Hapgood

Mike Caulfield's latest web incarnation. Networked Learning, Open Education, and Online Digital Literacy

July 2011

  • When Gamification Goes Wrong

    When Gamification Goes Wrong I like Gamification in theory, b/c it deals with feedback, incentives, and customization — all really important things in education. But this recent Google idea reminds us that 90% (or more!) of all gamification ideas are absolute crap. Continue reading

  • Sustainability and Innovation

    Via Doug Belshaw, this excellent quote from an article on sustainability and innovation: Our experience tells us that it is exactly because American companies are so amazingly innovative, entrepreneurial, and intensely competitive that they can’t find ways to deal with the global challenges. Finding sustainable solutions isn’t about discovering new, ever-more disruptive ideas. It requires Continue reading

  • What Nick Carr (maybe) Misses About Memory and Integration

    What Nick Carr (maybe) Misses About Memory and Integration Nick Carr on the recent Science article on the effect of Google on memory: If a fact stored externally were the same as a memory of that fact stored in our mind, then the loss of internal memory wouldn’t much matter. But external storage and biological Continue reading

  • Spaced retrieval: Absolute spacing enhances learning regardless of relative spacing.

    Spaced retrieval: Absolute spacing enhances learning regardless of relative spacing. Sorry, no online version. But the abstract says it all — spaced retrieval matters, but these systems to perfectly control the spacing (through gradually increasing it) may be hooey: Repeated retrieval enhances long-term retention, and spaced repetition also enhances retention. A question with practical and theoretical significance Continue reading

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  • On the Miliband Loop

    I’m actually with Ed on this one. Since, like the reporter, the public apparently has no listening skills, most people fail to realize he directly answers each question quite adequately. Q: Labor thinks you’re saying the strikes are wrong, why aren’t you taking their side? A: I *am* saying the strikes are wrong. And the Continue reading

  • Minutes after I read Winer’s “everyone should run their own webserver” piece, I get this.  I think sometimes we’re crazy people, driving old cars we repair ourselves, telling people how easy and cheap it is to maintain that 1993 Diesel BMW with the Fryolator oil-burning mod and the homemade solar charger. I’m actually really sick Continue reading

  • Assessing the sort of engagement that matters

    Assessing the sort of engagement that matters I was looking at the new BioScience article on how useless self-reports on pedagogical style are as an assessment of impact, and I got interested in the tool they used to double-check the results, the RTOP — a method of coding videotaped classes for the frequency of different Continue reading

  • “The literacy rate among college graduates is lower today than it was 15 or 20 year [sic] ago.”

    John Stossel talks to former Tobacco Junk Science Guy Richard Vedder about education: “Do kids learn anything at Harvard? People at Harvard tell us they do. … They were bright when they entered Harvard, but do … seniors know more than freshman? The literacy rate among college graduates is lower today than it was 15 Continue reading

  • Hippocampal brain-network coordination during volitional exploratory behavior enhances learning

    Hippocampal brain-network coordination during volitional exploratory behavior enhances learning First, I love this introductory paragraph. Scroll bar! Influential theories of human development, perception and action all emphasize the crucial role of an individual’s control over what he or she does, how and when1, 2, 3, 4. Successful ‘active learning’ educational practices5 emphasize the importance of the individual’s control over Continue reading

  • The Shock Doctrine Goes Platinum

    To clarify my last post — Record companies are evil have made a series of poor decisions will not be around in their current form in a decade or two Whew. Just had to say that for those that had worried I’d gone over to the dark side. The question isn’t really what direction the Continue reading