longer durations of muscle activation. However, there was no reduction in EMG amplitude.ConclusionThe findings of this study show that the induced alterations in muscle activation patterns may limit the short-leg walking boots.     

Quality of geometry instruction and its short-term impact on students' understanding of the Pythagorean Theorem

This article presents findings from a German–Swiss video-based classroom study. The research examines how three basic dimensions of instructional quality impact the development of students' understanding of the Pythagorean Theorem. The study sample comprised 19 German and 19 Swiss mathematics classes. A three-lesson introductory unit on the Pythagorean Theorem was videotaped in all classes. Multilevel analyses revealed both classroom management and cognitive activation to have positive effects on mathematics achievement. The results also provide empirical evidence that cognitive activation and a supportive climate moderate the relationship between mathematics-related interest and mathematics achievement.