I have the pleasure to help spupport an effort to enable 21st century skills learning and assessment in schools and countries through a partnership with Cisco, Intel, Microsoft and the University of Melbourne.  Learn more about the project at http://atc21s.org

The ATC21S project is developing new forms of assessment and teaching approaches to meet the demands of the 21st century. One of the areas of interest is the assessment and teaching of collaborative problem solving. The goal is to deliver the assessment strategy through open source automated assessment technologies that can alert teachers to the appropriate learning intervention and give instant feedback to the students in order to improve their collaborative problem solving skills.

This is being done to capitalise on the effect of increasing availability of Information Communication Technology (ICT) and the fact that it has changed the way that people access and use information and collaborate to solve problems. Education systems are changing the way they respond by encouraging and instilling in students the skills necessary for collaborative work.

Since the start of the ATC21S project, the University of Melbourne Project Office has received hundreds of requests from individuals and organisations to become actively involved and contribute to the project. Thus far we have not been able to fully accommodate such a large number of requests.

On 5th April 2011, ATC21S will launch a Crowdsourcing Challenge (hosted by innocentive.com) to make use of the talents of those interested in contributing to the goals of the ATC21S project. The prize up for grabs is $US20,000. “Crowdsourcing” or “open innovation” are terms used to describe the use of work done by the public at large.

The Challenge is to create software module required for assessment of collaborative problem solving skills in schools. ATC21S envisages a multiplayer Flash game template & GUI that can export process log-files that describe user actions to other software modules which will eventually be part of the system. A range of open source and proprietary software is currently available for developing collaborative gaming scenarios. ATC21S anticipates that code from existing software could be adapted for this Challenge. To receive an award, the successful Solvers will not have to transfer their exclusive IP rights to ATC21S. Instead, they will grant to ATC21S non-exclusive license to practice their solutions. Any winning software will be will be in the public domain and able to be used freely by educational users in the development of assessment tasks.

More detailed information about this challenge including how to participate will be available at:  The InnoCentive website: https://www.innocentive.com/ar/challenge/overview/9932750
The Economist website: http://ideas.economist.com/challenges

I hope you are interested and please share with friends, colleagues, researchers and other innovators and help us transform education and support countries around the world to help skill up their citizens.

The schools and universities of today are faced with a difficult task – making sure that the students of today are ready to solve the problems of tomorrow using tools and technologies that are either under development or do not currently exist.  Enabling the next generation of entrepreneurs, scientists, artists, engineers, and workers in general requires teaching young people to be self-driven, experiential leaners vs. passive receivers of knowledge.

When thinking about preparing students for the next generation of jobs and building national competitiveness, policy makers should think about learning environments that are different from traditional desk, pencil, paper and one computer shared among many students.   Students want to learn in the ways in which they work and play; the educational experience must therefore reflect a much richer technological experience, and be accessible wherever and whenever students can engage in learning.   Building these modern innovative learning environments requires new thinking about how best to reach students in an information rich-world.  There is a new trend of gaming in education that is taking students by storm and engaging them in their education in new ways.  Students as young as six years old are creating games with fellow students and trying to solve world problems in a fun engaging environment.

I am excited to announce that the full release of Microsoft Kodu Game Lab, a free fun tool that lets kids from the age of 6 upwards to build their own video games. Kodu helps kids develop real-world skills by encouraging them to analyze a problem and develop a solution. It also promotes Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM).  But most of all it’s fun!

In addition, we are also announcing the US Kodu Cup, a competition for kids aged 9-17
years old to win great prizes by creating their own video games.   Submissions close:
May 10, 2011 and Winners announced: May 25, 2011.

Learn more about Kodu, watch this fun video  

Chuk Mung Nam Moi or Gung Hay Fat Choy or for the English speaker Happy New Year!  The Chinese calendar, which resets each year in late January to mid-February, is one of the  most ancient calendars in the world. According to legend, the Chinese emperor  some 4,000 years ago held a race to figure out the sequence of animals in the  12-year cycle of his new calendar. The rat came in first by hitching a ride on  the ox’s nose and jumping over the finish line at the last possible moment  (crafty!). The rabbit was fourth, so we are currently in year number four in the  cycle.  Chinese astrologers are projecting “quiet, positive and inspiring” things to come along with the Rabbit.  Rabbit years are generally an  excellent time for arts, culture, world diplomacy and focusing on the family, which sounds good to us. But let’s get to the real deal, friends. What will our love lives look like for the rest of the year? In a word: sweet. The Year of the Rabbit is all about sensitivity and letting your love life unfold with patience.

As I lack patience this will be a great year for me to work on an area of improvement and hopefully the wise rabbit will rub off on me. Chinese New Year is one of the most important festival’s of the year for Asia.  In my words it can be summed up as a focus on family, culture and renewed hope and new beginning for a prosperous life, crop, job, family, etc.  So take some time today to celebrate your family, culture and new beginnings!