Clipsheet

Quoted: Nete Schmidt is a Scandinavian studies professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison.  She spent most of her life in Denmark.

“You can choose to go two ways.  You can ignore the weather or you can embrace the weather, and I think that in Denmark, I just chose to ignore the weather,” Schmidt said.

Noted: Games where a player takes on another person’s perspective or becomes immersed in a specific environment can be beneficial in building positive interpersonal relationships, according to Tammi Kral, a research assistant at the Center for Healthy Minds at University of Wisconsin-Madison who is not affiliated with Junub Games or Salaam. Kral says that as video game developers explore the potential for games to inspire “prosocial” behavior, they would do well to collaborate with psychologists and behavioral scientists who understand the impact of games on specific brain networks.

Noted: The November meeting did draw some reading experts — including UW-Madison cognitive neuroscientist Mark Seidenberg and Madison reading advocate Laurie Frost — who have been publicly critical of the district’s teaching approach to reading. When they spoke, Morateck emphasized that the meeting was meant for parents, not the community at large, although she did not ask anyone to leave.