Activity One: Create your own personalized brain training program through Lumosity
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kstackhouse 9:29 am on October 22, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
This is not the first time I have visited the site. It was the first time that I actually “played” through a session. I see these activities as great ways to keep one’s mind sharp. Similar to doing crosswords and solving other puzzles. I wonder if any learning takes place in later sessions…more than learning how to play the games and improve quickness. My kids have Brain Age on their DS and it is a similar style of mental exercising. There is no fee associated with this game beyond the initial purchase of the device and the game. I haven’t checked to see if there are similar games available through apps. Has anyone come across any like these?
avninder 12:26 pm on October 22, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I enjoyed creating and working through my personalized learning plan through Luminosity. It was a great way to demonstrate how personalized learning works through online learning. I am looking forward to the rest of the week, especially the ‘Current Examples’ section, where we will hopefully see how this system will work in a face-to-face classroom.
ETEC522grp8 6:19 pm on October 22, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I’m glad that you enjoyed it! We felt it was a good way to demonstrate an adaptive learning technology – the program changes the brain training activities that are presented depending on how well you do at them, personalizing the learning for your specific needs.
tomwhyte1 7:46 pm on October 22, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I found Lumosity to be an interesting challenge site, to enhance my brain in the areas of speed, memory, attention, flexibility, and problem solving. And since Google defines (love this add on by the way Google) learning as:
The acquisition of knowledge or skills through experience, practice, or study, or by being taught.
I would then say that yes, this web-based skill program is providing an interesting learning experience, which would be an interesting addition to a classroom to enhance the overall cognitive strength of the group.
Furthermore, I would like to see a mobile version, which would facilitate better classroom use, however I could not specifically find one.
Thoughts?
frank 9:06 pm on October 22, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
TW1, you think you could combine this with something like Edmodo to get the classroom experience you want?
I found this a fun learning program. I liked how one can specify the areas they wanted to focus their development on and see how that might improve over time. The games themselves are relatively fun as well, for learning games, but maybe they are just teasing me at the beginning with their best games.
I almost want to do an IQ test now, and then do one after doing the program to see if I actually improved my test results.
On the flip side, I think the consistency of commitment is probably a lot for many, and that price is, I would say High, given how much more entertaining games are being sold on Steam, for a fraction of the price.
Nonetheless, this product is moving in the right direction.
tomwhyte1 10:29 am on October 24, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Interesting addition to Edmodo. I would like it, if I could have it open within Edmodo, creating a more self-contained learning environment.
As well, I did like the feature that allowed me to select the areas I would like to focus on. However, I wonder how many students have that deep level of understanding about themselves? Therefore, I would feel better about this technology, if it was coupled with a pre-test focusing on the skills mentioned in this app.
Thoughts?
Colin 10:10 pm on October 22, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
This is my first time using Lumosity and I have to say that it kept me engaged enough to finish my first personalized lesson. I am sure there are other programs out there that provide a similar function but Lumosity did do a good job. What I would like to see is this kind of approach applied to academic content to see if it would hold my attention in the same way.
ETEC522grp8 2:41 pm on October 24, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
There are many similar products to Lumosity. One is Mind Sparke, http://mindsparke.com/ which is a more serious brain training program. The program has 30 minute sessions which you do for 19 days straight. Apparently, by the end of the week, they claimed that you should see some improvement in working memory. Lumosity, on the other hand gives you more control over your training. If you want to log in every day, there is plenty for you to do. If you can only train a few times a week, that’s fine too. Like you said, Lumosity is more fun so that users are encouraged to continue their training.
melissaayers 4:54 am on October 23, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
One I started my personalised training program it reminded me of Nintendo’s Brain Age game that I tried on a friends Nintendo DS a while ago. After playing this for a few days I lost interest and I have a feeling I might do the same with this as well unfortunately.
I am a little sceptical if these types of games/activities really improve skill long term? I remember reading a while ago about these types of programs as not being conclusive in helping to improve intelligence. While I do not have this research on hand I remember it was based on elderly people trying to fight off alzheimer and dementia.
I did read an amusing quote from someone that was trying out Brain Age to see if it made him smarter and he said
“But did “Brain Training” make me smarter? Call me a cynic, but I’m not convinced it’s anything more than a cunning ploy to get non-gamers like me hooked on Nintendo’s latest little console. (Can Nintendo’s ‘Brain Training’ really boost your little gray cells?)”
tomwhyte1 10:31 am on October 24, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
My I ask what is your definition of “Intelligence”… For I see this to be a crucial point in your response, which would facilitate my further understanding.
Thank you
melissaayers 5:31 am on October 25, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi,
I guess what I term as intelligence (problem solving, abstract thought, reasoning, self awareness etc) is not really the goal of these programs its more improving specific skills now that you make me reflect on my comment.
Thanks
tomwhyte1 12:06 pm on October 25, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I see where you are coming from. And through this discussion remembered the following – The Flynn Effect:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect
Which some feel this occurs because of our increased exposure to multimedia and even games. So in a sense (if you value IQ scores), these “games” may in fact be laying the ground work for enhanced intelligence.
Thoughts?
teacherben 6:51 pm on October 26, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
There is actually quite a bit of research to argue that brain exercise does improve overall brain health, and does have a positive impact on Alzheimers patients. They never knew why until recently however. The most recent work has found a high level of a protein called ‘beta amyloid’ that accumulates between nerve cells in the brain and reduces their ability to function. Brain exercises reduce the amount of this protein and have shown measurable improvement in patients over time.
Here’s an article about it:
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2012/02/26/to-your-health/brain-exercises-might-ward-off-alzheimers.html
Look out for anything done by a professor from U of T named Steve Joordens. He writes a lot about technology and about human memory. He did a couple of courses for The TEaching Company that you can listen to and they are fascinating. Here’s a link to one of them:
http://www.thegreatcourses.com/tgc/courses/course_detail.aspx?cid=1911
jkotler 8:29 am on October 23, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
At first I really enjoyed selecting all of the areas I would want to focus on, as I found myself both intrigued by the questions and answer choices as well as to discover what program would be suggested. However, and this could very well just be my timing but once I answered all the questions, the next page never loaded. Though I haven’t yet, I still would like to go back and try this again.
ETEC522grp8 2:28 pm on October 24, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Lumosity is undergoing a really fast growth phase. I saw their ads everywhere even on TV, which means there are a lot of visits to their site at one time. I bet their servers are having a really tough time since there are so many visitors!
joeltremblay 9:16 am on October 23, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Before I became a teacher, I was planning on pursuing a career in law and it wasn’t until I stepped into the classroom that I realized what I was “supposed” to do. However, during the planning for the aforementioned career, I was studying for the LSAT and honestly the testing that Luminosity offered would have been of immense help since a lot of the questions are related to logical and cognitive abilities.
Ranvir 10:22 am on October 23, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I really enjoyed playing Lumosity’s brain training game, especially ‘raindrops’. It was interesting to find how our response to simple math equations shows how our cognitive abilities are affected when there are multiple problems to tackle at the same time. Sounds like all the exercises are based on research findings and can help us in improving our cognitive abilities. I really liked playing the Lumosity games.
Jenny Brown 12:28 pm on October 23, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I thought that this was a fun tool. It was a good example, like you say of how adaptive/personalized learning could be set up in online applications. Like many others, I am not sure of its use in a regular K-12 classrooms due to the costs (it seems to be set up more to cater to adults) but it made me think of how in 20 years we might all be sitting around wearing our Google glasses and playing these types of games – so long will be printed crossword and Sudoku puzzles.
lullings 2:19 pm on October 23, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
kstackhouse already mentioned brain age games for the DS which is similar in content but lumosity does bring it to the next level and personalize the content as to what you want to focus on which is brilliant. The games are very well done and I definitely enjoyed them. The premise of the free for a while is a great hook as if there was an initial subscription required skepticism would win out I fear.
I really liked the expanding of the visual spectrum bird watching game – illustrated in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDuD_HvPcXY
As I work on screens all day I am finding that my field of focus has narrowed – this will be helpful counteracting that.
A mobile version of the site would be handy but I would question the ability to adapt the effectiveness of all the games to a smaller screen (particularly the bird watching one described above).
jhodi 6:09 pm on October 23, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I have been on Lumosity several times before this activity. I quite enjoy how the games that are chosen for me to play are based on the skills that I want to work on. I find these games extremely engaging and quite often find myself spending much more time than I originally plan playing. The games are very well made and when I reflect on the skill that each game is trying to work on, they are indeed working on that skill!
Jonathan 9:56 pm on October 23, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Lumosity — Quite amusing the first few times. I’m curious about how effective it really is though. Definitely a lot of fun to pinpoint the areas that you want to improve on. Does it really work after a lengthy period of time? I’m tempted to say yes but I really want to send someone through the program.
The first thing I did think about was that DS Game (as many of you have mentioned). Has there been an article on if people have gotten smarter using it?
This type of training does remind me of language training program called Rosetta Stone. With this, I’ve heard some great results and I’ve used it sporadically and the continuous flashing of cards and different games makes me want to believe that if Rosetta Stone can be successful then so Lumiosity.
If only there was some scientific testing to back it up?
Thanks for introducing it to us though, it does open my eyes about the immediate feedback. The future with personalized learning will look different. It has to and this is the beginning of one of those ideas.
jkotler 2:36 am on October 24, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Jonathan,
Since I was unable to finish going through Lumiosity as the pages seemed to not load properly, I cannot respond to how it fairs in comparison to other training programs like Rosetta Stone. I can however attest to the success of Rosetta Stone since I used it for a few months to learn Hebrew before I moved to Israel.
What I found was that it does a great job of teaching and practicing a language from all different aspects (reading, writing, speaking etc.) by using all sorts of interactive activities, but you obviously really need to be dedicated and vested in it. As well, I learned that it must be taken with a grain of salt because the language it teaches (at least for Hebrew) is more formal, so there were often times I would repeat something I had recently learned to my boyfriend, who is Israeli, and he would tell me that I sound great except nobody really speaks like that in everyday communication.
Going back to Lumiosity, I too am curious to learn what type of results it yields from its users.
Julie
manny 7:38 pm on October 24, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Upon experimenting with my 3 day free trial of luminosity, I found it to be rather engaging and at times challenging. We don’t often think of our brain as a muscle but in order for it to function at its full efficiency, we need to train it as often as possible. Although it was great for reaction time exercises, I think other puzzles such as sudoku offer other avenues through which one can keep sharp. There are also various apps out there (much cheaper) which can do similar things. I would love to use this site with my students but the only thing that turned me off was the high cost of creating a user. I believe it was somewhere around $5/month or lifetime subscription of $270.
visramn 4:23 pm on October 26, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I thought this was a very good learning tool. I work with kids who have a very hard time focussing and I can see how a program such as this that could be specialized to their areas of need in regards to focus and how it could be very beneficial. I enjoyed working on this activity and found that I was very engaged while being challenged at the same time. As the task got harder, I thought I would not be able to remember but I was surprised that I was able to in some cases. This activity taught me a lot about my memory and how my brain work. Thanks for introducing me to this tools.
Nureen
C. Ranson 5:05 pm on October 26, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Lumosity was an interesting learning tool. I focused on memory and attention, the tasks become more challening as you move through the program and this improves your engagement and competitive spirit to keep playing. Brain training seems very similiar to brain plasicity, I will continue to use my free days to enhance my brain activity. Personalized Learning has been a very interesting venture this week. In many way students create their own personalized learning within our educational system as a mechansim of survival to be successful in completing their programs. I have shared this tool with my colleagues, awaiting their feedback.
Catherine
teacherben 6:39 pm on October 26, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I had heard of this before on Lifehacker or Makeuseof or one of those and I think I even bookmarked it but never got around to visiting. It seems like it will be valuable and I will continue with it. With the activity where I had to remember the location of squares in a matrix I could feel my brain humming in hy head and was concentrating in a way that I don’t often get to. When I scored nine tiles, I spontaneously pumped my fist and shouted ‘yeah!’
Then, my 3-year old came over and started watching and asking a couple questions and I crumbled. Suddenly, very easy questions were tough. There was one where I had to locate a bird then choose a number that had been shown and even the easiest ones i was missing the number with my kid next to me chattering away. Interesting experience.
We spend a lot of time selecting the areas we want to work on. I would be interested to see how different our programs actually were. Did your research ever indicate what is going on under the hood or how many total activities there are and what each activity is supposed to enhance?
Eva Ziemsen 1:22 pm on October 27, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I enjoyed playing with Luminosity. It is interesting that I and also my colleagues use the word ‘play’ in this context, as the program does make it feel like a game, (even thought it is more of a training program). In that sense, it is a great example in terms of marketing learning, as a ‘fun’ and game-like. I thought it was interesting that it created a very personalized program for me, based on the initial questions (especially memory). The format of the games were also motivating, as there was a sense of reward when successful. Like my colleagues, I would love to know what research went into this program (what is going on behind the scenes)? I had heard of Luminosity before in the context of giving it to elderly people to help against Alzheimer’s disease, however, I spoke to a GP friend of mine about it and he did not think this would help. Instead, he recommended physical exercise. Again, to get to the bottom of this, I would need to conduct more research. Not sure if you guys came across this kind of material? Thanks for introducing us to this innovative program.
jenbarker 9:02 am on October 28, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I just joined Luminosity and completed all the activities. While I had a lot of fun and was quite engaged while doing the activities, I am not sure I am convinced that it could improve my brain functions. I wish there were a test in the beginning that you take, prior to doing any activities. Then after doing the activities for three weeks or so, you could take the test again to see your improvements. As someone who always has a lot of questions, I think I will look to try to find any research articles on this program because if it were backed by solid research, I may be more inclined to purchase a membership. I also would be interested to see other’s activities that were selected specifically for them, based on their answers. I was surprised with the activities they selected for me as they didn’t seem to match the priorities that I had selected. Either way, I really appreciated exposure to Luminosity. Great pick Week 8.
jenbarker 9:09 am on October 28, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
So I just went back to Luminosity to see if it was supported by Science and their is a Science Tab. Out of the five studies they cite, only two of them were done with ‘typical’ healthy individuals. The others were done with survivors of cancer, individuals with Turner’s syndrome, and patients with mild cognitive impairments. If I were to advise the executive team, I would strongly encourage them to put more money into research.
sophiabb 8:18 pm on October 28, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
The activities in Luminosity remind me of Brain Age. They held my attention – they challenged my focus, attention to details and response time. I am unsure as to what my BPI score really indicates. For example, my speed BPI is 292 – does this mean that my response time was very good, average or poor. The games were interesting but they would be more meaningful and applicable if I the BPI was better explained. It seems that there is a comparison in the ‘fee-for-service’ option, but I would not purchase without having a clearer /better explanation.
Sophia