design + edu + project mgmt
Paul Tough’s book, How Children Succeed, recently put the spotlight on character development in education. He examines education, psychology and neuroscience in an effort to provide evidence for what what we know intuitively: that character is as important as intelligence in producing productive members of society, and though intelligence level is relatively fixed, character can be learned. …
I revel in failure. The size of a failure correlates with the size of the the opportunity it offers. Failure is how we learn. It helps us evolve and grow as individuals and as a society, which is why I was surprised to see a very public aversion to failure at the Games for Change Festival last week. The festival attendees were roughly split between designers and educators, and everyone had come together to discuss the development of interactive experiences that enact real change. During one session, a teacher admonished game designers for producing what I, too, consider the scourge
I was reading recently about sustainability in the U.S. and abroad, and I was curious if games could teach me about sustainability. Sust., a Scottish company, has created a pair of flash-based games that teach the basic concepts of sustainability. The games are a mix of short videos and interactive questions that ask the player to make responsible, eco-friendly decisions relating to building and lifestyle. In both these games by Sust. the Sustainability Meter is the scoring system, and it fluctuates depending on your answers to multiple choice questions. Sust. Environment Game explains the fundamentals of sustainability; location, energy usage, water usage, waste
An interesting perspective on Gamification from designer and author Gabe Zichermann. He points out that people often ask, “Do games help children?”, instead of asking a more useful question, ” What kind of help do games provide?”. Evidence shows that at least part of the “help” games offer is an increase in fluid intelligence (i.e. critical thinking) because games continuously focus on 5 things that encourage growth of gray matter in the brain- seeking novelty, challenge yourself, thinking creatively, doing things the hard way, and networking. Combine that with the positive reinforcement that is intrinsic to games (we wouldn’t make
At least three notable universities, Harvard, Yale and Stanford are pushing the envelope in higher education by offering their “product” for free. This is wonderful news, but I can’t help but wonder – what are they getting out of this? If this model is anything like we’ve seen in the past, the currency is information. But how will they use it? We’ve seen information-as-currency model work for tech companies like Google, Facebook and Amazon. The warm fuzzy feeling many of us get when we think about them is an intricate ruse to court and keep us so we’ll keep feeding them information about
I returned from the CAEL International conference last week with a renewed interest in adult education. Anymore, it seems like there are few “traditional” students and the education system has failed to support adult learners in getting credit for what they know. The contemporary workforce is increasingly expected to be more technically adept, well-rounded and agile, and yet there is little support for adult learners in the higher education system. Think about how many things you’re managing when you do something as simple as cook dinner; raw ingredients, cooking times, cross contamination, seasoning, presentation. Now think about a job in