H-Net The occasion for this post is the launch of a new mailing list, H-Scholars. But the site as a whole is worth a visit. In their words: "H-Net is an international interdisciplinary organization of scholars and teachers dedicated to developing the enormous educational potential of the Internet and the World Wide Web. Our edited lists and web sites publish peer reviewed essays, multimedia materials, and discussion for colleagues and the interested public. The computing heart of H-Net resides at MATRIX: The Center for Humane Arts, Letters, and Social Sciences Online, Michigan State University" By , , .[Refer]

Effective Color Contrast Useful guide to designing for people with partial sight and color deficiencies. By Aries Arditi, Lighthouse International, 1999.[Refer]

Brain Trust: Mining the Community Mind The idea here is that a qualified researcher reads through the hundreds or thousands of posts in a discussion list and extracts the relevant comments, prevailing sentiments, and other useful nuggets of information. This article is geared toward the summarization of consumer comments, but wider applications are obvious. There will be a need for people to summarize online discussions in all areas. Yet another job niche is born. By Sylvia Lacock Marino, EContent, October, 2001.[Refer]

Videogames and the Attack on America A fascinating discussion is currently underway at IFETS about the use of games in online learning (you've seen a couple links from that discussion already). Here are the main papers: Videogames and the Attack on America (linked above), some short excerpts from Digital Game-Based Learning and How Learners have Changed. By Marc Prensky, IFETS, October 8, 2001.[Refer]

Do Computer Games Teach Children Any Valuable Skills? The short answer to this question (and perhaps not a surprising one, given that the site is sponsored by Microsoft), is yes. They learn better computer skills. They gain hand-eye coordination. And they learn social skills (really!). By Jim Merrett, Encarta Guides, October 9, 2001.[Refer]

The Face of Information Architecture Yes yes yes. An information architect that thinks like me! "Okay, in my opinion, intuition does not exist. What we have instead is a huge database of all of our experiences in our brain, and when we interact with an interface, the terrific instrument that is our brain checks all those experiences and makes an educated guess about how to deal with the new interface... So to make an "intuitive" interface, one should look at the experience base of the typical users and then try to leverage what those users know in order to then design an intuitive system. That's why illustrator has the pen tool, and Microsoft word a highlighter; that's why AtomFilms has a thriller and an extreme section. These are concepts that their respective audiences have already be introduced to, and their audience has certain expectations when dealing with these items." By John S. Rhodes , WebWord, October 6, 2001.[Refer]

Does Easy Do It? Children, Games, and Learning Good article by noted AI theorist Seymour Papert, a snarky reply from Zarah MacPherson Artinian, and an interesting rejoinder from Papert. The main thesis is that the 'Math Made Easy' type of game advertised on television is not the type of game that stimulates learning. Dig this: "What is best about the best games is that they draw kids into some very hard learning. Did you ever hear a game advertised as being easy? What is worst about school curriculum is the fragmentation of knowledge into little pieces. This is supposed to make learning easy, but often ends up depriving knowledge of personal meaning and making it boring. Ask a few kids: the reason most don't like school is not that the work is too hard, but that it is utterly boring." Yeah! By Seymour Papert, Game Developer, 1998.[Refer]

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