Smarter People Through Interactive Digital Entertainment Resources

Smarter People through Interactive Digital Entertainment Resources

La era digital llega al Informe Pisa

La OCDE medirá en 2009 la capacidad lectora en formatos electrónicos de los alumnos - El examen se hará con una aplicación que simula Internet 
Se trata de medir los recursos necesarios para "acceder, manejar, integrar y evaluar información; construir nuevos conocimientos a partir de textos electrónicos", algo "bastante distinto a hacerlo con textos impresos", explica el director del Informe Pisa, Andreas Schleicher. Así, el objetivo de esta prueba trasciende la mera capacidad lectora, tal y como comúnmente se entiende, aunque "no es tanto sobre tecnologías, sino más bien sobre las competencias cognitivas que hacen falta para el uso efectivo de la tecnología", añade Schleicher.
Todas estas explicaciones se entienden muy bien al conocer los detalles de la prueba. Ésta no consiste simplemente en leer unos textos que aparecen en la pantalla de un ordenador, sino que los alumnos tendrán que buscar información en una aplicación electrónica que simula Internet y que ayuda a responder a las preguntas. Igual que el que navega por la Red, de una información a otra interconectada, el alumno tendrá, por ejemplo, que navegar hasta un texto, leerlo, sacar la información necesaria para contestar y responder a través de la pantalla.
"Los buenos lectores en formato digital deben ser capaces de navegar alrededor de los textos a través de información explícita y de hipervínculos, además de dominar las herramientas de navegación por Internet, como los menús", explicaron en una conferencia Juliette Mendelovits, Tom Lumley y Barry McCrae, del instituto de investigación educativa de Australia, país que también participa en la versión digital de Pisa 2009.

artículo completo

Stop duplicating: Raw Data Now

Citing the Text: The Weblog of Andrew P Brett
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the internet, recently spoke at the 2009 TED conference. His talk was an inspirational glimpse into the life of someone who has clearly never stopped exploring and always done what was intriguing to him -- it just so happens that his road wound up providing a tremendous benefit to society.

Some highlights of the talk were Tim's *sheer joy* at the notion that he had made an addition to a collaboratively edited map; a new Three. Word. Mantra (Raw Data Now); and a shoutout to a previous outstanding TED talk on the power of making data useful and universally accessible (sounds familiar).

Tim also put up a cartoon that made fun of the fact that all of these different social sites (Facebook, LinkedIn, Flickr, etc.) exist in silos, incapable of fully interacting with one another.

This is certainly a problem that the major sites are aware of and are working to fix; Facebook, for example, allows me to import a feed of my activity on Picasa (Google's photo storage/sharing service).


Media Viruses and Memes

Confessions of an Aca/Fan: If It Doesn't Spread, It's Dead (Part One): Media Viruses and Memes
Use of the terms "viral" and "memes" by those in the marketing, advertising and media industries may be creating more confusion than clarity. Both these terms rely on a biological metaphor to explain the way media content moves through cultures, a metaphor that confuses the actual power relations between producers, properties, brands, and consumers. Definitions of 'viral' media suffer from being both too limiting and too all-encompassing. The term has 'viral' has been used to describe so many related but ultimately distinct practices -- ranging from Word-of-Mouth marketing to video mash-ups and remixes posted to YouTube -- that just what counts as viral is unclear. It is invoked in discussions about buzz marketing and building brand recognition while also popping up in discussions about guerilla marketing, exploiting social networks, and mobilizing consumers and distributors. Needless, the concept of viral distribution is useful for understanding the emergence of a spreadable media landscape. Ultimately, however, viral media is a flawed way to think about distributing content through informal or adhoc networks of consumers.