Cindy, thank you for sharing your thought and experience with mindful learning! Yes, as you pointed out, the traditional education system has forced students to have dichotomous views on things. We used to be taught to solve a problem with one most efficient and common way, and got grades based on the final right answers, without considering the process of approaching the problems. It would probably have enormous practical challenges to transform this into more innovative and mindful education. But definitely, it must be worthwhile for our future generation!

Tim, thank you for your post. Video game integrating with higher education was what I haven’t thought about before actually. My major is landscape architecture, and I think applying games in some courses can be an effective way to engage students in learning how to build environments to some extent. I’ve found that several video games like SimCity are closely related to planning and design land. Although this cannot replace all learning practices as you pointed out, this really can be an alternative or a desirable addition to current overused lecture-based learning.

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I entirely agree with the ideas on traditional lecture-based education that you and Robert Talbert present. I think one issue with lecturing is that some professors are not trying to challenge new, emerging pedagogical strategies, but maintaining the status quo in their classes. When I look back at the classes that I had taken in my college and compare them with the current one that is taught at the same university in Korea, they are pretty much the same. Same as boring, cramming method of teaching, no interaction at all. Of course, the contents related to history or theory can be the same in general. But what I worried about is those one-way information transfer lecturing has hardly been changing. I believe even if the course is required to cover materials, there will be room to try something new that makes students get more focused and engaged.

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Thank you for your post. The reading materials this week, as well as your post, reminded me of how my kindergarten child has been learning through a digital education program. When he started to learn English, I used to use that mobile application. The program is also being used in his classroom as well. What my son really loves in that program is the reward system by which he can earn tickets whenever he finishes every learning activity, and he can use the tickets to buy something for his virtual avatar, rooms, or pets. I think this reward system really motivate children to move forward and keep going their learning, but sometimes, in the case of my son, he seems to be more focusing on how to get more tickets than learning. As you mentioned, it might be really important to consider both pros and cons of the use of digital games in teaching and learning, and to try to apply it with flexibility based on their ages, contents, levels, and so on.

I completely agree with your concern on the side effects of a web-based information system. As blogging and any social media have been more powerful and influential to the public, you really need to be responsible for what they write. I found out that some researchers, journalists, and bloggers themselves began to think about ethical issues of blogging. I would like to introduce a set of code of ethics that Martin Kuhn came up with; accountability, accuracy, independence, and tone. It is important for bloggers not only to be transparent, honest, and critical of the information they interpret and publish but also to be respectful of others’ opinions.

Thank you for your story, Hakissel. As you pointed out, the current education system and perception toward academic performance have been more focusing on competition and result, rather than progress or process, which makes students stay in their comfort zone. Your blogging reminds me of one of the series of TED radio hour, whose title was “Can Coding Help Girls Take Risks?”. Although her main concern was a gender gap in coding and computer science, the social atmosphere where girls need to be perfect and cause themselves take less risks and failures through their learning and careers prevail throughout our learning and teaching environments. I don’t know how to transform this, but hopefully networked learning can be one of the ways how to get students enjoy and engage in their whole learning process, regardless of visible results and grades.

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Thank you for your post. As you said, not every course is allowed teachers as well as students to make an attempt to do something interesting and interacting, due to the large size of class or nature of courses and subjects. It might be impossible for you to get over 100 students engaged in the class actively. But I believe teachers need to create inclusive environments and to reach out to low performing and less confident students first.