James Aczel

Former academic. I researched how people learned things. Currently incapacitated by fatigue.

[Department of Education, University of Oxford @OxfordDeptofEd]

It is with great sadness that we announce the death of Professor Richard Pring, who was a former Director of the Department and made a huge contribution to the field of education. https://t.co/DH7yhI5tbR

[Gaming the Mind @gamingthemind]

Randomised control study of video game training (playing a Mario game daily over 2 months) in people with schizophrenia

Those in the game training group showed greater overall reduction in mental health symptoms, & self-perceived mental health recovery.

https://t.co/7XIjoddeD0

[James Aczel @jamesaczel]

Oh to to be researching the psychological aspects of this!

@anesa @JPSan_Diego
https://t.co/hUhLFNIzNO

[James Aczel @jamesaczel]

I very much like how Michael Rosen here challenges the ubiquitous and unhelpful myth of "foundations" in areas of knowledge.

[Michael Rosen 💙💙🎓🎓 NICE 爷爷 @MichaelRosenYes]

1/There's an educational theory like this: clever people have broken down a particular bit of knowledge into its constituent parts. In education we'll start with the smallest bits, we'll call them 'building blocks' (metaphor borrowed from mechanics) and 'work up' from there.

[James A @ExeterDormouse]

I was lucky enough to meet Betty Boothroyd a few times, when she was Chancellor of The Open University.

An inspiring figure; a brilliant communicator; a lovely human being.

[Doug Clow @dougclow]

Sorry to hear this. She was also a fantastic champion of the @OpenUniversity and served as its Chancellor from 1994-2006. The Betty Boothroyd Library is named after her. She was inspiring at graduation ceremonies, providing a wonderful mix of gravitas & celebration.

[Carbon Brief @CarbonBrief]

THREAD - Experts from the #GlobalSouth are often underrepresented in reporting 📰 on climate change.

To tackle this issue, Carbon Brief & @risj_oxford are launching the “Global South Climate Database” #GSCD.

https://t.co/BoLr2bAoTO

1/7

[Doug Clow @dougclow]

An obituary for Prof John Richardson, who was indeed an amazing colleague, mentor, and all time legend. I was lucky to know him: he combined high standards in academic rigour and high standards in supporting colleagues.

Thanks @DrBartRienties for putting this together.

[James Aczel @jamesaczel]

@DrBartRienties @IETatOU @OpenUniversity John was a wonderful colleague, full of wisdom, kindness, and humour. We worked together developing H809 and PhD supervising, and spent many happy hours together discussing research papers. I learned so much from him. ♥️

[Arosha Bandara 💙 #ucuRising ✊🏽 @arosha]

Great to see that @OpenUniversity has launched a new scholarship programme for people displaced by conflict or crisis. Sanctuary Scholars will be able to study degree programmes or our Access courses, including those leading to @OUComputing qualifications https://t.co/ZloTRbUc79

[Doug Clow @dougclow]

Very sad to hear that my sometime colleague Prof John Richardson died on Monday after a long illness, although without pain at the end. He was a brilliant researcher and a fantastic colleague @IETatOU @OpenUniversity 1/

[Doug Clow @dougclow]

The common advice - use serif for print, sans for online - does NOT affect legibility. This absolutely brilliant work by my former colleague John Richardson looks thoroughly at the research on legibility of serif and sans serif typefaces and concludes that there is no difference.

[Jo Iacovides @JoIacovides]

Fantastic to this white paper to come out from @TakeThisOrg on designing games to challenge mental health - well done @WhitbyWrites :-) https://t.co/vWKFIRLnSC

[James Aczel @jamesaczel]

Benefits and limitations of different forms of representations for learning about the underlying biology of Covid-19, by @plingtoys & @shaaronUK
https://t.co/nLo5Uc2yHO

[James Aczel @jamesaczel]

Google Scholar alerts me that a 2006 psychology of mathematics paper with @JPSan_Diego & Barbara Hodgson has been cited in "Assessing Quality in Craft Beer: Style Guides and Taste Descriptions in Beer Judging Practice".

This seems unlikely... 👀

[James Aczel @jamesaczel]

The man responsible for a generation of developers.

10 PRINT "SORRY TO SEE YOU GO"
20 GOTO 10
https://t.co/hi17HnI5lr

[Video Games Europe @videogames_EU]

ICYMI: Research by @anesa shows girls who play #videogames are 3.3 times more likely to pursue #STEM careers than girls who do not play video games.

#GirlsinICT #GamesForce4Good #girlsplayvideogames

https://t.co/UTWtDevp4d

[James Aczel @jamesaczel]

I wonder if further research could explore why some dogs are mistaken for sheep by some dogs and some sheep.

[Benjamin Katz @DrBenKatz]

Every intro to cognitive psychology course has at least one chapter where we ask how people know that dogs are dogs - after all, they look so different from each other.

This research one-ups our question and asks: HOW DO DOGS KNOW THAT OTHER DOGS ARE DOGS??

[James Aczel @jamesaczel]

"Video gaming can benefit mental health" finds research by @ShuhBillSkee and others.

I wonder if this study looked purely at time spent playing, or whether they considered the rich data approach pioneered by @JoIacovides?