Had an edifying conv w/ a guy on the train about Hooked on Fishing Not On Drugs (HOFNOD), a get kids off the streets type program that's integrated in the curriculum of many schools. Very cool, never heard of it. Happened to take my own kids fishing this past weekend (my dad is into it). What a coinkidink. http://bit.ly/MhNyrO
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Going to Games in Eduction symposium at Esteves School of Education in Troy NY. Stopped in Buffalo Tues morn to get the train, which I'm on right now. Lots of people in the street there, including this musician/palm reader. I haven't been to a conference of any sort for a long time, so I'm going to blog about it. Stay tuned. The Ambassadors Program is a way for people who think the Thinking Skills Club is a great idea for someone they know to get a small reward if that person becomes a member or starts a club. As long as I get sent an email address and have it on file when a new member starts, I'll send half the fee to the friend who refers them. It's a small incentive, since membership is quite cheap, but it's my way of saying thanks for helping get more kids using the site and improving their cognitive abilities. It's all good!
In mid-May 2012 I took the password off and the site became available for everybody. We had a party the last day of the school workshop (see T-shirts in picture). My job has changed since then to be one of promotion and marketing, as well as keeping the site up to date with new games and research. This year's club was different, and very encouraging. Every Friday when I went to the school, I remembered what I'm doing this for. The kids show up and play, but they're not in their little worlds, they're talking and playing and helping each other and just being kids, and when I see them all playing the games on the site I feel that yes, this is a good thing I've started and I really think it would be fabulous if there were tons of clubs like this all over. And it's not hard to do; the supervisor's job is to enforce the rules (no off-site playing, no Facebook) and to help sort out technical problems like getting on the site or getting back to it when they push something wrong. The kids can report their successes right on the site or the leader can collect them and send them to me to build the brain puzzles with. So I'm trying different things, including restarting this blog. Subscribe for luck, and I'll see you in the funny papers. |
AuthorMitch Moldofsky is founder of the Thinking Skills Club, a computer game club that helps develop cognitive functioning for kids. He hold a B.Sc. in Cognitive Science and Psychology from the University of Toronto. Archives
November 2013
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