Dangerously Irrelevant

Yesterday I concluded my series of posts related to gaming, cognition, and education. The purpose of the series was to illustrate some of the powerful learning principles that are present in video games, particularly role-playing games where a participant takes on the role of a character interacting with her environment and/or others. The learning principles that I discussed help explain why a kid who can’t sit still in class for five minutes can be mentally locked in for hours at home playing video games.

The series only highlighted 18 of the 36 learning principles described in Dr. Jim Gee’s book, What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy. I selected principles from the book that I thought were particularly powerful aspects of electronic learning environments. These principles are present in K-12 classrooms to varied extent, depending on the school and/or teacher. However, it is important to note that these principles, even when present, typically occur in K-12 classrooms only some of the time while for video games they are the bedrock foundation of the learning platform and are present nearly all of the time.

I think that video games, or virtual simulations, or whatever we want to call them, will be a key component of classrooms of the future. The learning principles and potential will be too powerful to ignore for much longer, particularly as we move closer to every student having some kind of computing device with him or her 24 hours a day. Also, educators are starting to recognize that the ability of computers to facilitate students’ self-paced learning can free up teachers to spend more time with students who need extra help or who are ready to move ahead. One of the biggest challenges for K-12 teachers is differentiating instruction for a classroom of students with greatly-varying ability levels. Computers running educationally-valuable electronic learning environments can help immensely with this issue and can be powerful tools for savvy educators.

As the educational and/or ‘serious’ games movement grows, we will begin to see complex, realistic, accurate simulations of ancient civilizations (e.g., Colonial Williamsburg, the Maya, Great Zimbabwe), historical events (e.g., the Pelopponesian War, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, the Long March), scientific and mathematical processes (e.g., space exploration, Archimedean physics, Euclidean geometry), and the like. I am looking forward to this day. Right now even the most popular education-oriented games (e.g., Reader Rabbit, JumpStart, Oregon Trail, Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?) have been notably simplistic compared to commercial virtual worlds such as Second Life, EverQuest, and World of Warcraft. I believe that education-oriented simulations will be much better at stimulating deeper, richer learning than the textbooks, videos, and learning games of today. It’s hard to argue that making authentic decisions in the role of a pharaoh or a slave or a farmer, while immersed in the realistic sights, sounds, and activities of ancient Egypt, wouldn’t be a better, more meaningful, and more permanent learning experience than merely reading a few textbook pages, seeing a few pictures, answering some “drill-and-kill” multiple choice questions on the computer, or watching a short video on the subject.

To facilitate easy dissemination to teachers and administrators (hint, hint!), this 8–page PDF document contains the text and hyperlinks from the week-long series:

• Gaming, Cognition, and Education.pdf

If you’d like to share the series with educators but would rather send them a URL, send them to this post. Here are links to all six posts:

• Day 1 – active learning, risk-taking, engaging
• Day 2 – amplification of input, rewards, lots of practice
• Day 3 – ongoing learning, regime of competence, probing
• Day 4 – multiple routes to success, contextualized meaning, multimodal learning
• Day 5 – subset of real domain, bottom-up basic skills, just-in-time information
• Day 6 – discovery learning, learning transfer, learner as producer

If you liked this series, please share freely and encourage others to do the same. In addition to the document and links above, here is another tool to help educators think about the cognitive and educational aspects of video games (any feedback you have on this would be welcome). Note that the spreadsheet can be initially completed by individuals or in small groups but must be done on a computer with Microsoft Excel.

• Gaming, Cognition, and Education Spreadsheet.xls

Today is the last day of my week-long series related to gaming, cognition, and education. Remember that I am approaching this issue with the following question in mind: Why is it that kids who can’t sit still in class for five minutes can be mentally locked in for hours at home playing video games? If you’re new to this series, check out the previous posts:

• Day 1 – active learning, risk-taking, engaging
• Day 2 – amplification of input, rewards, lots of practice
• Day 3 – ongoing learning, regime of competence, probing
• Day 4 – multiple routes to success, contextualized meaning, multimodal learning
• Day 5 – subset of real domain, bottom-up basic skills, just-in-time information

My guide for this series is Dr. Jim Gee at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, author of What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy. Today’s topics are discovery learning, learning transfer, learner as producer.

16. Gamers are discovery learners

Virtually every role-playing game requires participants to actively investigate the learning environment. As noted previously, this active learning aspect replicates real-life learning contexts and deepens overall knowledge and proficiency. Unlike many K-12 classrooms, video games rarely tell learners anything overtly. If games do, it’s usually planful and related to something small. All of the big discoveries – the conceptual breakthroughs – are left for the learner to discover in a structured, scaffolded way. Educators have long recognized the value of guided, inquiry-based learning methods, particularly for problem-solving, even if they have rarely implemented such methods on a large scale.

17. Gamers have many opportunities for learning transfer

One of the key outcomes that educators try to achieve with students is the transfer of learning from one context to another. In rapidly-changing societies such as ours, the ability to transfer and/or adapt existing knowledge and skills to new situations is an essential requirement for life success. Video games give participants many opportunities to practice already-acquired skills and to transfer their learning to new and different challenges. To succeed in video games, learners must not only exhibit near transfer (i.e., replication of prior learning to new, fairly similar, situations) but also far transfer (i.e., adaptation and modification of prior learning to substantively different contexts).

18. Gamers are producers and insiders, not just consumers

Like other modern technology tools (e.g., digital cameras and camcorders, podcasts, blogs, wikis), many video games allow learners to be producers of original content, not just consumers of pre-packaged material. Some of the most popular role-playing games (e.g., Second Life, EverQuest) have very sophisticated economies built upon user-created content. These video games have tools that allow for rich, individualized customization of the learning environment by participants. This stands in sharp contrast to the “one size fits all” instructional model that we see in many schools and classrooms, where teachers and textbooks are the insiders and “the learners are outsiders who must take what they are given as mere consumers” (Gee, 2003, p. 194). Control of the learning path, and perhaps the learning environment itself, can be powerfully motivating and engaging for learners.

Questions of the day

• How do the concepts discussed above map on to K-12 education?
• Are our K-12 classrooms set up . . . to facilitate discovery learning? to facilitate learning transfer, both near and far? to allow students to be producers and insiders, not just consumers?

Gaming and education resource 6

• Education Arcade

On Monday, I will wrap this all up and present a tool that can be used to help teachers and administrators discuss (and maybe reframe) their beliefs about gaming.

Tom Hoffman said in a recent post that "once one reaches a certain point of authority and popularity, one has to be more careful and deliberate about blogging." I’m not sure that I necessarily agree with Tom’s Spiderman-like view that "with great power comes great responsibility."

The act of blogging can have many purposes. One purpose might be to put forth oneself as an authoritative expert on certain topics. If this is the blogger’s intent, then I agree with Tom that the blogger better have his act together. Otherwise, his readers will see him as sloppy or, worse, a fraud and will move on to other experts whom they trust more. In this sense, a purported expert blogger would be similar to a book author who fabicates parts of a supposedly-true book, a televangelist who presents himself as a moral leader but then gets caught with prostitutes, or a university researcher who fabricates his results.

Another purpose of blogging might simply be to start a conversation. In this case, a blogger might throw some ideas up on her blog and see how others react, either through comments on that post or on their own blogs. We see this often in K-12 education and educational technology blogs – this is a time-honored purpose of blogging. Indeed, the primary purpose of this post is to spark some thinking and conversation about what I think is an interesting issue.

Yet another purpose of blogging might be to get stuff out of our heads. I know that this is an important aspect of blogging for me. I have way too much stuff floating around inside my cranium. Blogging lets me get some of it out, much like a safety valve on a pressure cooker.

There are, of course, many other purposes for blogging besides the ones that I have listed here. These include posting news items, exposing fraud or waste, connecting readers with resources, creating community, etc.

It seems to me that a blogger’s intent should be what we ultimately use to frame our judgments about her blog and/or particular posts. It may be that more of us need to clearly state the intentionality behind our blogs (perhaps via our About link) or particular posts, but I’m hesitant to say that a blogger’s post was irresponsible or inappropriate without knowing a little more about the blogger’s mind when she wrote it. For the blog post that Tom cited, it’s not clear what Vicki’s intent is, either for the individual post or for her blog generally.

I know that many of us are blogging for purposes other than because we feel we are authoritative experts on something. In the end, however, Tom’s post raises important questions about our ethical responsibilities to our readers. By blogging, do some of us become ‘public figures’ who accrue certain responsiblities to our audience? If so, do we then lose the ability to start conversations or get stuff out of our heads simply because too many others have found value in what we blog?

Today is Day 5 of my week-long series related to gaming, cognition, and education. Remember that I am approaching this issue with the following question in mind: Why is it that kids who can’t sit still in class for five minutes can be mentally locked in for hours at home playing video games? If you’re new to this series, check out the previous posts:

• Day 1 – active learning, risk-taking, engaging
• Day 2 – amplification of input, rewards, lots of practice
• Day 3 – ongoing learning, regime of competence, probing
• Day 4 – multiple routes to success, contextualized meaning, multimodal learning

My guide for this series is Dr. Jim Gee at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, author of What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy. Today’s topics are subset of real domain, bottom-up basic skills, and just-in-time information.

13. Video games can create subsets of a domain

One of the most powerful features of video games is their ability to simulate worlds: past, present, or future; real or fictional. The multimodal capabilities of video games allow participants to be immersed in rich, deep learning contexts. For example, instead of reading about the Civil War, learners can take the role of soldier, general, medic, battlefield photographer, news correspondent, and the like. At the same time, however, dropping a new learner into a complex world can be disorienting and discouraging. Video games can create a simplified subset of the real domain, a starting place where participants can safely become oriented to the new world before being exposed to the entire learning environment. The value of this cannot be understated. Imagine if you were an English-speaking American who was about to be dropped into the middle of South Korea. Wouldn’t it be nice if you had a chance for some safe and structured, but authentic, practice first? Gee (2003) sums this up nicely:

Learning is not started in a separate place (e.g., a classroom or textbook) outside the domain in which the learning is going to operate. At the same time, the learner is not thrown into the “real” thing – the full game – and left to swim or drown. (p. 122)

14. Video games effectively facilitate “bottom up” learning of basic skills

In early stages of video games, learners are exposed to critical fundamental skills that allow them to gradually engage in more complex actions. As Gee (2003) notes,

early situations and problems [are designed] in a quite sophisticated way to lead to fruitful learning. When later the player is confronted by harder situations and problems, he or she has just the right basis on which to make fruitful guesses about what to do. (p. 135)

These basic skills are learned in a “bottom up” fashion – by playing the game, not through decontextualized exercises. Indeed, the structured learning environments of video games typically are designed so effectively that

by the time new players are aware of what are basic skills . . . the basic elements that are used repeatedly and combined and often concentrated in the earlier episodes . . . they have already mastered them. (Gee, 2003, p. 136)

15. Video games facilitate “just in time” learning

The artificial intelligences that reside in video games can be structured to respond in different ways to participant activity. Computer-mediated learning environments thus can be designed to provide information “just in time” or on demand. There is a great deal power associated with just-in-time learning or resource acquisition. For example, in manufacturing and industry, the concept of just-in-time manufacturing allows companies to reduce inventory and cut costs, making them more efficient and effective. Similarly, just-in-time learning environments allow participants to acquire skills or knowledge when they need them and not before. This facilitates greater concentration in earlier stages on things that are important (rather than extraneous or unneeded); allows for greater individualization and customization; makes learning more fluid; and leads to more active, engaged, motivated learners.

Questions of the day

• How do the concepts discussed above map on to K-12 education?
• Are our K-12 classrooms set up . . . to create safe but authentic subsets of real learning domains? to help students invisibly learn important skills from the “bottom up?” to allow students to gain information only when they need it (i.e., when it can best be understood and put into practice)?

Gaming and education resource 5

• Social Impact Games

Here’s the schedule for the rest of the series:

• Saturday: discovery learning, learning transfer, learner as producer
• Monday: wrap-up

Today is Day 4 of my week-long series related to gaming, cognition, and education. Remember that I am approaching this issue with the following question in mind: Why is it that kids who can’t sit still in class for five minutes can be mentally locked in for hours at home playing video games? If you’re new to this series, check out the previous posts:

• Day 1 – active learning, risk-taking, engaging
• Day 2 – amplification of input, rewards, lots of practice
• Day 3 – ongoing learning, regime of competence, probing

My guide for this series is Dr. Jim Gee at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, author of What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy. Today’s topics are multiple routes to success, contextualized meaning, and multimodal learning.

10. Video games allow learners to follow their own paths

There is more than one path to success in most role-playing video games. The path that some players follow, or the choices that they make, can be different than the paths and choices of others and yet still lead to the next level. Those paths may take longer, or some choices may be better, but eventually each player gets to the next stage. By playing and replaying levels repeatedly in ways that are not boring, players can revise and refine their paths to success. Video games allow for individualized learning toward common outcomes.

11. Gamers make meaning within embodied experiences

Because video games have the capacity to create complex, experiential simulations, participants’ learning is situated within learning environments that are fairly authentic, at least within the paradigm of the game framework. In other words, learning is not decontextualized, like a multiple choice item or writing prompt might be, but instead is rooted within the ongoing development of the skills, knowledge, and behaviors necessary to be successful in the game environment. For example, instead of reading about a blacksmith or watching a video about a blacksmith, gamers learn by actually being blacksmiths. Participants’ understanding is thus deeper because it is embodied within simulated (and often very real) experiences.

12. Learning in video games is multimodal

Most educators know about the theories of multiple intelligences and learning styles. The basic idea is that students learn differently and have different strengths. Teachers thus should try to facilitate multiple paths to learning and attempt to create different ways for students to show their mastery of content material. Most video games seamlessly integrate three of our five senses: sight, sound, and touch. If we ever figure out a way to implement Smell-o-vision or Odorama with our computers (click here to learn more about digital scent technology!), participants also may experience different smells while gaming. Because they can simultaneously utilize images, text, sound, interactions, abstract design, and so on (Gee, 2003, p. 210), video games are better able to simulate real-life experiences than can printed text, audio, or video. This makes learning more authentic, more engaging, and more compelling.

Questions of the day

• How do the concepts discussed above map on to K-12 education?
• Are our K-12 classrooms set up . . . to allow students to travel their individualized and unique learning paths? to create embodied, authentic learning experiences that are not decontextualized or overgeneralized? to facilitate multimodal learning as the dominant pedagogical model?

Gaming and education resource 4

• Serious Games Initiative

Here’s the schedule for the rest of the series:

• Friday: subset of real domain, bottom-up basic skills, just-in-time information
• Saturday: discovery learning, learning transfer, learner as producer
• Monday: wrap-up

Forty-one states use the about ISLLC:

As Director of the UCEA Center for the Advanced Study of Technology Leadership in Education (CASTLE), I would like to see ISLLC better reflect the technology leadership-related needs of school administrators. All sectors of society are being radically and rapidly transformed as a result of digital information and communication technologies. Although K-12 schools are moving more slowly on this front than other societal sectors, nonetheless I think that any standards document that is meant to guide administrative preparation and practice for the next decade or so must explicitly recognize the unique leadership challenges and considerations related to digital technologies.

When I say there needs to be a greater and explicit focus on technology leadership, I’m not talking about skills training (e.g., how to use PowerPoint or a PDA). I’m talking about the leadership necessary to facilitate effective and appropriate technology usage by teachers and students; efficiently utilize administrative technology systems to run the organization, communicate with stakeholders, and organize data; understand important legal, ethical, and policy issues; adequately support employee technology usage; and so on. In short, the leadership skills necessary to create schools that are adequately preparing students to live in what we know will be a technology-suffused, globally-interconnected world.

If you have some thoughts or beliefs about what administrative standards ought to look like for the next decade or two, I strongly suggest that you . Feel free to cc me – – I’d love to see what you say!

Today is Day 3 of my week-long series related to gaming, cognition, and education. Remember that I am approaching this issue with the following question in mind: Why is it that kids who can’t sit still in class for five minutes can be mentally locked in for hours at home playing video games? If you’re new to this series, check out the previous posts:

• Day 1 – active learning, risk-taking, engaging
• Day 2 – amplification of input, rewards, lots of practice

My guide for this series is Dr. Jim Gee at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, author of What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy. Today’s topics are ongoing learning, regime of competence, and probing.

7. Video game participants are constantly learning, unlearning, and relearning

In most video games, particularly role-playing games, participants must continually unpack prior learning and undo previously-routinized behaviors in order to learn new skills that allow them to progress and be successful. In other words, participants cannot function on ‘autopilot’ for long before the video game requires them to do something different to reach a new and higher level. As Gee notes

Several educators have argued that this cycle of automatization of skills through practice, rethinking this automatization when faced with new conditions in order to learn new skills and transform old ones, and then perfecting these new skills through further practice that once again leads to automatization is the very foundation of intelligent practice in the world. . . . A cycle of automatization, adaptation, new learning, and new automatization is a sine qua non of learning for those who want to survive as active thinkers and actors in a fast changing world. (pp. 69-70)

8. Video games continually and appropriately challenge learners

Video games are structured so that learners constantly operate at the outer edge of their competence. Participants are continually challenged but the challenges are not so difficult that learners believe they are undoable. Gee refers to this as the regime of competence principle. Lev Vygotsky, a famous developmental psychologist, called this concept the zone of proximal development – the area in which students are ready to grow. Video games are similar to teachers in that they take the role of what Vygotsky called the ‘more knowledgeable other,’ the entity that helps students bridge the gap between their current ability and new capabilities. In education, we often call this scaffolding – the idea that learners can progress to new skill levels with structured, individualized, just-in-time assistance. Video games are very adept at scaffolding participants’ learning. One of the reasons that video games are so compelling / engaging / ‘addictive’ is that participants are continually faced with new challenges that are neither too easy nor too difficult. This motivates them to move forward because the next step is always in sight and is perceived as being achievable.

9. Video games foster active, reflective investigation

Gee points out that most good video games require learners to

• probe the virtual world by exploring, looking around, moving items, clicking on something, etc.;
• form a hypothesis about what something in the game might mean based on reflection while probing and afterward;
• reprobe the world with that hypothesis in mind to see what effect occurs; and
• treat this effect as feedback from the world and accept or rethink the original hypothesis. (p. 90)

These four stages reflect how expert scientists approach their tasks and embody the process by which children and adults learn when they’re not in school. In other words, this probe-hypothesis-reprobe-rethink process is "central to how humans learn things" (p. 91). This model of learning is underutilized in schools, however, as curricula and other pressures often result in a focus on memorization of facts rather than on teaching students how to discover, decode, and test patterns of thinking and meaning. The latter, of course, is an essential skill for individuals living in an everchanging global society.

Questions of the day

• How do the concepts discussed above map on to K-12 education?
• Are our K-12 classrooms set up . . . to allow students to continually learn, unlearn, and relearn at higher levels? to have students work at their own pace and  individualized levels of challenge? to foster active, reflective investigation?

Gaming and education resource 3

• The Innovate special issue on gaming in education

Here’s the schedule for the rest of the series:

• Thursday: multiple routes to success, contextualized meaning, multimodal learning
• Friday: subset of real domain, bottom-up basic skills, just-in-time information
• Saturday: discovery learning, learning transfer, learner as producer
• Monday: wrap-up

Today I continue my week-long series related to gaming, cognition, and education. If you recall from yesterday, I am approaching this issue with the following question in mind: Why is it that kids who can’t sit still in class for five minutes can be mentally locked in for hours at home playing video games?

My guide for this series is Dr. Jim Gee at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, author of What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy. In addition to discussing some key concepts from Gee’s book, each day I also will highlight a gaming-related resource for K-12 educators. Next Monday I will wrap up the series and provide a tool that can be used to help teachers and administrators discuss (and maybe reframe) their beliefs about gaming.

Today’s topics are amplification of input, rewards, and practice. I’d love some comments on the Questions of the Day, either for today or yesterday.

4. Video games give a lot of output for just a little input

One of the key characteristics of video games is that they operate according to what Gee calls the amplification of input principle. In a video game, you can push a few buttons here and there, or type a few words with your keyboard, and an entire immersive environment springs forth to engage you. Gee notes that this principle is present in other domains as well. For example, think of the output that you get (e.g., you can drive halfway across the country) by simply moving your foot up and down on the gas pedal of your car. Amplification of input is a powerfully motivating feature of video games because learners can put in just a little and still get a lot back out. This encourages them to put in a little more to see what else they might get.

5. In video games, learners get rewards from the very beginning

Another significant feature of video games is that participants get rewards from the very beginning. These rewards, both intrinsic and extrinsic, send messages of success to learners and encourage them to continue to play to gain additional rewards. Extrinsic rewards might include new character lives, greater wealth, more points or coins, etc. Examples of intrinsic rewards include satisfaction with character progress or growth, expanded interconnection with other characters, greater understanding and knowledge, and so on. Importantly, these rewards are individually customized to each learner as he or she progresses further through the gaming environment.

6. Gamers get lots of non-boring practice

As Gee notes, people “need to practice what they are learning a good deal before they master it” (p. 68). Moreover, if they don’t continue to practice, they lose much of their previously-acquired skill and knowledge (e.g., how much do you remember about sine, cosine, and tangent?). Because they provide opportunities, for active, interactive learning, video games do an excellent job of allowing learners to practice skills and mentally ingrain existing knowledge in ways that are engaging, not boring. One of the keys to this is the fact that video games embed learning within meaningful contexts rather than being decontextualized like “drill and kill” worksheets or homework problem sets. Video games also facilitate learners’ acquisition of self-selected goals rather than goals that are externally imposed by others.

Questions of the day

• How do the concepts discussed above map on to K-12 education?
• Are our K-12 classrooms set up . . . to give students a lot of output for just a little input? to provide, from the very beginning, both intrinsic and extrinsic rewards for learning? to allow students opportunities for non-boring practice within meaningful contexts and on self-selected learning goals?

Gaming and education resource 2

• Prensky, M. (2006). Don’t bother me Mom – I’m learning! St. Paul, MN: Paragon House. See also Prensky’s companion web site: www.gamesparentsteachers.com.

Here’s the schedule for the rest of the series:

• Wednesday: ongoing learning, regime of competence, probing
• Thursday: multiple routes to success, contextualized meaning, multimodal learning
• Friday: subset of real domain, bottom-up basic skills, just-in-time information
• Saturday: discovery learning, learning transfer, learner as producer
• Monday: wrap-up

Educators and parents are quick to disparage video games – they’re a ‘waste of time,’ they’re ‘too violent,’ or they lead to repetitive stress injuries (nintendinitis). And yet, even non-gamers like myself can recognize that there’s something going on when a kid who can’t sit still in class for five minutes can be mentally locked in for hours at home playing video games.

Today I kick off a week-long series of posts that discuss gaming, cognition, and education. Although my comments this week primarily will focus on children and adolescents, my discussion also should be relevant to college students and other adult learners. This series of posts is based on the superb book, What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy, by Dr. Jim Gee at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In addition to discussing some key concepts from Gee’s book, each day I will highlight a gaming-related resource for K-12 educators. Next Monday I will wrap up the series and provide a tool that can be used to help teachers and administrators discuss (and maybe reframe) their beliefs about gaming.

So… without further ado, here are some learning principles that are present in most video games, particularly role-playing games where a participant takes on the role of a character interacting with his environment and/or others.

1. Video games are set up to encourage active, not passive, learning

All video games require participants to be actively involved in their own learning. Gamers, particularly those in role-playing games, rarely sit passively and receive information. Instead they must actively explore, hypothesize, experiment, reflect upon, critique, move about, interact, etc. As children navigate complex gaming spaces, they learn to think of these gaming environments as spaces that both manipulate them and can be manipulated by them. This is very much like real life (or ‘meatspace,’ as some virtual denizens call it!).

2. In video games, ‘learners can take risks where real-world consequences are lowered’ (Gee, p. 207)

Video games provide places where participants can safely take risks. When a gamer fails, at worst she ‘loses a life’ or has to start over, often not at the beginning but in a slightly reduced state that allows her to retain nearly all of the skills, knowledge, power, capabilities, progress, etc. that she has gained thus far. This gaming principle entices children to try, even if they (rightly) believe that they will fail at first.

3. Gaming environments are compelling to participants

The proof that gaming environments are compelling to those playing them lies in the fact that gamers are willing to play a game repeatedly and often. Gamers put in a lot of effort as they try different ways of doing things, try to get further than they did before, explore new variations in areas where they already have been successful, etc. Gamers are mentally engaged – often quite deeply – with the learning environment as they try, fail, try again, fail again, try yet again, fail yet again, and so on.

Questions of the day

• How do the concepts discussed above map on to K-12 education?
• Are our K-12 classrooms set up . . . to encourage active rather than passive learning? to be places where students can safely take risks? to be mentally-engaging and -compelling learning environments where students will try repeatedly despite possible and/or actual failure?

Gaming and education resource 1

• Gee, J. P. (2004). What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.

Here’s the schedule for the rest of the series:

• Tuesday: amplification of input, rewards, lots of practice
• Wednesday: ongoing learning, regime of competence, probing
• Thursday: multiple routes to success, contextualized meaning, multimodal learning
• Friday: subset of real domain, bottom-up basic skills, just-in-time information
• Saturday: discovery learning, learning transfer, learner as producer
• Monday: wrap-up

It’s important to acknowledge when you have made a mistake. I made one that I definitely should have caught – as an attorney, I’m a little embarrassed about this one.

Michael Ayers of The Commonwealth Practice, Ltd. has helped me determine that the twelve Gallup questions I posted about in Are schools vibrant workplaces? are actually copyrighted by The Gallup Organization with the United States Copyright Office. Not only are the questions under copyright, apparently they’re big business for Gallup. Gallup even sued another company to prevent it from using the questions in its own work with corporations. Apparently they’re not just any questions, they’re THE questions that corporations should ask to retain talented employees. Companies pay Gallup to administer employee surveys and/or for permission to use the questions. This means that I can’t host an online survey for a school organization that wanted to ask its employees these questions without getting Gallup’s permission first.

I don’t usually find copyright issues very interesting, but this one has been illuminating for me (I guess because of my personal involvement). As an attorney, I think it’s interesting to hear that Gallup is so protective of those questions. As I told Michael in an e-mail exchange, I think the concept of being able to copyright sentences or statements is a strange one. For example, could someone lay claim to the phrases, "How are you doing?" or "What do you think are the biggest challenges facing your organization?" It’s not like this is a marketing / branding / commercial slogan ("Where’s the beef?").

Nonetheless, even under a four-factor copyright analysis, Gallup would win if I used these questions without permission and it decided to sue me in court. It has an economic interest in this set of questions, one that’s apparently large enough to justify it going all the way to the federal Eighth Circuit Court (one level below the United States Supreme Court) to uphold its claim.

Obviously I wasn’t trying to set myself up in economic competition with Gallup. Indeed, I was actually trying to plug the concepts behind the questions and the book by Buckingham and Coffman (which is excellent, by the way, if you’re interested in company climate / employee satisfaction issues).

In the end, it’s too bad this is true. Schools aren’t going to pay Gallup for this but some of them would really benefit from the information. It may be possible that I can work something out with Gallup for the occasional request by a K-12 organization.

So read the book if this is the kind of thing that interests you. It’s superb. And please support Creative Commons.