Smart Shorties is a new CD being marketed to teachers that takes the beats from popular rap songs and rewrites them to the multiplication tables, with the intent of improving kids' math skills. Forbes has a nice roundup on it's history, and NPR has done a featurette on it as well At the very least, it's certainly worth a listen for the chuckle potential, but in addition to that, it's an interesting example of the now-booming Edutainment industry, something that not only spans CD's, but also computer games and even standalone video game consoles.

also, Smart Shorties is certainly not the only "Hip-hop in the classroom" product out there, nor is it the first.
posted by The Esteemed Doctor Bunsen Honeydew on Jun 8, 2008 - 37 comments

Real Lives is an educational game for students that's meant to teach geography in a fun and interesting manner, but I think it just proves how soul-crushingly difficult it is for a Westerner like me to eek out subsistence living when I'm, say, the fifth child of seven in an impoverished nation somewhere in Sub-Saharan Africa. Add this one to the list of socially aware games (previously) that have been popping up here and there these last few years.
posted by Weebot on Nov 3, 2007 - 10 comments

Have you ever wondered what a solar eclipse would look like from space? The STEREO (Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory) has just sent back its view (awe-inspiring video included). It has also sent back some gorgeous pictures of our sun (and the McNaught Comet). For more media, check out the other galleries (including some 3D images). For more about the project, see NASA's STEREO homepage. Be sure to also stop by the Johns Hopkins University STEREO Page, where you can download a mission guide (pdf), view animations, watch a video of the launch, or even make your own papercraft STEREO model (pdf). You can also learn more in six minute segments with their series of short educational videos.
posted by wander on Mar 13, 2007 - 15 comments

The dog's nuts of the periodic table.
posted by ozomatli on May 30, 2006 - 41 comments

While groups like the Serious Games Initiative are working on making games effective teaching tools, and Social Impact Games are categorizing hundreds of socially useful games, there are some simulations and "serious games" available now which can also be a lot of fun (at least for a little while). Online, you can try your hand at the basics of sailing, setting wildfires, learning photography, or experience a heavy-handed simulation of the war on terror. Less seriously, there is the stapler simulator and the zombie attack simulator. For a bit more involved experience, download a college administration simulator, the UN's Food Force, and, soon, a simulation on the Rwandan genocide. Is learning this way actually useful, or do we have further to go, first? [Flash, Shockwave, and Java used in some links. Some prev. here and here]
posted by blahblahblah on Nov 15, 2005 - 11 comments