Lecture: Technology as a bridge between generations - is that even possible?

on May 16th, 2014 I gave a talk at a private event of the Joint Israel.

they released a new plan for volunteering that involves elderly together with youth doing good deed for the community together.

i talked about how technology could bridge the gap between the generations. 

outlines of the lecture:

1. game and play can change routine behavior relatively quickly
2. similarities between challenges of elderly and challenges of teens
3. technologies i showed:
• motion tracking: dancing and physiotherapy
• GPS: family tracker and SOS
• Health monitor: digestible pill, word lens (augmented reality)
• Robotics: help around the house, life companion
• Smart homes: carpet senses when something is wrong
4. dealing with technology
5. sometimes a weird connection is highly innovative (without technology)
• multi-generation project: kids and elderly make a presentation about how life were 60 years ago.
• elderly as marathon mentors for runners
6. more stuff i had there:
• safer driving: google's self driving car, mobileye saving from crash
• communication: google glass, pebble watch, innovega contact lens
• emotion tracking: intel, microsoft, 
• power of crowd: crowd sourcing, play with others, big data

above all, it was one of the happiest lectures i ever gave. i felt a significant amount of positive energy and vibe  in the air. 

feedback:

• some voices were saying those are good ideas
• some didnt understand a lot of what i said. when i explained more, they said it wont work for them
• some said they have other solutions already

i answered i am very happy they have found their way and developed confidence to face the difficulties the technology offers. i do my best to help others feel the same way.

Oz, S. (2014). Technology as a bridge between generations- is that even possible? Jerusalem: Joint Israel

Human Computer Interaction course certificate

a few weeks ago I "graduated" an online course under the topic Human Computer Interactions by the great Scott Klemmer. i truly recommend this course to anyone developing applications in the modern age.

Lecture: Similarities between game design and instructional design

On July 10th 2012, I gave a lecture about the similarities between designing a game and designing a lesson in classroom, at one of the biggest educational conferences in Israel: IUCEL Meital.

the lecture strove to show that educational and instructional design could learn from game design at how to tangle the users into the web of curiosity, challenge and fun.
I talked about 9 main design principals in the game design theory that can be used also in instructional design:

1. the player as the Messiah. let the user feel that without him the session cannot be over. if the user will not make the right move, nothing will happen. make sure you put it all into a good story.
2. rules. setup rules for the game/ lesson. only when you have rules, the users will try and break them. without rules, they will try and break the teacher... 
3. feeling of control. let the user feel they are in control, but actually you should control all the possible routes and choices they could make.
4. immediate feedback. give feedback as fast as you can, as precise as possible.
5. goals. setup big goals and smaller goals to keep the users on track.
6. balance the amount of content. no content is boring. too much content confuse.
7. balance the challenge and the ability. don't be afraid to challenge your users, just make sure they feel competent to the task. 
8. develop the feeling of success. make sure your users succeed. after a hard task, give an easy one.
9. reflection. always assist the user to reflect their performance.

my presentation for download (hebrew).
all other lectures' from the conference can be downloaded as well (hebrew). 

Lecture: Using Augmented Reality & video games inside your classroom

On December 9th, 2010, I have presented the AR technology and video games to the Information & Communication Technology, a course meant to improve the tech-accessibility skills for teachers and educators at Mofet institute. 

The teachers have understood the new technologies and learned about the role of the teacher in the "tech-classroom".  

The lecture goals were:

1. Lowering the hesitation and fear from technology at teachers and empowering them with tools allowing them to examine and test video games.

2. Showing the similarity between a good educational content and a good video game: gradual learning, continuous challenge, giving the feeling of "I can", and FUN.

3. There is no substitute for the teacher. Technology is just a tool. 

4. Showing that technology exists. The ball is in the educators court. They have to show the industry where and what to develop.

Here is the Prezi presentation I used during the lecture. 

Augmented Reality & Games in Education on Prezi

update:

here is a concept map that was drawn by one of the listeners, Lizi Cohen

ARIE - Augmented Reality Instructions Editor

concept:

ARIE changes the way we work with tools in the home and office environments. it solves us the dependency from opening the instructions manual or call a technician when wishing to operate a machine.

ARIE is a real-time instructions manual, activated while working on a specific instrument or tool, and more important- the information is presented exactly when and where we need it.

ARIE was presented at several conferences by now:

Synthetic Reality 2010, Israel

De-Click Game v2.0: learn spelling

concept: further development of the first version. read description of gameplay there.

the improvements made in this version are:

1. player must click the letters by the order they are in the word itself.

2. difficulty level affects the amount of assistance the player receives during the game.

3. letters are visible to the player during the game. a correct click causes a feedback.

4. the gameplay is better explained.

"Living in the Holy Land", Educational Video Game

concept:
making the learning the bible more fun by playing the history of the biblical stories instead of reading it in the classroom. the game is a role play adventure game, where the student is playing characters from the biblical story and face the same problems and issues they needed to face. Living in the Holy Land is rich in full 3D graphics, similar quality to AAA known video games, in order to allow the student see every small detail in the biblical world. the game stages are parallel to bible chapters, in order to be easily adapted into the school's curriculum. learning the story is not the only thing the game teaches. a more thorough paper will be translated into English soon.

created at: February 2009 (project in process)

Learning with games : costumized search engine

idea: create a dynamic and interactive resource environment based on Lib2.0 and Learning2.0 concepts.

we have chosen the field area of learning with games and how to combine these two fields.

result: an iGoogle group environment, which included unique RSS collection, a couple of customized search engines, and more apps and gadgets.
this search engine has been developed since. you are most invited to use it. its free of course.



created at: September 2007

created with: Yuval Shafriri, Ori Grundshtein, Ofir Rosenberg, Yuval Alis

the existence of the Libarary in the digital age- is it justified? Essay

concept: an interview with an israeli libararian + observation + results. not an academic research.

created at: November 2006

created with: Noa Levi

Harnessing the power of games into education: Article presentation

View Upload your own

concept: presents the main concepts in the article of Squire and Jenkins about "Harnessing the power of games into education".

created at: March 2008

why water group to drops? surface tension of the water

concept: originally made for 9th grade siences class (with some background in molecules). the goal was to explain about the surface tension of the water and how it is created. additional educational value: the way water molecules arrange themselves.

created at: May 2007

in english:

in hebrew:

De Click Game: learn spelling

concept: the main goal is to teach young kids (ages 3-6) how to spell. it tries to use a simple menus and fun gameplay in order to attract players and motivate them. the player has to click the letters in the name of the animal presented to him and reach a specific number of total clicks. reaching that number will stop the score from dropping, and setting it to the player's score. 

the gameplay was inspired by the "click the spacebar game".  

created at: January 2008