   |
MS: We need to do appropriate research. We just cannot say, “They are fun, so let’s use them.” A study is needed at the national level to look at how players learn through games. As a person trained in the study of cognition, I am fascinated with how kids multi-task. We use the term “multi-task” fairly regularly, but do we know if it’s seen a tremendous evolution in a single generation?
A player is constantly scanning the screen and taking in visual, oral,
and textual cues. Playing requires quick assessment of actions happening
in different parts of the screen, e.g., calculations about how much resource
is needed and how much is left, whether to spend resources to build a
transport station, when to put a unit in the incubator to restore health,
and even before all is in order, an opponent can suddenly appear that
will scuttle well thought-out plans. Wouldn’t it be fascinating
to research whether kids multi-task better than adults? 
Michael Searson is currently Executive Assistant to the President at Kean University in Union, New Jersey. He co-directs the university’s Preparing Tomorrow’s Teachers to Use Technology (PT3) and New Pathways to Teaching grants. He has been at Kean for over 23 years, and has served in a number of leadership capacities, including Chairperson of the Department of Early Childhood & Family Studies, and continues to serve on that faculty. He also directs the newly established New Jersey Center for Project-Based Learning.
Searson has been involved in a number of technology-related initiatives, including the installation of the university’s first-ever totally wireless Internet-ready building and participation in a nationwide consortium “Project-Based Learning Online: A Website for Teacher Preparation and Professional Development”. The consortium is supported by a FIPSE grant, with the Buck Institute for Education as the lead agency. Searson is also a 2004 Apple Distinguished Educator.
As Executive Assistant to the President, Searson coordinates international activities at Kean, including Travelearn programs and partnerships with foreign institutions. He is also the Project Director of the Institute for Foreign Service and Diplomacy, which was established in 2002 by a three-year Congressional appropriation to prepare students, particularly those from underrepresented populations, for careers in the U.S. Foreign Service.
1 “The Zone of Proximal Development is the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers.”(Cole 1962)
2The U.S. Department of Education (Institute of Education Sciences; NCES) released in August a report dated July 2004 entitled “1.1 Million Homeschooled Students in the United States in 2003” (by Princiotta, Bielick, & Chapman). The researchers found that homeschooling has grown about 7% per year during the past 4 years. 3“Children spend more time playing video games than watching TV, MSU survey shows” Michigan University Research Study 4/2/2004
www.simschool.org | Contents |  Printer
Friendly Version | simPortal | Demo | Register |
|
