Play with Learning

If you go down to the woods today

sunlight through trees

I have found my feet.  Literally.  The new flexibility I’m enjoying with my business has allowed me to rediscover the benefits of walking.  Especially walking in the countryside – through woods, away from the busy streets.  Such apparently frivolous activity has tangible benefits: without wanting to state the absolutely obvious, it is good for you.  Not just physically but mentally too.

Stephen Kaplan’s research (pdf) describes the benefit as Attention Restoration Theory.  It states that interacting with nature dramatically improves cognitive function (compared to being in a urban environment).  In a post on Science Blogs, Jonah Lehrer explains “that nature, unlike a city, is filled with inherently interesting stimuli (like a sunset, or an unusual bird) that trigger our involuntary attention, but in a modest fashion. Because you can’t help but stop and notice the reddish orange twilight sky – paying attention to the sunset doesn’t take any extra work or cognitive control – our attentional circuits are able to refresh themselves.”  In contrast, urban environments demand our attention giving us little mental space to rest and reflect.  In an article for the New York Times (pdf), Lehrer goes on to speculate that these same physio-neurological responses might also help us think up new ideas.

It’s an exciting thought.  And obviously there’s no substitute for the real thing but it seems that we can fake it if necessary.

Dave Munger talks about replicating ‘natural’ environments inside rooms to improve the effects of a study break.  Apparently even murals of natural scenes have a greater positive impact on our cognitive ability than the more normal window view of another building.

If it can work with murals, how else might we manufacture it?  It’s made me wonder how else we could achieve these benefits in circumstances that are far away from those woody glades.  And not just in physical spaces.  Virtual ones too.  The increasing busyness of our online lives gives us less time and space to concentrate on one thing, let alone reflect on it.  This isn’t just about formal or informal learning online, it’s about satisfaction and meaning generally.

Maybe there are lessons we can draw from our ‘biophilia,’ the tendency to prefer natural things. Can we incorporate the textures, colours, sounds and rhythms of nature into digital content in a way that seduces our brains?  Can we recreate nature’s ‘structure’ to improve our synthetic experiences? It’s an intriguing thought.

I think I need another stroll.

Knowledge is power to do more…

history

A few months ago I wrote of the growing belief among young people that Google removes the need to know anything.  However, it seems that the pursuit of knowledge seems to be on the rise in two very different quarters.

Micheal Gove, the UK Education Secretary, in his recently announced review of the National Curriculum, has reiterated his long-standing commitment to “essential knowledge,” that is names, facts and figures that create a “connected narrative” in traditional subjects such as History.

In the technology world, two high profile recent initiatives make access to contextualised knowledge even easier.  Qwiki is still in alpha but already it is a remarkable new way of presenting content.  It describes itself as “working to deliver information in a format that’s quintessentially human – via storytelling instead of search” – it turns information into an experience.  Of course it is something that good teachers have always done but what makes Qwiki so interesting and exciting is that it integrates and packages disparate web content on fly.  Look up “Sheffield” as I did for example and it returns a narrated slideshow that outlines the history and culture of the city.  Every scene offers more depth and related material.  It is pretty impressive stuff.

Quora is a social network for questions rather than an aggregator.  It creates an organic conversation between community members in response to posted queries.  It is a great way to gather opinion (although credibility and trustworthiness are entirely dependent on community votes).  It is fascinating to see the expertise the dialogue draws in and the access it offers to contemporary thinkers and personalities (I saw interesting response by Dustin Moskovitz to the film Social Network).  Both of these sites make information more accessible.

simply knowing stuff doesn’t make us better thinkers

However, simply knowing stuff doesn’t make us better thinkers, more creative or able to solve new problems.  But I am intrigued by the possibilities offered by the unparalleled access to information we now enjoy.  I sympathise with idea that we should be armed with core knowledge because I believe it makes it easier to progress to and develop the higher order thinking skills of analysis, synthesis and evaluation.  Without an initimate grasp of the Fundamentals, it is harder to make unlooked for connections. At the same time, it would be a real mistake if we confused knowledge of facts and figures with creativity or initative.

I hope we don’t see this renewed interest in information as the Be All and End All – it could be the start of something much much more interesting.

Six word story

words

I love the way that we can use new technologies to make learning and creativity more accessible.  Six word story is a great example.  The premise is self-explanatory and the storytelling takes place on Twitter.

The thing I like most about it is the parsimony of the format – you can’t be flabby or lazy and you quickly discover that writing fewer words is harder than spouting volumes.  Scarcity breeds invention.

Have a go! As well as stetching your literary muscles, you might win a copy of JM Tohline’s new book in the process.

Simple things help us live life.

Page-turning isn’t learning

next

Electronic page turning is the bane of e-learning.  The lazy tendency to translate traditional educational resources into the equivalent of online books undermines both the credibility and effectiveness of web-based learning because it ignores all the interactive potential of the medium.  Pressing ‘Next’ to move on a screen is a dumb device to progress.  It requires no thinking and simply assumes that user has ‘completed’ the screen.  It often creates a situation when users blindly click next without even considering the content before them.

Having said that, in order to break up large amounts of content into more manageable chunks, users require some form of simple control.  Many argue that it’s better to have more screens with less content on each than fewer screens weighed down with information.

For a project I’m working on at the moment, rather than resort to a Next button to move through material, we’re adapting a successful class technique championed by Doug Lemov of Uncommon Schools.  He calls it “No Opt Out.”  It’s the requirement that students must give the right answer.  It’s a way of avoiding the demotivating and disengaging “Don’t know” response that often occurs when students are asked questions without warning.  More often than not, the verbal shrug leaves the student abandoned as the tutor poses the question to someone else.  Lemov argues that such an approach leaves lazy, timid or disengaged students behind – bad for the individual and bad for the class.  In the face of such a response, he suggests a number of strategies:

1. You provide the answer and the student repeats it back
2. Another student provides the answer; the initial student repeats it back
3. You, or another student, provides a cue and the original student uses it to find the answer

It means that even if a student struggles initially, he always gives the right answer in the end.  It’s a good, if tough, motivator.

I’m taking the principles of No Opt Out and applying them to controlling the progress through online content.  Rather use static ‘next’ buttons, we’re embedding the functionality to move on into hotspots which are associated with clear call to action.  The hotspots relate to content and users must demonstrate their understanding of material by identifying and clicking on the correct item.  For example, users are asked to click on the only invertebrate in a collection of creatures to access the next screen.  It’s a method that combines micro-assessment with navigation.  It’s almost game-like in its presentation because of the ‘treasure hunt’ element to it.  Indeed, by stripping the screen of obvious navigation controls and focussing on content, it promotes the discovery learning that characterises many games.  It forces active engagement.

Of course it’s an approach that will irritate some users because of the apparent pettiness of the challenge but the one thing it will go some way to addressing is ensuring that the experience isn’t one of simply turning the page.

Who’s looking at you?

visitor stats

One of the most potent aspects of Facebook, and to a lesser extent Flickr,  Twitter and alike, is the opportunity it gives us to pry.  Like looking into curtainless windows after dark, we get a unique insight into the lives of other people.  We know they’re not faking their profiles – there are too many witnesses for them to misrepresent themselves.  And yet they have no idea we’ve been looking.  It’s a seductive inequality.  But doesn’t it also intrigue us about who has been looking in on our lives.

see someones interest scam

Despite an abundance of stats, it is notoriously difficult to determine who exactly has visited.  Even in closed spaces like Facebook, you cannot find out which of your friends popped by unless they leave a comment or a ‘Like’.  Although currently there’s a rash of scams promising to divulge this information, it is impossible to learn who’s simply had a nose around.  In fact, Facebook provides less visitor information than just about any other social site despite tracking exactly what each of us is doing and supposedly being a community of ‘friends.’  Flickr and LinkedIn both provide quantitative stats describing views but nothing about who.

However, it is precisely this sort of information that makes these sites so commercially valuable.  Google, Amazon, even Facebook, make significant amounts of money from tracking our every move and translating it into personalised advertising.  Every click, search or view on their sites helps them to refine their marketting algorithms, honing their understanding of our behaviour in an attempt to distill our essence into something useful.

Wouldn’t it be fascinating to know who has been interested in us?  It’s clearly of commercial value, don’t you think there could be social capital there too?  Would it help build relationships by exposing the degree of attention we give to each other: highlighting particular areas of common ground but without the need to actually contribute anything tangible?  Would help reduce anti-social online behaviour?  Back in 1973, the psychologist, R J Watson, identified the negative social effect of anonymity and the associated lack of accountability. Maybe, open transactions might make the web a safer place?

Big Business already has this information about us but looks at it from a purely commercial perspective.  What could we do with it?

Where games meet learning

game progress

In earlier posts, I’ve looked at the research evidence for and against the learning potential for games and how play in general relates to learning.  This post looks at the overlap between games and learning.  Although many people become quite aerated about definitions, for the sake of today’s note, I’m simply using ‘games’ to mean rule-based play.

In their 2005 report for Becta, Richard Sandford and Ben Williamson describe computer games as “ideal learning environments” where the important educational aspect of gaming is not what is being learnt but how – a recognition of a game’s tendency to promote higher order skills, that is independent critical thinking.  Computer games display three significant characteristics to facilitate learning:

• Control;
• Practise;
• Presence.

The level of interactivity that is possible within a computer game gives a player unparalleled control over content. This control enables him to manipulate a ‘system’ and observe the consequences. In doing so, a player discovers the underlying rules and relationships that drive the environment and can formulate strategies to achieve the given aims.

The increasing complexity and difficulty within computer games requires dedication and practise to resolve. This repeated exposure to challenges encourages problem-solving skills and the refinement of thinking.  Those improving skills reveal the game world rules and provide the basis for new application of those same skills to later and evolved problems and situations.

The themes and narrative of many computer games encourages players to identify with on-screen characters and situations. This identification stimulates a sense of presence and association with the events unfolding within the game. This presence often utilises specific environments, vocabulary and language which is particularly valuable the objective is real world training.   Even in non-realistic environments, players will combine the role-playing aspects of controlling an avatar or character with their own attitudes and desires and therefore experience some degree of cognitive or affective change, that is to say, they’ll change their outlook on a particular issue.

There are two forms of learning associated with game play:

1. Understanding the game environment, structures and interface
2. Understanding the game content

The first point, at first sight, appears relatively superficial and simply enables the player to complete the current game task. However, players demonstrate a wide range of skills in accomplishing even the simplest activity within the game environment. These skills may be transferable and have application elsewhere. Although the tendency is to only think of motor skills (particularly when considering ‘twitch’ games) game play often requires the successful deployment of higher order skills such as synthesis and problem solving. Obviously, these skills are highly valuable in real-world contexts but require relevant translation. This translation is a skill in its own right.

The second form of learning is often perceived as more valuable, and the rationale for almost all educational games. In most cases, the game contexts for this learning are realistic ones, that is virtual facsimiles of aspects of life even abstract activities such as financial calculations .  The game continuum describes the transparency of learning related with game world.

It is not just the characteristics of game play itself that makes games potentially useful for learning, they have a number of features that make them desirable learning environments:

• Opportunities for reflection and evaluation
• Access to feedback on performance
• Record progress
• Purposeful interactivity
• Achieving learning objectives
• Opportunities to collaborate, investigate or experience
• Chance to correct and learn from errors

These game ‘mechanics’ are highly transferable attributes that encourage greater effectiveness and engagement within resources of any kind and we’re increasingly seeing them deployed in all sorts of domains in the emerging process of ‘gamification’.  I’ll expand on them in a later post but I’d be interested in your thoughts about gaming’s other learning characteristics.What else do they offer?

New Year’s Revolution

calendar

I’m excited about this year. I’m not one for making New Year’s resolutions but this year is something of a revolution because I have something better. A new business. A new opportunity.

After years of working as an academic, for the BBC and a couple of great independent media companies, I have started my own business, Play with Learning; this blog is its online face.

I’ve decided to take the experience and expertise I’ve gained from working in educational media over the last 16 years and translate it into a service I can offer to a wider audience.  Play with Learning is my vehicle for working with partners to create meaningful experiences.  I want to exploit the combination of academic rigour, editorial integrity, innovative creativity and robust project management to provide real value both for content providers and end-users.

So what am I actually going to do? Three things, all focussed on optimising the user experience:

• Concept design and testing – helping to establish the most effective solution to needs and requirement for proposals and pre-production and then testing them with users during development
• Creative direction – helping teams to maintain the highest level of quality during production by acting as a ‘critical friend’
• Evaluation – helping to assess impact and return-on-investment on delivered products and services

I’m excited about it.  Maybe we could work together?  Why not drop me a line?  I’d love to see what opportunities there are for us.