A math game will be in action in 109 middle schools this fall in the world’s largest public school system, serving New York City students. The decision to expand, as the New York Times reports, came after trial runs in two dozen schools last year:

“You have to be at the top of your game,” said Salma Nakhlawi, 13, who has been brushing up on her math skills along with her hand-eye coordination so that she can play the video game Dimension M with her friends. “I used to hate math, but I’ve started to like it. I actually understand it more.”

This fall, New York City is rolling out Dimension M — M stands for math — in 109 middle schools across the five boroughs after trying the game out in two dozen schools, including I.S. 30, last year. Like a modern twist on “Jeopardy!,” the fast-paced video game quizzes students on prealgebra and algebra topics ranging from prime numbers to fractions and complex equations. A correct answer brings 500 or more points, a wrong one as few as 25; the player with the most points wins. (No prizes, just glory.)

Whether such educational video games are effective teaching tools is among the key questions behind the new Games for Learning Institute, a $3 million research effort at New York University that was publicly unveiled on Tuesday. The institute, a partnership between the Microsoft Corporation and six universities (N.Y.U., Columbia, the City University of New York, Dartmouth, Parsons the New School for Design, and the Rochester Institute of Technology) will study games used in middle school classrooms and then create prototypes for new ones. . . .

Multi-touch screens are very fashionable these days, but there are not many practical applications for them. Now, researchers at Durham University in the UK are using them to develop the world’s first interactive classroom. The new learning environments are using ‘interactive multi-touch desks that look and act like a large version of an Apple iPhone.’ Their initiative, called SynergyNet, has several goals, including the development of learning by sharing. So far, the research team has linked up with manufacturers to design software and desks that recognize multiple touches on the desktop. But read more…

Links: ZDNet, Primidi

The following is a very informative excerpt by Masters of Media from the University of Amsterdam of the Surprising Africa event at Picnic 08.

Bring the world to Africa and bring Africa to the world.’ (Gisel Hiscock, talking at Surprising Africa)

Hiscock, one of speakers at the Surprising Africa conference, held a lecture about Google’s interest in giving information-access to the one billion Africans. On the other hand, these same Africans need a way to share their information with the rest of the world: they need a voice. According to Hiscock the focus should be on developing technologies that answer local needs, empowering communities and in this way achieving the most. She finds Africa interesting because of it’s innovative character. Another speaker, Ethan Zuckerman, shares this interest: ‘A hammer isn’t a hammer in Africa. In the West a hammer is solely a tool to hit nails, in Africa they use it to do a lot more.’ Surely this is a necessity due to poverty, but nonetheless a capacity that has great potential in using new technologies. His presentation was far more interesting than the Google-presentation Hiscock came up with, since the latter seemed to be more interested in putting Google on a shiny pedestal instead of discussing relevant issues.

Zuckerman, speaking of citizen media rather than citizen journalism, explains how internet could be a great addition to the uses of radio and the mobile phone by bringing the news, and also providing the opportunity for the African people to share their opinions. With a mobile phone it is possible to call someone who has access to internet in order to gain information. Radio and the mobile phone have proven to be a fruitful combination in case of political violence in corrupted societies. Instead of turning to the untrustworthy police, people can call the radio instead, and thus put pressure on the authorities and the police to act correctly. Additionally, radio is a very important tool because of the huge illiteracy in Africa. By creating internet connections in radio stations and spreading the (world) news via the radio, whole communities can profit from just one internet connection. There is, however, still the issue of the ‘digital divide’, as people tend to call it. As this is a concept that cannot encompass the complexity of the difficulties, Zuckerman breaks up the concept into four aspects:

These problems need a longterm focus in which infrastructure has to be increased enormously; everybody should get a voice. Zuckerman gives an example of a mother with a sick child (Baby Kamba). She created a blog and her story got so much attention that she managed to raise enough money to pay for an operation. Zuckerman states we should not look at the baby here, but at the mother. Citizen media at it’s best. Why is Africa surprising? Because we just don’t pay enough attention!

Next week the SMX Search Marketing Expo East will be held at Javits Center in New York City. The event unexpectedly finds itself with the nation and world in a climate of economic crisis. Perhaps this will be a setting for some awakening to the often spectacular economic value to marketing in the connected online environment. Strongly to this point, of the seven “search topics” stated on the SMX homepage, only the first one requires the cash outlays usual in 20th century advertising: paid, organic, link building, local, mobile, social, analytics.

The other six principles create value that far outweighs any cost to optimizing search marketing (SEM). Why? Well, it’s the smartmobby principles of networks. Tom Hayes puts it this way in his listing of principles of networks (page 31) of his book Jump Point:

Principle 4. The more connected a node is, the more valuable it is.
Principle 5. Information in a network moves like a virus, from node to node.

In the new economic times it is very useful to know that the stock market and credit crunches to not affect how connected a node is nor how its information moves virally among the nodes. What does affect those things — and what captures and multiplies their value — is how much an enterprise knows about search engine optimization (SEO).

Erik Hersman talked at Picnic 08 on ‘Surprising Africa - what we can learn from Africa’ about the way they use Mobile Phones. Here is the slideshow of Erik’s presentation.

The truth about Africa is that there are some very interesting, and surprising, developments coming out of Africa. Every culture modifies use or the device itself to meet local needs - this is no different in Africa, and we’re seeing that evolution happen right before our eyes.

On Erik’s weblog White African you find the statistics and contextual info on some innovative payment systems.

Web strategist Eric Hersman founded Ushahidi a website that was developed to map reports of violence in Kenya after the post-election fallout at the beginning of 2008. Ushahidi’s roots are in the collaboration of Kenyan citizen journalists during a time of crisis.

Erik is also known from AfriGadget, a website dedicated to showcasing African ingenuity. A team of bloggers and readers contribute their pictures, videos and stories from around the continent. The stories of innovation are inspiring. It is a testament to Africans bending the little they have to their will, using creativity to overcome life’s challenges.

Also read about his ideas on mobile blogging and check out some more articles of Erik Hersman.