Setting Our Sights on Virtual Reality
Virtual realities (VR) are computer-created environments in which people can interact with what has been programmed or, when linked to some kind of network or on-line access, with each other. Typically, users wear some kind of headset or goggles to facilitate their sensory experience, which is primarily visual (sometimes fully 360°) and perhaps aural and/or […]
Design-Based Learning: STEM and Simple Machines
Watching children play, particularly very young children, we can see they behave scientifically. Children observe and collect. They wonder and deduce, and they’re methodical. They collaborate – sometimes! – and when they’re puzzled, they experiment and make adjustments. At whatever age STEM learning occurs, though, make no mistake: it is real STEM learning, not mere […]
Design-Based Learning (DBL) and Challenge Learning
“… we learn by doing.” So observed Aristotle in his study on how we should live, The Nicomachean Ethics, a work that is named – so scholars think – out of fondness for Aristotle’s father and son, both of whom were named Nicomachus. While obviously not a new concept to educators, the principle of learning-by-doing […]
CBC Curio.ca
A Virtual Third Place: The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation / Société Radio-Canada. On November 2, 1936, Canada’s federal government under Prime Minister Richard Bennett created the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation / Société Radio-Canada, a Crown-owned media corporation. The CBC commenced radio broadcasts later that year, followed by television broadcasts in 1952. The decision to institute a public […]
Multimodal Learning and Multimedia Technologies
Multimodal and multimedia – are they the same? Multimodalities comprise symbols and our decisions to use them as well as our interpretations of them. For instance, the letters and words of this blog entry represent a visual mode of language that, taken together, present a text to an audience – it’s something we read! As […]






