Saturday, May 28, 2011

This is Morpheus Bot!

According to TechTerms.com:
Bot: This is an automated software program that can execute certain commands when it receives a specific input (like a ro-"bot"). Bots are most often seen at work in the Internet-related areas of online chat and Web searching. The online chat bots do things like greet people when they enter a chat room, advertise Web sites, and kick people out of chat rooms when they violate the chat room rules.
This Bot has a name.  The name is Morpheus.  This bot not only writes to you, but also speaks at the same time.  The answers are logical, it also asks questions and analyzes your answers.
The possibilities of how bots like this could be used in education are endless.  Unfortunately, Morpheus doesn't know a foreign language but I'm sure that is right around the corner.  
I can see students asking bot questions and bot analyzing responses!   Try it out yourself ! 



Saturday, May 21, 2011

Born To Learn


Born to Learn from Born to Learn on Vimeo.
A wonderful video illustrating the importance of play in how we learn.  It reminds us that creating an atmosphere of learning in the classroom should be one that allows for such play and not such rigidity that we have in so many classrooms today.  This is still evidenced by the rows of desks one behind the other,  the lessons that require that one "looks only at your teacher and your books", classes that truly don't allow for students to explore subject matter using all types of media, and where engaging communication  between students is not encouraged.