Smartphones and other mobile devices like the iPhone, Android, Kindle Fire, and iPad have boosted educators' interest in using mobile media for education. Applications from games to augmented reality are thriving in research settings, and in some cases schools and universities, but relatively little is known about how such devices may be used for effective learning. This article discusses the selection and potential use of electronic games, simulations and augmented reality in mobile learning supported by an operational model called AIDLET. After analyzing the different approaches to the use
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Jose BidarraMegan RothschildKurt SquireMauro Figueiredo
The videogames industry has been flourishing. In 2010 in America alone, total consumer spending on the games industry totaled $25.1 billion (Siwek, 2010), surpassing both the music industry ($15.0 billion) and box office movies ($10.5 billion). It is also one of the fastest growing industries in the U.S. economy. From 2005 to 2010, for example, the videogames industry more than doubled while the entire U.S. GDP grew by about 16 percent. The amount of time young people spend with entertainment media in general is staggering. Youth aged 8 to 18 years old consume about 10.45 hours per day of
The purpose of this document is to build on best practices and offer new approaches toward creating "a bold new initiative" to augment the Foundation's ongoing efforts to increase participation in STEM from underrepresented groups.
This is the fourth volume of the annual proceedings for the Games+Learning+Society (GLS). The GLS conference is a premier event for those from both academia and industry interested in videogames and learning. The GLS conference is one of the few destinations where the people who create high-quality digital learning media can gather for a serious think about what is happening in the field and how the field can serve the public interest. The conference offers an opportunity for in-depth conversation and social networking across diverse disciplines including game studies, education research
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Amanda OchsnerJeremy DietmeierCaroline WilliamsConstance Steinkuehler
This is the third volume of the annual proceedings for the Games+Learning+Society (GLS). The GLS conference is a premier event for those from both academia and industry interested in videogames and learning. The GLS conference is one of the few destinations where the people who create high-quality digital learning media can gather for a serious think about what is happening in the field and how the field can serve the public interest. The conference offers an opportunity for in-depth conversation and social networking across diverse disciplines including game studies, education research
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Caroline WilliamsAmanda OchsnerJeremy DietmeierConstance Steinkuehler
As academic communities across the globe are increasingly encouraged to share their knowledge outside the ivory towers of academia, it becomes ever more important to create a bridge that crosses continents and disciplinary boundaries. Sitting, as it does, at the nexus between science communication practice and esearch, JCOM has a vital role to play as just such a knowledge sharing platform.
This issue of the Journal of Science Communication raises a number of questions about the ways that new scientific research emerges from research institutions and in particular the role played by scientists, press officers and journalists in this process. This is not to suggest that the public don't play an equally important role, and several articles in this issue raise questions about public engagement, but to explore the dynamics at play in one specific arena: that of news production. In this editorial I explore the increasing reliance of science journalists on public relations sources and
‘Who’s Asking: Native Science, Western Science, and Science Education’ explores two key questions for science education, communication and engagement; first, what is science and second, what do different ways of understanding science mean for science and for science engagement practices? Medin and Bang have combined perspectives from the social studies of science, philosophy of science and science education to argue that science could be more inclusive if reframed as a diverse endeavour. Medin and Bang provide a useful, extensive and wide-ranging discussion of how science works, the nature of
In this book, Brian G. Southwell discusses how disparities in information-sharing arise and what can be done to alleviate them. In all sorts of ways and for all sorts of reasons, people have always sought to share information among their family and other social networks. However, this sharing has never been equal: inevitably, some people are better-informed than others and some are more socially-connected than others. At first glance, the plethora of communication tools and technologies available nowadays should help democratise information and reduce disparity but differences in how, when and
This essay intends to present and reflect on the production and reception of sound language styles in a radio programme discussing science called Universidade das Criancas UFMG (UFMG Children’s University). This programme, aimed at children, is broadcast on the UFMG (Federal University of Minas Gerais) Educational Radio Station, located in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil.
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Josemir Almeida BarrosDebora d'Avila Reis
Public communication from research institutions often functions as both science communication and public relations. And while these are distinct functions, public relations efforts often serve as science communication tools. This is because successful science communication and public relations efforts for research institutions both rely on finding shared language and disseminating findings in context.
We argue that the institutionalized push communication of academic institutions has become the dominant form of public science communication and has tended to force other forms and functions of science communication into the background. Given the new schemes of public funding, public communication of science now primarily serves the purpose of enabling academic institutions to promote themselves in a competition that has been forced upon them by the political domain. What academics working under these conditions say about themselves and their work (and what they do not) will depend crucially