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| 02 Sep 2008 05:41:58 pm |
 How videogames are changing our brains |
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Video games and technology are reshaping the brains of our children. The era of the information age where
logical left-brain thinking has dominated is shifting to the conceptual age where creativity, seeing the big picture,
and understanding our connection to one another will prevail.
The videogames and technology today’s children are growing up with are reconfiguring our brains. We now get as much of our information from images on screens as from language. Language is a left-brain function and images require right brain processing. No other mammal has a split brain.
What will this shift to right brain, big picture, and creative thinking mean for the future of our children? How can we develop videogames that reinforce what technology is already doing - changing our ability to see the whole picture. How can this shift help children grow up to be compassionate adults who understand their connectedness to others and feel responsible for the world they live in, to understand that we are not isolated beings with the right to destroy one another?
Ultimately we need both our left and right brains. While technology is moving us from a left-brain world of words to a right brain world of images and visual processing, eventually we want a balanced brain.
We’re in a period of profound transformation as a species and videogames are leading the way to a new way of being in the world. |
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Category : Video Games and Learning
| By : Karen Littman |
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| 31 Jul 2008 11:41:56 am |
| What are videogames really teaching us |
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Technology is changing our perception of time and space. It is gradually adjusting us to a new understanding that we are living in multiple dimensions. Even the words we use to define the technology — words like virtual reality, the World Wide Web, and Second Life — show our unconscious making an effort to adjust us to the inevitable shift that we will soon come to know.
We have always lived in multiple dimensions — we’re not limited to the 3 dimensions we’ve been aware of.
Soon we will not need technology anymore. It’s like learning how to ride a bike with training wheels. At some point, we'll take away the training wheels and we’ll experience the real worldwide web that’s been connecting us all along.
We're becoming aware of the second and third lives we’ve been experiencing in other dimensions that are always hiding beyond a thin veil. The games kids are playing are one way of understanding this new reality.
The avatars they choose are similar to the multiple selves we really are. You give your avatar an identity and create a world for them. Your actions determine how they live and when and how they will die. Video and online games are a pre-requisite to a new understanding of reality. |
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Category : Video Games and Learning
| By : Karen Littman |
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| 26 Mar 2008 10:43:33 am |
| Neuromatrix --- for every age |
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| My 85-year-old dad has had several strokes over the years. I gave him a copy of Neuromatrix. I was amazed to see dad playing the Smart Games section… a series of Flash games with easy, medium and hard levels. The games keep his brain active and engaged. I learned there is no age limit for Neuromatrix. Regardless of how old you are, it’s interesting and fun to learn about the brain. |
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Category : Education and the Brain
| By : Karen Littman |
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| 19 Mar 2008 09:25:53 am |
| The Right and Left Brain |
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I’m a film and video producer, not a brain researcher. I’ve spent the last 17 years producing video games that make abstract concepts of brain science fun and comprehensible to children.
When I heard Jill Bolte Taylor, a neuroanatomist, talk at the recent TED (Technology Entertainment Design) conference held annually in Monterey, California, I was inspired by her ability to describe and understand her own massive stroke and the profound effect that it had on her life.
After her stroke, she studied and watched as her brain functions shut down. She spent eight years recovering her ability to think, walk and talk.
When her stroke shut down the left hemisphere of her brain, Taylor experienced her right brain connecting to the rest of matter. As she puts it, “Atoms and molecules of my arms blended with the atoms and molecules of the wall.” Dr Taylor could no longer identify the boundaries of her body and felt connected to all the other energy around her.
Dr. Taylor is of course talking about the right and left hemispheres of the brain. These hemispheres are separate but connected. The left side of the brain connects to the right side of your body, while the right brain connects to the left side. In most people, the left-brain handles words and logic, and the right brain is better at art, music, and intuition. The two hemispheres are connected by the Corpus Callosum.
When Dr Taylor had her stroke, the left side of her brain shut down.
Taylor’s description of her experience left me wondering if the right brain (left in some) is like a radio receiver. It picks up information from the universe and sends it to the left-brain to sort out. The left-brain then organizes and translates it into instructions for the rest of the body. So when Jill’s stroke shut down the left side of her brain, she felt her connectedness to the rest of the world, but had no way to translate her experience into language or thoughts or any of what makes us function as humans. She felt like a pile of atoms and molecules without physical definition. So perhaps the left-brain grounds us in the physical world. It helps us organize our lives and get things done; while the right brain is our portal to the world beyond our physical being connecting us to one another and the repository of knowledge in the universe.
You can hear Jill Bolte Taylor’s TED talk at http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/229 |
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Category : Education and the Brain
| By : Karen Littman |
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| 17 Mar 2008 10:18:26 am |
| NeuroKids review of Neuromatrix |
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We’re so proud of the Neurokids review of Neuromatrix. Kids reviewing Neuromatrix is about as good as it gets!
Here are some excerpts from Bo Erik’s review:
“Neuromatrix is the most awesome game! Nanobots are trying to destroy the brains of scientists and you have to stop them. ……It is SUPER cool to see the inside of the brain and the graphics are awesome! ……We totally recommend this game. It is the best game on the brain we have seen and it is so fun!”
Buy Neuromatrix for the kids in your life.
You can read the whole review by clicking here or visit neurokids.org.
Thank you Neurokids! |
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Category : Education and the Brain
| By : Karen Littman |
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