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Not Education in Jeopardy - another topic that is continuously debated in the US!
This is in reference to a recent blog post about the game Jeopardy at
http://www.hastac.org/blogs/etussey/pre-digital-edutainment-jeopardy-cla...
It's a short read - well worth the five minutes you'll spend to read it. Things that stick out for me:

• The Jeopardy game is an accepted cultural norm.
• The game can be used as a springboard for social discourse, part of a good learning experience.
• The producers of the game show have a classroom version of Jeopardy that includes authoring software and hardware used to produce a delux experience. See http://www.classroomjeopardy.com/index.aspx .

What other good things arise when we use a "standard" game like this for educational purposes?
BTW - The EGC has a version of the game, named Peril! Check it out.

Start: 11/23/2009 - 00:00
End: 11/24/2009 - 23:59
Timezone: Etc/GMT-4
Registration is open for the free workshops offered by ITS Training Services that are designed to meet the needs of graduate students at Penn State.
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Registration is open for the free workshops offered by ITS Training Services that are designed to meet the needs of graduate students at Penn State.
read more

Start: 11/12/2009 - 13:30
End: 11/12/2009 - 16:30
Timezone: Etc/GMT-4
Faculty are invited to attend a workshop on the educational benefits of the online virtual world Second Life on November 12 from 1:30-4:30 p.m. The workshop will take place in the Educational Gaming Commons Lab in 6A Findlay Commons at the East Halls, University Park, and will be facilitated by the Educational Gaming Commons staff and Shannon Ritter of Penn State Outreach.
Virtual worlds are 3-D, online, persistent spaces created and evolved by their users. The virtual world Second Life (http://www.secondlife.com/) offers tremendous potential for research and teaching. Within this vast and rapidly expanding place, you can do, create, or become just about anything you can imagine.
Virtual worlds provide many educational benefits. The two strongest benefits may be an immersive problem-solving environment coupled with social interactions. For example, at Penn State, Second Life is used for teaching Spanish, as a meeting spot for World Campus online and distance education students, and more. The Penn State Educational Gaming Commons hosts space in Second Life for educators.
This workshop will first introduce you to the basics of Second Life, including how to acquire a free account and to navigate within the world. The second part of the workshop will demonstrate discipline-specific uses of Second Life to spark your imagination on potential uses of this environment.

Many of you may have heard about the EGC's work with Ann Clements and Tom Cody (Music Education), who were interested in looking at ways to bring the commercially successful game Guitar Hero into the music classroom.  The Guitar Hero project is currently being run for the second semester and is enjoying great success.  However, beginning next week, we're excited to share that the project will be taking its next step.
Though using Guitar Hero in the classroom can provide a number of benefits to music students, at the core of Ann and Tom's efforts has always been the goal of teaching Music Education majors (who will themselves, become the next music teachers) how games like Guitar Hero can be used to inspire the next generation of music students.  As a part of the project, MusicEd students have been asked to create customized songs in Guitar Hero World Tour's music studio - songs, which, based on their own experience learning to play guitar, could help younger students bridge the gap between playing a game and learning to play a real instrument.  Over the next two weeks, those MusicEd students will have an opportunity to put their efforts to the test, as they visit several music classes at Mt. Nittany Middle School and work directly with middle schoolers using the custom tracks they have created.
Be sure to check back next week - we can't wait to share how things go!

Below are the dates and times for Adobe Connect demonstration sessions for November and the remaining session for October. These sessions will demonstrate the primary features of the meeting room and answer questions that you might have. No registration or RSVP necessary.
*Friday, October 30, 2009, 10:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m.
*Friday, November 6, 2009, 1:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m.
*Monday, November 9, 2009, 1:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m.
*Tuesday, November 17, 2009, 10:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.
Here is the link to the meeting room: https://breeze.psu.edu/r54559680/. Please come when you like, learn about the new features, different ways to use Adobe Connect, ask questions, stay for a few minutes. Feel free to pass this on to friends and colleagues. Members of the Penn State community can arrange for an on-site demonstration by contacting your ITS Consultant
If you plan to join our demonstration session through Adobe Connect, please read through the Getting Started information at http://meeting.psu.edu/quickstart and test your connection in advance with our generic test meeting room at https://breeze.psu.edu/testmeetingroom/.
If you have any questions or problems entering the test meeting room, help is available by emailing breeze@psu.edu.
If you're unable to attend any of these sessions, one of the recorded sessions can be found at this link: https://breeze.psu.edu/p99712411/ .

Registration is open for the free workshops offered by ITS Training Services that are designed to meet the needs of graduate students at Penn State. Many of these workshops are available over the fall break, including SPSS, Scientific Computing, Refworks, Penn State Thesis Template, and more. Visit the ITS Training Services Web site to register for any of these sessions at http://its.psu.edu/training/ .

Start: 10/30/2009 - 10:00am
End: 10/30/2009 - 11:00am
Timezone: Etc/GMT-5
Here is the link to the meeting room:
https://breeze.psu.edu/r54559680/.
Please come when you like, learn about the new features, different ways to use Adobe Connect, ask questions, stay for a few minutes. Feel free to pass this on to friends and colleagues. Members of the Penn State community can arrange for an on-site demonstration by contacting your ITS Consultant
If you plan to join our demonstration session through Adobe Connect, please read through the Getting Started information at http://meeting.psu.edu/quickstart and test your connection in advance with our generic test meeting room at https://breeze.psu.edu/testmeetingroom/.
If you have any questions or problems entering the test meeting room, help is available by emailing breeze@psu.edu.

The following links are provided by the Adobe Connect Pro User Community Connectusers Group (connectusers.com) providing Connect end users, administrators, developers with the latest up-to-date information.
Best Practices for Web Events Checklist
• View this job aid produced by the Acrobat Connect Pro Event Services team outlines best practices created by Amy Brooks, Connect Pro Event Services. The one page article focuses on the basic practices that every Host, Presenter, and Participant should practice to ensure that that the web event goes off without a hitch.
Includes a link to a printable pdf file Best Practices - Host - Speakers
http://www.connectusers.com/tutorials/2008/08/event_best_practices/index...
Want More Info?
• Watch this short Connect On Demand Presentation about Best Practices:
https://admin.adobe.acrobat.com/_a295153/connectbestpractices

When using the professional website, you can add the pages that you create to the top navigation bar on the front of the blog.
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