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A straight line may be the shortest distance between two points, but it’s seldom the most fun. Fantastic Contraption, an online problem-solving game, proves this concept by forcing you to go over, under and through several obstacles on your way to your goal.

The premise is simple. You get five simple tools, each of which has different properties — you have wheels that spin in different directions, two different types of axles to turn the wheels, plus the force of gravity. You then have to use these tools to try to bridge gaps, climb over (or knock down) walls, and occasionally catapult a pink dot into the goal area. Build your machines with care — if your contraption is front-heavy, count on it pitching forward if it runs into debris in your path.

Fantastic Contraption is a fun way for students to work on their problem-solving skills, as well as learn to adapt to new challenges. It’s also really fun to figure out how to advance to the goal. In the case of Fantastic Contraption, getting there is all the fun. -BILL FERRIS

Fantastic Contraption

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Everybody’s got problems. Me, my cats keep clawing through my front porch screen. I thought I’d solved the problem when I replaced the screen, but the cats just did it again. Clearly, I hadn’t articulated the problem clearly enough — I had to find a way to keep them from clawing their way out. Or perhaps my error was in buying cats in the first place. Hmm…

The most important step to solving a problem is to figure out exactly what that problem is. As such, Luciano Passuello at Litemind presents 10 ways to properly define a problem, based on an idea courtesy of Albert Einstein: “Einstein is quoted as having said that if he had one hour to save the world he would spend fifty-five minutes defining the problem and only five minutes finding the solution.”

As teachers, you’re tasked with showing students to solve all sorts of problems, be they mathematical, situational, ethical, or even “other.” For example, simply rephrasing a problem may have great results. Passuello states,

“When a Toyota executive asked employees to brainstorm ‘ways to increase their productivity,’ all he got back were blank stares. When he rephrased his request as ‘ways to make their jobs easier,’ he could barely keep up with the amount of suggestions.”

As for me, I’ve taken this problem-defining advice to heart and figured out how to solve my porch screen situation. I realized the the real problem was that I assumed I could control my cats, when in fact, they are in charge (just ask them). Now I’m leaving the hole in the screen alone. Yep, I’m a regular Einstein. -BILL FERRIS

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I know I’m not the only person to have pulled this trick, which is to use a non-Gmail account for Google applications. I am still wedded to my Yahoo! Mail account for email, and I’ve used that email for some of of my accounts on Google, especially the ones that were acquired by Google after I started an account there (like YouTube).  On the other hand, I also have a GMail address (which generally collects dust, and spam from disuse) on my account as well. With so many online identities to keep track of, how do I get this all together so Google knows who I am in all Google applications?

It’s simple, really. Go to the My Account page, then click on “Edit” next to your name on the right. You can then specify Google to associate whatever email address you like with your account.

This tip comes by way of Mark Wagner at EdTechLife. -ALICE MERCER

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Tired of teaching from the text book? Having a hard time fitting environmental science instruction into the school day? Well EcoKids can change all of that!

EcoKids is a Canadian interactive website created to engage students in environmental activities. This site is full of resources for teachers such as lesson plans, printable resources, and helpful links. It even has specifically designed lessons for ESL (English as a Second Language) students using the different environmental themes. Teachers can access information on Wildlife, Climate Change, Energy, The North, Waste, Land Use, and Earth Day to initiate any environmental or science lesson, or provided a great follow up to an end-of-unit study. This site even has a Fact of the Day that teachers can use to initiate classroom discussions or writing activities about the environment. Looking for an environmental project for your classroom or school? You can visit different links on the site that show different types of environmental projects students and schools are involved in for ideas.

Students can access the site and engage in games to practice what they have learned in the different areas of Wildlife, Climate Change, Energy, the North Pole, and Land Use. The games integrate the environmental themes with reading, math, science, problem solving, and social studies. Students can work on their writing skills by responding to questions posted periodically on the site, or commenting on the blog. -MONIQUE ST.LOUIS

EcoKids

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You may have heard your students talking about questing or getting their epic mounts or selling bars of gold on the auction house. If you have, you’re probably dealing with a World of Warcraft player.

As a long-standing gamer and a doctoral student interested in virtual worlds and games and their potential use for teaching, I was thrilled to learn that a recent issue of Science magazine called for participation in a unique conference – one that would take place within the massively multiplayer online game, World of Warcraft (WoW). For three days in May, participants in the Convergence of the Real and the Virtual conference created characters and joined players from around the world to participate in scholarly discussions about the game while hanging out in a virtual world.

The conference was comprised of three sessions: one about the possibilities for research within the game, one about the relationship between the game and the “real world,” and one about the future of such virtual worlds.

I was particularly drawn to the second session because it featured both Constance Steinkuehler who researches the potential for learning and literacy in games, and Julian Dibbell, who researches cultural and sociological aspects of games. These scholars are two of my most favorite within this community. This particular session shed some light on the learning potential in games.

Steinkuehler believes there’s serious learning and knowledge creation that occurs as a result of playing WoW. For instance one conference participant related a story about how his son wanted to find a specific pet within the game (yes, players can have virtual pets in the game) and spent several hours researching how to find and obtain such a pet. This example uniquely illustrates the development of critical thinking, research skills, and strategic planning - indispensable skills in high school, college and beyond. Other threads of discussion in this session included the notions of:

1. How real is a friend in WoW?
2. Are the relationships that are formed in-game meaningful?
3. Is the social space of the game completely different from real life, or does it simply mimic real life?
4. Can leadership be learned in WoW?
5. Can skills developed within the game world transfer to the real world?

If you are interested in learning more about the potential for learning in games, I recommend you start with Steinkuehler’s work. After all, 10 million people play WoW; and some of them might be your students! -LAURA CHRISTOPHERSON

Johnny Lee, a YouTube personality and “human-computer interaction researcher” is changing the way we use existing technology through simple modifications, and he’s sharing it with everyone. This amazing demo proves that using something as inexpensive and highly obtainable as the Wii Remote, he can create an interactive whiteboard. Lee explains that while the whiteboard isn’t exactly the quality of it’s $3000 likeness, you’ll still get “80% there for about 1% of the cost.” He notes that teachers are able to access this technology for use in their classrooms, and many already are.

Lee makes no qualms about making this sort of technology available for anyone who wants it. He’s put the software on his website, and at the time of this demo, it had been downloaded half a million times. View the demo for the full extent of what other uses Lee is finding for the technology, and visit his website if you want to learn more. -JEREMY S. GRIFFIN

Johnny Lee’s $40 Interactive Whiteboard

Johnny Lee Computer-Human Interaction Researcher

I love Rube Goldberg devices. Why scratch your back when you can spend hours rigging up a complex system of levers, pulleys and aquaphobic dwarfs to scratch it for you? That’s why the folks behind  Mechanical Madness are my kind of people.

Like the previously reviewed Launchball, Mechanical Madness lets you harness various machines to transport a sphere from a starting point to a goal. These devices aren’t nearly as sophisticated as those in Launchball, but should still provide a fun challenge for elementary students. One thing Mechanical Madness lacks is levels - only the Easy and Medium levels were working when I tried it. However, even these are good introductions to problem solving for young students.

Mechanical Madness, like Mouse Trap, illustrates that sometimes an efficient solution isn’t as exciting as a complex one. Using complex machinery to transport a baseball from one side of your screen to another may not be practical, but it sure is fun. -BILL FERRIS

Mechanical Madness

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From what I can tell, Mind Mapping is all the rage right now, and I should probably learn how to do it. In fact, you should, too. Lucky for us both, that information is made available at Brain Dance’s Meta Learning Handbook. The online walk-through is based on the information in Patrick T. McGee’s Brain Dancing handbook. Ideal for students, Mind Mapping is a great visual way of processing input and doling out clean, organized output. It’s a tool that can be used to help you read more efficiently and retain more information on what you’ve read.

Using this visual-based way of thinking, “Brain Dancing” will help you also improve your memory and learning skills. We’d love to hear from anyone who has given this a try, or if you want to be a guinea pig and test it out. Let us know if this site has your gray matter doing the cha-cha. -JEREMY S. GRIFFIN

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From the comfort of our living rooms, we can build make-believe cities, play lead guitar in a rock and roll band, and dance like John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever. As computer games continue to dominate our students’ leisure time, educators are asking how to incorporate this popular technology in the classroom.

As educators, one hurdle we face is how to keep students’ attention while teaching important lessons. Now, thanks to the folks at the United Nations World Food Programme, we have an opportunity to enlighten students to the problems and concerns of world hunger by integrating the fun of computer games into a learning environment.

Food Force is a downloadable computer action game aimed at 8-13 year olds. The game consists of six missions that allow students to see and make a situational assessment of a hunger crisis in a fictional country. Each subsequent mission builds on skills learned and allows students to make valuable decisions about food distribution and logistics. And teachers, don’t miss the links page where you can find numerous sites providing research and background on the global hunger crisis.

Given the persistent problem of world hunger, Food Force is an entertaining way to teach younger students of this treatable epidemic. With this exciting and inventive site, we have the chance to allow students to turn virtual problems into real solutions that can alter our reality for the better. —DAVID BARGER

Food Force

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Tom and Jerry was by far my least favorite cartoon growing up. I mean, I’d already gotten a handle on the predator-prey dynamic from the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote. Plus Sylvester and Speedy Gonzales provided me with all the cat and mouse hijinks I’d ever need, thank you very much. But most importantly, Tom and Jerry are profoundly unfunny.

So it’s with mixed feelings I write about Tom’s Trap-o-Matic, a game more fun than all the Tom and Jerry cartoons combined. Trap-o-Matic is more or less a flash version of Mouse Trap, where kids use creativity and problem-solving skills to help Tom the cat construct elaborate Rube Goldberg devices to trap that smug mouse, Jerry. Students have an array of launching, rolling and cutting items at their disposal such as a cannon, a hamster ball, and a radio-controlled helicopter, respectively. Work around floor obstacles like furniture and a sleeping dog. Each item has a specific range, so your machine will self-destruct if you don’t align the devices properly. The game is a maddening good time (tip: work backwards from the trap at the end). I got a little frustrated at first, but the thought of one of the irritating title characters getting eaten at the end was enough motivation for me to persevere.

Based on Tom’s Trap-o-Matic, I admit Tom and Jerry are not completely useless. But if I ever play it again I’ll just pretend it’s Itchy and Scratchy instead. -BILL FERRIS

Tom’s Trap-o-Matic