Education Games
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BotW Glitch YouTuber Proves There Are New Ways To Break Game

Israel Budz
Revali, Breath of the Wild's bird-man champion looks back at the camera as he takes flight.

Screenshot: Nintendo

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, the greatest game ever made (according to me, Renata), is driven by dozens of interlocking systems and physics interactions. It is a modern marvel of craft and design. Which also means that it breaks in some pretty tremendous ways when you push those interlocking systems to do things they do not want to do. All of this is on incredible display in the glitch showcase released by BotW YouTuber Kleric yesterday, which ends with Link “pickup smuggling,” a very recently discovered glitch that allows Link to attach objects like birds to his hand. Bird-hand fusion, as we all know, is the peak of human evolution, not yet achieved by us petty fools in the real world.

In the four years since its release, Breath of the Wild has been pored over by thousands of enthusiasts, speedrunners, and glitch hunters.

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Education Games
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More than a game: new tools make learning Inuktitut interactive

Israel Budz

Inuktitut just became more interactive with the arrival of new language-learning tools.

These tools, developed by two literacy and digital learning advocates, consist of a typing game, digitized and animated learning books, and a program for teachers to design their own language learning games. They were released Aug. 5.

Iqalliarluk is a digital typing game with a goal to type specific Inuktitut words or phrases. Words are displayed in the centre of screen while in the background a man stands over a frozen body of water looking for fish.

The second tool, Uqalimaarluk, is three online books that have animation, narration and sound effects.

Last is the Inuktitut Digital Literacy Game Engine, which allows teachers to create their own simplified language learning games for students. The tool is designed to fit within a teacher’s curriculum.

The tools come from a partnership between the Pinnguaq Association and Ilitaqsiniq, also known as

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Education Management
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Technology is changing the learning game in the U.S. education system.

Israel Budz

Prior to COVID-19, the Pleasanton Calif. Unified School District (PUSD) was already issuing a digital device to every middle and high school student. During the pandemic, the district expanded its 1-to-1 policy to all elementary-level students, as well.

“Anybody who needed a device got a device,” says Patrick Gannon, the district’s communications and community engagement coordinator. Thanks to that rapid deployment, “We were able to pivot 14,500 students from in-person to remote instruction in the course of a week.”

PUSD isn’t alone: Around the nation, virtual learning needs spurred rapid adoption of 1-to-1 policies across K-12 education. While the final numbers on device adoption aren’t in yet, “There’s clearly been a huge effort to secure more devices,” says Keith Krueger, CEO of the nonprofit Consortium for School Networking.

Going forward, educators say, this broad availability of computers will change the way teachers interact with students, and it will

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Education Games
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Opinion: What bigoted acts like throwing tortillas at a basketball game reveal

Israel Budz
On Wednesday, officials said the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) would vacate the winning title of largely White Coronado High School after tortillas were thrown at members of the opposing team. That team, from Orange Glen High School, is predominantly Latino. Several days after the incident, the Coronado Unified School Board voted unanimously in a closed session to fire the Coronado High School’s basketball coach, and CIF placed further sanctions on members of the team, putting members on probation until the end of the 2024 school year. The school district’s superintendent issued a public apology calling what happened “reprehensible.”

This incident (which was captured on video) is both shameful and shocking. Worse, many Latinos are familiar with such harassment — whether more overt or in the form of microaggressions — and some Americans are still comfortable disrespecting Latinos. While this behavior must change, that will only happen after more people truly … Read More