Technology & Learning - April 2008 - (Page 14)

CULTURE Made in Japan Can cell phones, Game Boys, and other personal devices actually make people smarter? Is there really a role these small, ubiquitous, and flexible machines can play in the classroom? The Japanese seem to think so. Game manufacturer Nintendo first pioneered what is known as the “brain fitness software market” in 2005 with titles like Brain Age and Big Brain Academy. Based on the research of Ryuta Kawashima, a neuroscientist at Tohoku University, the theory behind the games is that daily puzzle practice helps adults strengthen and maintain their mental abilities. The Nintendo DS is a natural device for this sort of brain game. Students can take this handheld console almost anywhere and fit a little gametime into their busy days. With dual screens that can accommodate left- and righthanders, a microphone for speech recognition, and handwriting capabilities, the DS lets players use multiple senses to solve the puzzles. A typical starting exercise is a Stroop Test—which presents conflicting inputs to test reaction times. For example, the player might see the word “red” in blue type and have to speak the correct word into the microphone. The game measures the response time to judge how a player is improving over time at handling the conflicting messages. Brain Age has sold more than 11.7 million copies worldwide. Its success led to a slew of other education products. This past January, Benesse Corp released an 18-title series for middle school students that covers Japanese, math, English, science, and social studies. The software is linked to most of the major textbooks used in the market. For example, a relevant English workbook page can be presented on the DS screen, saving the student the grief of lugging the text around and providing contextually relevant practice as needed. Textbook publisher Yamakawa Shuppansha in partnership with Namco Bandai Games has also begun to publish several titles that deal with Japanese and world history. —Lee Wilson WEB 2.0 Exhibit New online applications like MIT’s Exhibit are making it easier to create useful, interactive, graphical models when teaching (http://simile .mit.edu/exhibit). According to project author and MIT student David Huynh, Exhibit was created to provide a way for people to graphically display sets of data without having to know any real programming skills. Any student or teacher with a basic knowledge of HTML can take a spreadsheet full of information and easily turn it into an interactive online exhibit that can sort and display the data graphically. When loaded in Exhibit, the details in a set of data can be viewed in many different layouts, including timelines, maps, and tables. Exhibit makes it very easy to search for or select specific details from each set of data. Several great examples of the power of the Exhibit software can be seen on the MIT Simile Project’s Web site. Teachers and students can get started right away with Exhibit by copying and pasting code from the tutorials that are found on the Web site. A GUI-based interface for creating Exhibits is also being developed. —Chad Criswell 14 | www.techlearning.com YOSHIKAZU TSUNO/STAFF/GETTY IMAGES http://simile.mit.edu/exhibit http://simile.mit.edu/exhibit http://simile.mit.edu/exhibit http://simile.mit.edu/exhibit http://www.techlearning.com

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Technology & Learning - April 2008 Contents New @ techlearning.com Editor's Desk News and Trends Digital Age Assessment: Part 2 Anytime, Anywhere Learning Caught on Video Cover Story: Plan and Deliver Cutting Edge in Carolina Product Guide Reviews Best of the Blogs What's New LOY Profile Series

Technology & Learning - April 2008

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