When we began to look at the concept of flow and how people learn, I realized the true engagement that was inherent with this state. Csikszentmihalyi suggests that more than anything else, men and women seek happiness (p. 1). They do not seek happiness through pleasure alone, rather through enjoyment. For “after an enjoyable event we know that we have changed, that our self has grown: in some respect, we have become more complex as a result of it” (p. 46). Whether through sports, reading, cooking, or a myriad of other activities, people can and do experience flow.

Could this enjoyment in learning be created in today’s classroom? Smith and Wilhelm investigate young men, literacy, and what gives them the flow experience in Reading Don’t Fix no Chevys. Near the end of chapter two, they discuss video games, sequencing of experiences, and flow. Think of the steps that go into creating a video game: conceptualization, developing, playing, sharing, and revising. Creating a video game has the same higher order thinking skills that many of our school seek today. Couldn’t creating a video game become a final project to apply or transfer learning? In some high schools and technical colleges it already has.

After presenting at ICE this year, Mother Mika told me that the conference was a buzz about Scratch. This simplified video game creation tool makes “programming like playing with Lego bricks“. To understand more, I suggest a short article from the Chronicle of Higher Learning or simply watch the video report. After a few minutes to download and go through a brief tutorial, I was creating a moving object. I stopped my progress and looked at the completed games others had done with the simple programming language. Amazing!

What does this have to do with iPods? I don’t want “creating a video game” to be one of the many things David Warlick, David Jakes, and Alan November say kids do outside of school. Mihaly says, “to improve life one must improve the quality of experience” (p. 44). Scratch has the possibility of making learning an enjoyable and truly a flow experience for many of our students. Playing Scratch reaffirmed the reality that our clientèle and world has changed and we need to adapt our instruction as well (see Did You Know and A Vision of Students Today).

At the end of our discussion my professor summarized the experience of flow as just the right balance of ability and challenge tempered with appropriate feedback (Thomas, 2008). Can educational use of video games create flow for our learners? Thanks to the Lifelong Kindergarten group at the MIT Media Lab, I think so.

References

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Enjoyment and the Quality of Life. Flow the psychology of optimal experience (pp. 43-70). New York: Harper & Row.

Smith, M. W., & Wilhelm, J. D. (2002). Reading don’t fix no Chevys literacy in the lives of young men. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Thomas, J., Dr. (2008, February 2). What is flow? Class discussion presented at Aurora University, Institute for Collaboration.

I was excited about a posting I read on my Educational Technology Listserv (EdTech) last night describing 100 Ways to Use Your iPod to Study & Learn Better, but I quickly found it was a reposting of a comprehensive list written from the Online Educational Database (OEDb). The article in question was simply cut and paste with no mention of the original author. This is not kosher with me and I refuse to post the thief’s blog.

This unfortunate event, however, brought me to find a rather useful library of articles and ideas from the OEDb. According to their web site, “…the Online Education Database offers comprehensive reviews of online colleges and degree programs. Unlike other online education directories, our database only lists accredited online colleges so you can be sure that these degrees will be respected by potential employers. OEDb allows you to browse by colleges, degrees, or programs. We also have a library of articles that covers the basic topics of attending an online university” (OEDb, 2008).

A press release from PR Leap (2006), describes the site as a continuation of the online educational community using open source documents. “OEDb.org features reviews of dozens of online universities and colleges and hundreds of distance learning degree programs which can be completed online. Degree subjects covered include business, medical, legal, arts, and more. OEDb also features a library of articles regarding online education and financial aid.”

While I have only done minor cross checking of this site and it’s resources, I will continue the investigation as I delve into the 100 Ways article.  At this time I do not plan my study to be focused on higher education, but no doubt some of these ideas will come in handy for K-12 as well.  Some other recent articles/posts collected at the library might be useful as well:

• Skip the Tuition: 100 Free Podcasts from the Best Colleges in the World
• 200 Free Online Classes to Learn Anything
• 101 Web 2.0 Teaching Tools
• 25 Awesome Beta Research Tools from Libraries Around the World
  (from Collegedegree.com)
  

References

Online Educational Database. (2008). Recent articles. In Library of online educational articles and advice. Retrieved February 17, 2008, from http://oedb.org/library

PR Leap. (2006, September 16). OEDb: Online education database launched. PR Leap Press Release. Retrieved February 17, 2008, from http://www.prleap.com/pr/48450/