Gabe Zichermann's TED talk "How games make kids smarter" I found, conceptually speaking, very useful because it is relevant to the explorations we've done on gaming as an allegory for the classroom.
Before you watch, I thought I'd point out the thematic gist of his talk, but if you're in a hurry jump to minutes 7-9:00 and 11:20; they are more convincing parts of his argument.
The talk envisions the classroom aesthetically and functionally organized by what he calls "(game)ification," which sounds goofy to say aloud, but does capture technology's predisposition to port human experience into a virtual gaming environment. He goes over neuroplasticity, polyglots, fluid intelligence, and then into the classroom (compelling). Later, he speaks on the functional uses of principles of gaming-reality. Using a specific examples from the integration of gaming into car dashboards to a much more intriguing "speed camera lottery" in Sweden, Zichermann's gaming-reality has some unique, incentivizing, application-side techniques that could, once appropriated for the classroom, come in handy. [Take a look].
I want to take a minute to talk GOOD magazine. They do a lot using infographics. I think as teachers, infographics might be new gold-standard of the modern handout, combining the visual as well as the educational into one document.
Well, GOOD had a redesign the report card contest (winner pictured).
They also had a redesign a recipe contest (pretty awesome).
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