Innovation for Education

Honeygrow Using Virtual Reality to Train Employees

Once again a friend passed along an article that's relevant to my study of education tech. This time it's from Wired Magazine.  Pippa Biddle looks into WolframAlpha , an AI system that can complete complex math calculations, and show its work. Some see it as a way to cheat, and others see its power to transform the way we think about math education. Once again, I put the issue in front of my brother. He's just graduated magna cum laude from Robert Morris University with a degree in biology, and he's headed to Ohio State for graduate work. I asked him what he thinks of tools like WolframAlpha, and he did not fail to provide more thought-fodder on the matter: Zack, I can see how some people think this is cheating but i agree that it's probably more of a useful tool. There will always be students who plug their problems into it, copy down the answers, and don't learn anything from it. But I've been in this situation before - having problems I don't

Ladies and gentlemen, I normally don't paste personal correspondence into my blog, but this week my younger brother sent me something very thought provoking. It's an article by Patrick Lee from the A.V. Club. My brother Ben is ten years younger than me, born in 1995, an avid gamer, and about to begin medical school. Please read the original article he sent me  here , and then feel free to read our email exchange below. I realize that my response to him does delve into quite political territory, and my own leanings will be plain as day. But apart from the politics, I think the crux of the matter - Lee's observation about the shift in the content of new video games - is very interesting, Here are the two supporting articles I link to in my email: Lazy Millennials Won't Buy Cereal Obama: "You didn't build that without help"

In her book Alone Together , Sherry Turkle explores the effects robots have on our humanity. When we accept robots into our lives, we begin to trust them to keep watch over our property and to satisfy our desires. They become something more than simple machines; they transcend gears and circuitry and become family members, confidants and even friends. I feel I've been steeped in this robot topic for the last several weeks. I recently rewatched the movie Bladerunner.  I let a coworker know I'd read Turkle's book, and he clipped an article about robot waiters . I might be experiencing the frequency illusion , but it seems like robots are popping up everywhere, most recently in an episode of one of my favorite podcasts Hidden Brain . Hidden Brain  is a thirty minute weekly podcast that features interviews with scientists and experts who seek to understand the world through science. This episode, called " Could You Kill a Robot ?" is a thought-provoking dive int

My organization, the entity that runs the National Museum of the U.S. Army, falls under the leadership umbrella of the department that manages Army installations and the resources they offer to soldiers and their families. About once a quarter, Army administrative departments get together in "town halls" to discuss the current initiatives. They talk about the current green projects that the Army is working on at various bases around the world. In a recent town hall, a high ranking civilian Army leader mentioned some of the initiatives involving "serious games" . Most in the audience were old career Army folks, so an explanation of "serious games" was needed. As she toggled through her Powerpoint slides, some of my coworkers scoffed; they're stuck on the  the old school belief that games are mere entertainment. I know better, so I smiled to myself. I wanted to stand up and shout out that games are transforming the way we learn! This innovation isn't

A colleague of mine likes to give me clippings from the newspaper he reads on his commute by train. Almost every morning I come in to some snippet left on my desk. This colleague is an older gentleman, an Army historian and curator, and loves to share his wonder and amazement at the ways technology is changing our ways and habits. Today's snippet was from the Washington Post's Weekend Express  and included this photo of a robot waitress serving food in a restaurant in Pakistan. When I read the caption I instantly thought of Sherry Turkle and the countless pages she devotes to discussing robots in Alone Together. Turkle wouldn't be surprised at all to find that robots are serving pizza. This might seem incredibly futuristic, but it's really only the hilt of the technological sword. We see this as new only because our exposure to this kind of robotic service is still germinating in the United States. One can order a sandwich with an iPad in the U.S., but robots already ru