What happens to the free rice?

People all round the world have been playing Free Rice, a simple but strangely addictive game where you have to identify the correct definition of various English words. It's available from the Free Rice site, as well as via a Facebook app.

Did you ever wonder how they distribute all that Free Rice? Take a look at the video!

Try life in another langauge

The UK's channel four has launched a campaign to promote interest in learning modern languages. Together with an ad agency, they produced this great video with the French hiphop MC, Disiz la Peste. It's cool enough to be intriguing for young people, while also having a great educational message!



More about the Channel 4 campaign

Innovative practices in ICT in education in Asia-Pacific

It's always exciting when you see an idea move from thought to reality. The ICT in education team over at UNESCO Bangkok have done just that when they started this award project, to identify teachers and educational planners doing amazing work in ICT in education in the region. The Innovative ICT in Education Prizes These kinds of events are great for inspiring others, and stimulating colleagues to become more innovative themselves. Interestingly, India was far and away the most represented country, despite the quite patchy use of ICT in schools.

I particularly liked the winning example of 'E-tools for Teaching and Learning Geography', from Suryaveer Singh, S.D. Public School, New Delhi, India, which is comparable in standard to projects taking place in Europe that I've evaluated in the eTwinning prizes and eLearning awards. Mr. Singh set up a blog full of quizzes, animations and puzzles, plus kept his class up to date about key dates and events. He also opened a wiki where students could work on their projects together, upload their work, share videos and games, and ask each other questions. He structured their use of the wiki so that they used it as a useful tool in reaching their learning goals. See full details of his project here.

One of the participants in the award ceremony, Rogelio Colting, president of Benguet State University in the Philippines remarked: "We will set up an IT centre in the university to showcase all the innovative ideas applicable in our region. The IT centre will serve as a learning and training centre on ICT applications, particularly to improve teaching at all levels."

The full results are available on the UNESCO Bangkok website.

Food Force: a game about the World Food Program

A great initiative from the UN World Food Programme, the Food Force game helps teach kids about how hunger can affect communities, and how food aid is handled by international agencies.

"Food Force is a free educational video game telling the story of a hunger crisis on the fictitious island of Sheylan. Comprised of 6 mini-games or “missions”, the game takes young players from an initial crisis assessment through to delivery and distribution of food aid, with each sequential mission addressing a particular aspect of this challenging process."

They've also added a special section explaining about food distribution in Myanmar following the typhoon, Nargis.

Play the game here.
Via UNESCO Bangkok.