I love reading. I love watching movies. I love over-analyzing books and movies, seeking to find pattern and structure, motifs and motives. I love to break them down in my mind and put them back together again. I read reviews of books and movies by the ton, sometimes...
Ads in Video Games
A couple of people have emailed me about the Obama campaign inserting advertisements into video games. Check out this Flickr set with screenshots of these advertisements. Most of the press is reporting that these ads show up in just racing games but as these...
The pleasures of being a teacher
Yesterday, as I was watching the second presidential debate, and following various bloggers who were live-blogging the event, I took a moment to check my email. I found that I had received a note from a former student. This individual had been in my summer cohort last...
Ganapati 08, Photos
As un-official photographer for the Marathi Group, I took a bunch of pictures of this year's Ganapati celebrations. These are now (finally) on Flickr. Enjoy.
Interesting links
Here are some links that came up during our discussion today regarding web-based software for education. Shodor foundation Curriki Gizmos from Explore Learning Illumination genetics tools
stealth assessment
Just heard this of stealth assessment idea (from Michael Spector at NTLS) that struck a chord. More here, [word document].
A surprise gift
I just received a gift in the mail. It was a box and in the box was One of those cool push pin toys... How cool is that! In the box was a short note that went: Hi Dr. Punya! It was a pleasure to meet you during the Quest Alliance Seminar in Bangalore. I really enjoyed...
Spore & learning about evolution
A NYTimes story about Spore, the new game / toy designed by Will Wright (Playing God, the Home Game) speaks about its connection to evolution. As the article says, Mr. Wright and his publishers at Electronic Arts deserve all the credit they have received from some...
Heading to India
I leave for India tomorrow to participate in a Symposium on Education Technology in Schools: Converging for Innovation & Creativity being held in Bangalore from the 20th to the 22nd of August. The meeting is organized by the Quest Alliance, USAID and International...
Killing with a thought
I had recently posted a note (It's only a game...) building on some thoughts in an article by William Saletan. In this article Saletan describes how weapons are increasingly becoming like games. His recent post takes that whole thing one level further. He describes...
It’s only a game…
... but what if real people die? Excellent article by William Saletan on Slate about a new breed of war-toys that blur the line between video games and real war. As the article says, "if looks and feels like a video game. But it kills real people." As it turns out,...
Improv here, there, everywhere…
A few months ago I wrote about Professor R. K. Joshi (here and here). He was, as I said in the piece, maybe the single greatest influence on my role as a teacher. I had mentioned that R.K. loved absurdity and play. I was reminded of this when I read about this group...
Finding humor in play
Learning through play has been an important part of my philosophy of teaching (and learning). In fact I have argued that play is far more important than games (though games have been receiving a great deal of educational interest lately). [You can read a previous...
Digital convergence…
A few years ago Sachin Kalbag, then at Digit, contacted me to write an article for a special for the magazine's fourth anniversary issue. The topic at hand was Digital Convergence, what it is, and what does it mean for our future? Other authors who would be writing in...
Games, claims, genres & learning
Foster, A. N., Mishra, P. (in press). Games, claims, genres & learning. In R. E. Ferdig (Ed.), Handbook of research on effective electronic gaming in education. [PDF document] Abstract: We offer a framework for conducting research on games for learning. Building on a...
Forget MMORPG, its time for MMLSG
NYTimes article titled, Storming the Campuses on the next big thing on college campuses: GoCrossCampus! This new kind of a game (and game genre) has been described as Multiplayer Locally Social Gaming and the way it is spreading, it may soon need to add "Massively" to...
Math-Music, serious game design
My 8 year old daughter, Shreya, came to me the other day and said that she had designed a learning game. I asked her to draw it out for me and here is what she had created. The game is called Math Music and I guess, it builds on the Guitar Hero idea, but adds...
Of play and games
Some thoughts on play and games inspired by a recent article in the NYTimes Magazine titled "Taking Play Seriously". Based on the article I argue that play is essential for learning... I also throw in some thoughts about the distinction between play and games, and why...
Cool website…
Check this out. Very strange and a lot of fun.
Alien Games
A journal article on games and gender, that has been years in the making is finally going to see the light of day! The complete reference and abstract can be found below. Drop me an email if you would like a copy. Heeter, C., Egidio, R., Mishra, P., Winn, B., & Winn,...