Frogs and snails and puppy-dog tails

Ali Carr-Chellman is an instructional designer and author who studies the most effective ways to teach kids and to make changes at school. In this recent TED talk she pinpoints three reasons boys are tuning out of school in droves, and lays out her bold plan to re-engage them: bringing their culture into the classroom, with new rules that let boys be boys, and video games that teach as well as entertain. While her experience is US-centric the same issues exist here in the UK and across the world.

We've explored these themes before both in terms of the way young women are overtaking young men (Men are the new ball and chain) and in how games and gaming can be a power for good (Video games can change the world), not just an amusing diversion.

Ali's call for more money for developing compelling games for young boys to overcome the issues she identifies seems to us like a clear opportunity for both public and private sector marketeers to develop positive programmes for schools.

The Internet Of Things - Explained By Children

Recent years have seen increasing chatter about "The Internet Of Things", the widely-agreed next phase in the development of the internet. However, most normal people, with - y'know - lives and stuff, hear that phrase and usually respond with a resounding "huh?". Wikipedia's not much help -

"In computing, the term Internet of Things (also known as the Internet of Objects) refers to the networked interconnection of everyday objects.It is generally viewed as a self-configuring wireless network of sensors whose purpose would be to interconnect all things"

Thanks, Wikipedia.

So, for the rest of the normal world, the nice people over at Latitude went and asked a bunch of children what they thought the future of the internet should look like, and put the results into a quick and easy-to-read video (above). As tends to be the way when you ask kids things, there are some daft ideas, but overall, it paints an easy-to-understand picture of what sort of things the internet - and other household objects - will be capable of ten years from now.

You can also grab a pdf summary of the results here