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13-Year-Old CEO Steals the Show At TiECON
An anonymous reader tells us about a 13-year old Silicon Valley CEO with a plan to change the way kids learn chemistry. Yesterday he stole the show at TiECON 2007, the big entrepreneur conference held in Santa Clara, CA. VentureBeat has the story and a video interview. The company's VP of sales is the CEO's sister. She's 11. They're looking for $100K to ramp up production and distribution.
Err, that's the whole point of the article.
At least that help to demonstrate that a CEO only need to know how to make a keynote. Technical knowledge, experience, ... : that's only required for low salary workers.
I would've been helpful if there was a link to his site in the summary.
11-year old... shouldn't this be 'senior' VP of sales?
This is just a tacky thing that sounds fun to a 13-year-old
That's the whole point. It's not meant for those studying year 12 chemistry, its meant for kids. Nobody is teaching thirteen year olds "the procedure for a titration? The workings of an atomic absorption spectrometer? Electron configurations? Secondary interactions?" They are teaching them the basic concepts of chemistry that this game attempts to put forward.
I can't find the link to it on Scott Adam's site, and out of courtesy to him I won't link it without his permission. If you've followed Dilbert for at least the last ~13 or so years, it was an early one. Something to the effect of an older engineer giving a younger guy a coin with a dialogue box that said "Here's a nickle, kid. Go get a real operating system."
I only think of that because theres so little info in the article about the actual company, so I can't comment positivily on these smart kids innovative skills.
I actually am rather impressed by the youth of today. They get a bad rep. I'm relying on them to undo a lot of the damange my generation is going to do, if they haven't already started.
~WBGG
PS if anyone has more links pertaining to this, please publish them!
~WBGG~ "And I'm so sad like a good book I can't put this Day Back a sorta fairytale with you" ~Tori Amos
Somehow I think the 'anonymous' reader that told them about these two are the parents whom are the real individuals pushing and pulling the product. I'd be willing to bet the kids are just a gimmick to get investor interest in the novelty of their age.
Silver is used in jewlery, mirrors, coins, photography, silverware, electronic products, coatings of foods, and instruments. Expensive, though, but not for the queen! Sounds like a hoot!
One of my Many, Many, many majors was Chemistry, So I can sort of see where you are coming from. However, as the parent of a teenager who just doesn't have ANY interest in chemistry, I have to say this is a good idea. A quick check before typing this reveals that while he has no idea what a noble gas is, he can tell you everything that is written on any Pokemon or Digimon card ever made. If you make the things that you are required to have a basic grasp of into a game, you are going to make a lot of kids initial foray into science less of a nightmare, without so much risk of building a hatred of the subject that will cripple their learning for the rest of their lives.
Why, yes, I AM a Pagan Libertarian.
Childhood is a precious time and I would not want my kids of that age to be doing this sort of thing. Childhood is something that should be treasured and nurtured. It is very sad they way that kids are rushed to adulthood so they can become consumer units. I find the sight of 10 year old adults quite pathetic.
I find it kind of sad. Yeah, the world probably needs the capitalistic natural selection to move forward, but I'd wish the kids would aspire for something else too, apart from trying to be rich.
The kid's idea is stupid anyway, sure you can roleplay very basic things with it by providing an analogy, but that analogy doesn't work consistently and does not allow for a deeper understanding of chemistry. So unless you are satisfied with the "iron card and oxigen card equals rust card", it does not allow for a deeper understanding. Don't tell me kids are not supposed to learn more at that (around twelve) age, you're probably expecting too little of them.
Either this kid is a gifted one, in which case he'd better spending his time working on something that has use or he's not and probably articles like this are doing a disservice by encouraging him and by taking his idea seriously. The kid apparently has charisma, but that is only enough for deluding people.
Talking about public education, initiatives like this boy's degrade education. For example not teaching children proper algorithms for basic multiplication, division and addition but instead encouraging them to come up with their own reasoning is the equivalent of starting a coding project with two tonnes of sand and some heavy metals. Most of the kids fail at it. It is not against self development and creativity to build upon the work of others, as progress is incremental.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
Either you're teaching them something or you're entertaining them. Pick one. A 13y old is more than capable of learning about a lot of things, because for example I remember doing so at that age. Science education in the USA is notoriously less than what could and should be taught.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
I'd spend it all on hookers and blow. And maybe blackjack.
My personal rule of thumb is to not invest anthing in companies unless the CEO is at least old enough to buy me a Guinness.
~WBGG~ "And I'm so sad like a good book I can't put this Day Back a sorta fairytale with you" ~Tori Amos
Oh please. You are incredibly naive to think that these cards could become even a hundredth of the popularity of pokemon cards. Pokemon became insanely popular (but has dropped of slightly now). That's why your son knows what the cards may be. Do you think that any teener would find it cool to have these cards? Take a moment to think about which teenagers it would appeal to. That's right - it would appeal to those who thoroughly enjoy chemistry and hence know a lot about chemistry already. It will not attract those struggling with the subject. The idea will not work...
Well, I exaggerated a bit, but my point still stands. You can't teach some things without a certain amount of text. Printing it on a card and saying that it's a game will not make a valence shell any easier to understand. You can't learn this sort of thing without the basics, and it is unlikely that a card game can serve this purpose.
Personally, writing about a topic is what has taught me the most. Playing a card game might be fun (for about five minutes, if that), but it's not much of a replacement for a structured text. Is a 60-card collection of trivia really going that useful a supplement? Can you really fit enough useful information onto a card to teach anything useful? IMO, the card game will probably be played solely as a game, if at all, rather than as a learning aid.
I was the top of my class at 13, but only because I found what I was learning to be entertaining. If I hadn't been enjoying the learning, I wouldn't have done it. If this helps kids who are otherwise not interested in learning chemistry to be more interested in learning it, then great! I understand that some people poorly implement modern experimental teaching strategies and end up with kids who learn nothing, but that doesn't mean that all modern experimental teaching strategies are crap or that all implementations of them are poor. This kid sounds like he has a pretty good idea. I wouldn't want to see a class converted to playing this game instead of using books, but if the kids enjoy the card game as a supplement to their class, and if it helps them to learn more from their class, what's the problem?
I know those words... but the way you use them, they don't make any sense...
With upper management so young, there might be some decent perks. Maybe snacktime, naps, and cartoon netwoork and console games in the breakrooms. (Naptime especially if the parents are overbearing.) I could always go for on the job naptime and ice cream Wednesdays at Coldstone.
*shrug* never worked for someone younger than me
~WBGG~ "And I'm so sad like a good book I can't put this Day Back a sorta fairytale with you" ~Tori Amos
They might enjoy it, but does it help them to learn more? It sounds doubtful to me. When was the last time that you saw schools trying to use games to teach beyond a five-minute quiz?
Yeah, but you don't catch flies with vinegar.
The problem is to START rising interests to something in the kids, the fun way.
When they are hooked, you can send the pain, book formula and protocols ad-nauseum.
It's all about psychology.
Work the same for video -good- games. At first easy to apprehend and fun, after can become harder and challenging. But if it's too hard from the start, you're weeding out your attendance...
The mental age is what matters and if these kids have a mental age of 13, they're already more mature than most executives. They're probably also better adjusted with fewer physiological and emotional problems.
Scary isn't it?
As somewho knows something about Chemistry (going to the 2007 Moscow IChO), this idea is flawed. A high school chemistry syllabus is structered the way it is for a reason. I can think of several examples. 1. Chemistry is not all about elements, even at this basic level. For example, how will they teach acid-base chemistry? How will they teach gas laws? Even if this is just a small component of the syllabus, it is a waste. 2. There is too much of a gulf, knowledge wise, between the reactions that are listed in this RPG. For example - 2Mg + O2 -> 2MgO . This is simple to explain, using an Ionic Bonding Model. But then, using similar cards, you have 2Al + 3O2 -> Al2O3. Now you have to teach valencies. Then you have H2 + Br2 -> 2HBr. Try explaining that with an Ionic bonding model (If you can, account for it's properties). Then, lets say they do do acids. Mg + 2H+ -> Mg2+ + H2 . But how do you then account for Au not reacting with dilute acid, whereas Mg will? At this level? How do you account for Mg + Cu2+ -> Mg2+ + Cu ? Teaching electrochemistry cannot be done at similar times to teaching a simple valence bond theory, but that is what will happen with this stupid solution. My take - chemistry may be boring in high school, but so are most things. It's structed in a way that builds upon previous knowledge, and this guy is just hoping to make a quick buck off VC's with a product that is clearly not thought out.
"Sure there's porn and piracy on the Web but there's probably a downside too."
You could not be more wrong. This attitude is what separates drones from fully-formed human beings.
Sure, most teachers aren't good enough to do both, but it's that handful of wonderful teachers for whom teaching while entertaining come naturally that can instill a lifelong love of learning. It makes me sad to think you have never found learning entertaining. I can remember classes in music, film, physics, mathematics, literature and history that were great fun and in which I learned a great deal.
I pray that yours is not a widespread point of view on Slashdot because it could mean that our educational system has failed worse than I thought or that there is a high correlation between people who take an interest in technical matters and those that have no soul.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I'm just worried that kids will start writing "Oxygen, +2 attack, +3 defence" on their test papers.
You can see from just the summary that they are too young and inexperienced - if they want to be taken seriously they should be asking for at least $5M. (hmmm, funny? insightful?)
ccalam - acoustic versions of new songs.
He might know what every Pokémon card says, but what does he know about any other cards? Pokémon was popular because it was popular (not that that makes complete sense). What makes you think that anything like this will have that level of support?
Don't make the next jump, though, and think that a popular game cannot be educational. I have seen games of all sorts teach incredibly complex concepts and behaviors.
I can think of at least one child for whom math was boring until he learned that probability could help predict the outcome of games of chance.
Of course, it also gave me a lifelong love of gambling, so I'm not sure it was a net good thing.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I'm looking for $100000 too. By plain logic I should do twice better. I have charts to prove it :P
:( ?
Where did you guys all go
Almost universally? So you've met, and/or have read available documentation on, almost all CEOs? Quite impressive. When do you sleep?
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
Instead of feeling outrage at a mere thirteen year old treading on adult turf, think of it as a learning experience, a project if you like, for what is obviously a very bright kid. I'd be impressed if he were my child. Is anybody truly surprised that he is inexperienced?
In most times, most places, by most people, liars are considered contemptible. - Ursula Le Guin
Lousy Ferg-breath, always stealing the spotlight. I bet he made his sister program a goofy video game for his company too.
Did you ever notice that *nix doesn't even cover Linux?
For me, it still exists: Monopolistic Competition. It's like Monopoly, except actually based on economics. I'll spare you the details, but I'm sure if I sat at the kitchen table for a weekend, I'd have all the minutiae figured out and a game fully designed. I think we've all had ideas like this when we were this kid's age, and that he simply got lucky (parental intervention, a grant of $500, the support of some gullible VCs, media coverage). The idea is interesting, but it seems like something I'd see sitting gathering dust on the shelf of the Discovery Store, not catching on and sparking any revolution.
From what I can see that's where this kid is coming from. Sure, the game won't teach you things like redox reactions, or actual experimental processes, but if you get a good grounding in the basics it makes it much easier to understand the more complex things later on.
You can learn a lot about a person if you just take the time to inject them with sodium pentathol
I'd appreciate that you wouldn't make far reaching assumptions based on a short post of mine. Especially if you happen to be wrong about it. I have been lucky to have great teachers in high school and it was a joy to learn in their classes. They made mathematics, physics and history interesting, but their goal wasn't to entertain me, but to teach me.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
This is not Pokemon. Pokemon is cool. Because of millions of dollars spent on marketing. Chemistry cards are not cool. Unless you have some genuine interest in chemistry in the first place. French language cards aren't cool either. Even though they might learn you the difference between le and la, I couldn't care less. Then again, it is not that you can not make a textbook interesting, it only requires a lot of work. But it's only children, they're obligated to buy the dull stuff anyway, why bother?
... that this one doesn't throw chairs when he's frustrated.
It was a practical demonstration of why leaving school early is a bad idea.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Do i detect the familiar setup of a stage mommy/daddy here somewhere going "you're not raising seed money fast enough! no dinner tonight!"
stuff |
To make you feel like a loser for not having your own company by now. I say we kick his ass and take his lunch money. I might be in my 30's, but I'm not above beating up people who make me feel threatened and useless. You in?
Perhaps a third word should be introduced, how about engaged. Whenever the student is engaged in what is being taught, they will learn more about that subject. That engagement could come because the student finds the material interesting for it's own worth; or perhaps the student is entertained by the teacher who keeps their attention while the student is learning.
I believe either method can be successful. For some students (yourself included) perhaps they would never allow themselves to be entertained while learning so that method will not work. I believe whatever method, and I am sure there are others, is employed as long as the student is engaged they will learn something. If the student simply does not care and is busy daydreaming or thinking about other classes they are engaged in, well, I can't believe they will ever gain knowledge on the subject.
I was also making money before I was 13, and Elementeo doesn't surprise me. It is much more easier for children to be engaged in business than adults. First, children have lots of imagination, while in general few adults retain it after they turn 22-23. Furthermore, children are usually free of debt and get free food and financial support from their parents, and children normally have no responsibilities; compare that to an adult who is indebted, needs to work in order to eat, and has a family to support. Moreover, children have more free time than adults. Another important factor that is in children's favour is that they usually have good health, while many adults do not. Lastly, laws in general seek to protect children, an advantage mature entrepreneurs cannot have.
Just glancing through his website I hit a pretty glaring chemical error: "27 Elements: This is the bulk of your army... from gases like Hydrogen to metals like Iron to halogens like Phosphorus; these creatures are the ones that will bring you victory!"
Hopefully this was done by his flunky webmaster and doesn't reflect the attention paid to chemical details in the actual game...
Do you think that any teener would find it cool to have these cards?
When they realize the value of 'Get out of jail' card, thrown in for those other kids you are talking about, then the battle for hearts and minds would have begun.
There is also the 'Make one phone call' thrown in for good measure.
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
So do you understand probability or do you not understand probability?
It isn't clear from your post.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
I didn't realize that Year 12 Chemistry in whichever country you're in is full of 13 year olds. I was in the final year of my school district's Gifted and Talented proram all through grade school and we learned in a variety of different ways. Due to some amazing teachers I have had in the past, I am currently pursuing my third major, in Elementary and Pre-Elementary Education. I was always entertained by or interested in the subjects that I did especially well in and struggled in others. This game, especially at the target age, seems like a great way to teach a subject that I, for instance, always struggled in (whether in elementary school or college). I remember projects in elementary school classes where we had to design board games to teach a variety of concepts or lessons. My games were always extremely popular across the board and were very educational at the same time. For some school children, this may be the BEST way to learn the basics in a certain subject. Why disregard it before it's even been given a chance? You sound bitter.
How many fulltime jobs can one man have?
Some of my best teachers in grade school (those who inspired me to now be an Elementary and Pre-Elementary Education student) used various games to teach the basics of various subjects throughout my entire time in K-12. To teach the basic, games can be one of the best ways to capture the attention and interest of a student and really imprint the knowledge into long term memory.
Why the automatic passing-by of games as a teaching method? Bad personal experience or lack of experience with diverse teaching methods?
How many fulltime jobs can one man have?
it's a gimmic. without fail there is an adult pulling the strings in these things.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Dude, you want to become a CEO?
Go file incorporation paperwork. Poof you're a CEO.
it is not hard to become a CEO, it's a title on a piece of paper that costs for about $150 to file for a LLC. nothing magical, nothing powerful, nothing to give any respect to just because someone says they are a CEO.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Q: How to succeed on slashdot?
A: Grab the ankles of the person above you and, PULL!
Honestly - how about aspiring to TEACH KIDS IN WAYS THEY WANT TO LEARN?
There, read his webpage - find out what his intentions are, rather than just making stuff up.
If you can impart two or three important concepts in this game, which seems more than likely, you've basically got Super Flashcards. And frankly, just getting kids to KNOW the names of elements is one step to getting them to ask questions about elements. What happened to slashdot's ability to dream? I don't get it, I really don't.
Bottom line is, Anshul Samhar inspires, whereas YOU just piss on the parade.
I titrated your mother last night....
No, SNL Celebrity Jeopardy Sean Connery never said that, but he should have.
But to make positive change is difficult. To change chemistry is taught in a sound manner and to consistently produce statistically significant results is a tall order.
I smell vaporware and marketing hype. But hey, it's business. What should I be expecting from a bunch of suits? I do however pity any student which has to go through this program.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
That's why aberrations such as mcDonalds ads in class are so frowned upon.
Finally, you say a not insignificant number of teachers tries to educate children. Doesn't that imply the system attempts to educate children, and everything else are exceptions?
Yeah. Would you choose a neurosurgeon who pokes around people's brains in his spare time? I wouldn't.
I think a lot of good points have been raised about this type of approach towards getting kids interested in the subject.
But for those of you who think this is limited to grade school... at the college level I am familiar with a professor who uses a similar approach. Imagine looking at a Snickers bar and talking about conglomerate rocks, or talking about geological stratification with a peanut butter sandwich. And getting numerous teaching awards for it.
There are some of us who scratch our heads and wonder exactly what he is doing in college. He doesn't teach the upper level classes, but he is a hit with the intro classes. I have seen absolutely no assessment data indicating whether his approach is actually helping these students learn. Perhaps it is, perhaps not.
Over the years I have come to the realization that there is no one right way to teach, and that not everybody responds equally to a given teaching approach. I (a college professor) and my sister (an MD) both like the "soak up as much knowledge from the knowledgeable professor at the head of the class" approach. Chalk notes on the board, copied by hand to to the notebook, working on assignments outside of class, asking specific questions after getting stuck on something for hours, etc... that approach works for us. I really hate games and interactive working-with-other-students approaches in the classroom. I find it to be a copout by the professor; he or she is the one with the knowledge, not my fellow students (who are likely to be less knowledgeable than myself).
But some students do respond more to this approach. The "inquiry based learning" approach is catching on like wildfire in some schools, and some of this has bubbled up to the college level. There are many who sing its praises profess its superiority to "chalk and talk" but from what I can glean from conversations with those in the field of Education, this approach is not clearly better (as determined by test scores), but that it does work better for some (just like the traditional method works better for my sister and me).
As someone in the sciences, I have found that learning is really hard, and not always pleasant, and I do not hesitate to remind my students who are struggling with the material. I feel their pain. But no amount of entertainment will substitute sitting down with the text/notes/assignment and slogging through this stuff alone in the library for hours. I think the idea of individual hard, grueling work as an approach to learning has fallen out of favor. The majority of my students do not study outside of class until a day or two before the test. I can pretty much gage what the scores will be before I even collect the tests based upon the kinds of questions I am asking, and the depth of knowledge required to answer these questions correctly (think thermodynamics here).
In conclusion, I see some - not all - of these approaches as style vs. substance. I think we can all agree that engaging students with the material is always good, but that there is no single approach which will engage all students at the same level. Perhaps the best approach (one which I am gravitating towards) is a mixture of traditional and somewhat less traditional approaches.
A squid eating dough in a polyethylene bag is fast and bulbous, got me?
No need for facts.
Well, then, let me be the first one to say:
AWW, that's so cute! He's adorable! Who's my little CEO? Who's my little CEO?
It's gotta be Nike, and finally, thank god!
We can credit them with tearing down the corporate 'ceiling' for children. They used to be stuck only in sweatshops, but now.... well, now the sky's the limit.
Here's to you Nike!
Atari quack Nolan Bushnell said it nicely with geek flair:
"Business is a good game - lots of competition and a minimum of rules. You keep score with money."
Just look at how people play games: they look for shortcuts, strive to collect every coin in every level, use "soft cheats" like auto-fire (*rimshot*), and when they're tired of playing the same old game, they sell it to some cheap bastard and start all over with a new game.
That's very much like business.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
But there are other kids as well:
12-year old Nigerian is a certified Java Programmer
12 year old programmer creates web browser
Pakistan's youngest certified Microsoft programmer - 9 years old
Covered in slashdot before
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
Exactly - can't have them selling their vote for hotdog and fries when selling it for the safety of their eternal soul is much more sexy.
You make it seem like those things are exclusive. I disagree. I want both. Why shouldn't I? Life is a class. What am I going to learn today?
Being entertained is an attitude (i.e. how I relate myself to the lesson) on both the teacher and the student's part.
"Give a woman two glasses of wine and some pad thai, and they'll agree to just about anything." the Sports Guy
A friend of mine is teaching Elementary Modern Physics using Medieval Role-Playing Games to 15-year olds. Sure, it is hard to teach concepts like Lorentz contraction, time dilation, and atomic quantum mechanics without the full-blown mathematical apparatus. But counting on the kids' imagination gives you a edge. Alternative methods of teaching should ALWAYS be searched for, even because we already have the "tested and true" method (chalk & talk).
At some point in their life, they'll be getting wedgies from the expert elementeo players.
So do you understand probability or do you not understand probability?
You are right!
Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
"but that doesn't mean that all modern experimental teaching strategies are crap or that all implementations of them are poor." someones been playing with his "jump to conclusions" mat again.
-Yourmomisfasterthanabeowulfcluster
... he was supposed to make it to an earnings conference call but couldn't because he was stuffed in a locker.
His CFO had to report that the company had lost $5.35 when a bully stole its lunch money.
He was exposed for spending corporate funds on comic books and Big League Chew.
I could probably go on forever with these. The reality of this story is that venture capitalists are so desperate to turn anything into money that they apparently see no problem with trying to monetize an 8th grader.
- Licking asses is part of politics, do it right and you get to the top, do it too much and you end up doing it for the rest of your life, for you will be despised.
- Stomping down on peers is BS. You do not have to stomp down on peers to start and lead a successful enterprise. Exploiting your employees is also a lie, although more common. You pay for people to work, but you don't overwork them when they're good because in a free country, good people can find other jobs.
- "Treat customers with contempt" and you lose them. It's called goodwill, and it applies to masses of small guys as much as the big money you're supposed to lick the arses of. And in the age of the internet, the corporate world has learned to fear the man who can send and receive packets. [You're starting to sound a little too lefty by the way, not a crime, but I'm just saying].
- Non-customers are potential money when you are in the office, but I bet that outside the office CEOs see us as regular blood and flesh. If the market econonies work by CEOs tagetting customers with products, I'm not going to cry. They can still be nice people.
- Business people do not hate the "community", except the lets-all-share-absolutely-everything community. It's that community which hates the concept of people making legitimate money in a free economy. Bad companies with bad CEOs exist. Don't do business with them. If you feel that you have no choice but to do business with them, go to court and sue them for being a monopoly.
Communist-inspired stereotypes are so 90's.
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
No, voting Democrat is just a side-effect of actually knowing things.
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
Even if I had mod points, I'd need one for +1 Awesome Reference.
Warning: Apple/Nintendo fangirl. Likes her electronics cute & cuddly. May be rabid.
Is a 60-card collection of trivia really going that useful a supplement? Can you really fit enough useful information onto a card to teach anything useful? IMO, the card game will probably be played solely as a game, if at all, rather than as a learning aid.
It's not meant to be a replacement for a chemistry class, and it's not meant for people over the age of about 16. Even if the game is played solely as a game, it doesn't mean kids won't take something away from it. I can almost guarantee they'll be more likely to pay attention in class if the subject is something they've at least heard of, even if they don't know much about it. Even if the only thing they learn is that copper gives up its single electron in its valence shell, at least it's something, and it will probably help them better understand conductivity when they learn it in science class.Nah, all you need to do is train Corporation Management to level 1, and about 1.5 million ISK. You'll want to train Anchoring as well if you want to recruit via storage container (like many corps do).
You also need to level Ethnic Relations or you might get sued for discrimination.
This kid is in middle school, he, like most kids, hates textbooks, but unlike most kids, he actually came up with an alternative. He's touting it like a replacement for textbooks, and of course it would work better as a supplement, but it's still a great idea. And if the parents are helping out, they're doing the right thing. If my kid came up to me with a brilliant, if not necessarily feasible idea, I wouldn't want to quash his dreams right away. I'd want to encourage him. Any kid that's come this far isn't going to be shaken by temporary failure. Look at the about the creator page on his website and read his quotes in the article. Just because he's thirteen doesn't mean he shouldn't be taken seriously, it just means that he has a different approach than most adults.
As for the game's actual usefulness... I remember how much more exciting world history was for me because I recognized the names of cultures and cities from Civilization II. This could inspire the same kind of fascination in kids for Chemistry. Most kids aren't taught a lot of Chemistry until the middle of high school, and I don't think anyone other than the creators think this can replace textbooks completely, but how cool would it feel to walk into your high school chemistry class and already know about valence and the periodic table from a card game you played in middle school? If this game inspired a lifelong love of chemistry in a few kids and helped a few more understand the basic concepts... that alone, I think, would be worth it.
"Fry, if you don't make this deal I will lose all respect for you and punch you."
What sound do people on rollercoasters make? Hint: it's not Xbox 360.
Finally somebody who thinks for the children
Let me a draw an analogy from a little athletic coaching experience I've had.
To get an athlete to perform at his best you have to get him to do a lot of training, which can be dull. Yet the quantity of training is not everything: quality counts for more. And dull training reduces the quality of effort.
So, to prepare an athlete to do his best, you need to find the right balance of stimulation and repetition. In other words, you can't turn an athlete into a winner if there is no fun in it any more. Remove the fun, remove the willing acceptance of challenge from the athlete, and as hard as you try to drive the athlete, the best you get is solid mediocrity.
Coaching an athlete is a form of eductation. I believe the principle I have just identified is not unique to coaching, but all forms of education. If all you want is to have consistent mediocrity, then it is easiest to impose a regime of harsh, joyless drilling. That's the problem with the way most education reform "standards" are conceived in most states. They drive all students to the mean.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
While your list of chemistry concepts is impressive, I think you're missing the point. The point is to get kids interested, not to teach them EVERYTHING at once. Did you learn to read by picking up Shakespeare? You start small, get kids interested, and then expand on it. If you reject something because it doesn't teach the entire scope of chemistry, you might as well not get kids started on chemistry in the first place.
I think this kid's great -- he has an idea, has started to bring it to market, and it will serve him AND whoever buys and uses it. Win-win. And to say that it's no different from a textbook is silly -- the game couches the concepts in something kids like to do. Sure, some like to read textbooks all day, but many don't. Make it a game, and they start absorbing concepts while they play. Seems fairly clear to me.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
It is very hard for all the companies that offer a service to be so dystopian. There will always be profit to be made from being the desirable service provider. And if they were found innocent by law then no need to sue them again, the problem is with an immature market in that case.
As for music and movies, I am yer fave, of all eye-patched sea farers, I am! yaarrrr! The system is unconstitutional. I will not bend to it.
It never occurred to me, but when I played Lineage II (and I'm sure even WoW to an extent), they have trades or skills you can learn - one is typically chemist or alchemist. What he's doing here isn't necessarily anything new, it's just that the names of the elements have been changed from various roots, body parts, herbs, metals, and magic, to those directly related to the periodic table. Just the same, re-packaging the idea for education in real-life chemistry is an interesting twist.
But there are other kids as well:
12-year old Nigerian is a certified Java Programmer
12 year old programmer creates web browser
Pakistan's youngest certified Microsoft programmer - 9 years old
I wish I could say that becoming certified meant something, unfortunately thats not the case. At least for the MS certs, all you have to do is pass a few mulitple choice tests, and the transcenders and brain dumps have been around for ages. Just recently we hired an MCSD/DBA; my jaw about hit the floor when he asked me how to pass parameters to a console app. Unfortunately certs don't mean shit anymore.
Top 10 Reasons To Procrastinate
10.
Either you're teaching them something or you're entertaining them. Pick one.
someone doesn't know the reason all children (of any species) play, and has never watched kids learn the rules for a game.
Or the 16 year old who's browser was supposed to be "up to 6 times faster"? What ever happened to this? http://developers.slashdot.org/developers/03/01/13 /1212253.shtml?tid=95
I'm always amazed at those messages: "We recently hired xyz and it turns out he's totally useless."
Not blaming any one, but are job interviews out of fashion? What sort of questions do people ask in interviews? Or, in other words, can't you tell within 20 minutes that someone simply doesn't have a clue?
Not blaming any one, but are job interviews out of fashion? What sort of questions do people ask in interviews? Or, in other words, can't you tell within 20 minutes that someone simply doesn't have a clue?
I completely agree with your questions. It was an unfortunate situation, no one technical was allowed to interview him, just our VP and Director of tech (pointy haired types). Our policies have since changed due to this.
Top 10 Reasons To Procrastinate
10.
In my former job as a journalist I was of course required to type every day. In high school I had taken typing class but skipped most of it because it was deathly boring. Thus, I never learned proper technique and my skills were very weak indeed. Despite this, I got my work done -- but it wasn't pretty. Then I started playing Everquest. People would quickly tire of talking to me in-game because my typing speed was lacking. Interest in the game forced me to teach myself proper technique as I wished to be an officer in my guild, and therefore it was necessary to be able to communicate swiftly and effectively. Now I type between 60 and 70wpm... and this has of course had dramatic positive ffects on everything I do with the PC. Thanks Everquest!
Hah, I was wondering who would make an Ender's Game reference. Shame my mod points just expired.
though apparently I still make typos... 'effects'. damn.
Education's job is to create a thinking population, so that they won't sell their vote for a hotdog and fries next election.
Then it seems to have failed spectacularly. Election campaigns are much more similar to marketing than reasoned debate.
Finally, you say a not insignificant number of teachers tries to educate children. Doesn't that imply the system attempts to educate children, and everything else are exceptions?
No. I encourage you to have a look at John Taylor Gatto's work if you haven't yet. It's hard to agree with everything he says, but it's hard to ignore everything he says also. Many teachers want to teach, and they use the system available to them. That in no way implies that the system is good.
http://marriedmansexlife.com/
No offense to anyone, but, age does -not- define exlusive access to knowledge, you only grow older and wiser -if- you are susceptible to the "inputs of life" (cfr: wise warnings, repetitive problems, reactions, happenings, morals and values ...)
..
I started with IT around my 14th and knew Assembler by my 16th; I sold my first software at that same age too; it was rather knowledge made out of interest. The only stuff I didn't knew back then was the "business rules" as in "how to do everything official" but hell, the knowledge is there and is still growing
Would that be sad or motivation of knowledge?
Why would this kids idea be moot just because of a stupid number which defines "legal age" or not?
nb: There are enough CEO's around the world NOT knowing any morals/values or how to do business while being adult.
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
my uncle was an award-winning chemistry teacher. he loved teaching, as well as chemistry also taught basic sciences and music, was a great entertainer too; his ability to capture the kid's attention and make them feel the subject was interesting was fundamental. He also had fatherly instincts towards the kids and enjoyed seeing them succeed.
he took early retirement because the gov't proscribed such a specific curriculum and schedule that he felt unable to *teach* the kids, to tailor the classes to their skills and abilities, to help them through difficult topics and explore avenues that interested them.. I think he felt that he could have been replaced by a video.
I say "was" because teaching was his life, and after a severe ankle injury reduced his mobility for nearly two years, and a succession of illnesses weakened his health, he died comparitively young (61). He was fondly remembered by many former pupils who remembered distinctly his lessons and the element of fun which gave them a life long interest in science.
We're going to have to disagree, I guess. I suppose to some people music or literature as a course of study are not as "important" as the hard sciences, but I was lucky enough to have had teachers who didn't make such distinctions.
And beautiful, I didn't mean to offend you, I'm sorry. I actually believe that most of the people here at Slashdot do, in fact, get that "entertainment" can take some pretty unexpected forms. I come here to read and enjoy the comments of people like you, pure enjoyment on most days, but I've also learned some pretty important and useful things in the process.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Chemists in the lab "work" because they are trying to produce specific rections of value in opposition with destructive factors such as impurities. With a little thought, you can assign a scale of "reaction sensitivity" measured on some scale such as % of impurity required to damage the reaction. Then one player assembling his reactions gets more points of something correlating to the difficulty of the reaction he put together before his opponent could sabotage it.
"Clean Room": Your reactions are +x harder to pollute by your opponent."
"Budget Deadline/Limiting Reagent": "You only have two chances to prepare the reaction."
I haven't worked it all out, but you could approach a 9th grade chem course using game mechanics. Despite other posts here, RPG gamers are quite used to dealing with the interactions of HUNDREDS of pages of rules.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
The game concept seems like something you'd work up for a school project.
The kids are clever, no doubt. It's quite impressive; but what's been done? Just made a cute little game using chemistry knowledge as the subject matter - sounds like a cross between chemistry and Pokémon.
Quoting paganizer (later in comments)
>>> "[My son] can tell you everything that is written on any Pokemon or Digimon card ever made."
So you think that writing something on a pokémon card will mean that he will learn it? Sure some will find it an interesting distraction but it's not going to replace textbooks.
Oh and the website says that they took pre-orders at the show; so it's not a business yet just a concept.
That one is a snap!
... because of the definition of acids. Loosely put, they're connected to the elements on the right side of the period table. HCL, H2SO4, the works. Gaming elements already have between 5-10 classifiable factors, so it's a snap to put Chlorine and Sulfur in an Acid guild, and those metals on the left in a Base guild.
In the world of modular RPGs, it's quite easy to adapt the concept of "guilds" to Acid/Base and beyond.
Acids are what they are
For certain knowledge bits such as "Au not reacting with dilute acid", fine. Gamers are used to remembering things like Gold has +1 or +2 Resistance to Acid. Or put the other way, Mg has +1 or +2 Affinity for Acids.
What this kid is really talking about is taking knowledge off of page 47, and letting the user shuffle it around as a physical model of the way people shuffle knowledge in their head.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
So if you're trying to convince a hardball skeptic, ... make NONE of it fantasy!
At the root of the guy's innovation is decompiling the monolithic text into digestible fragments. Done properly, there would be some kind of rules authority (hire a PHD as a "rules judge".)
Find whatever scale declares that Gold doesn't react much, line everything up on to that scale, and index that as a chart in some rules handbook.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
You miscounted.
There's 60 cards in the deck he's playing *at that moment*.
There will of course 10,000 plus cards in the set.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
That kid might have stolen the show, but who stole the From the---Dept.?
Hmm...
Starting with your title, the usage is "supposed to *teach* you something. You can't learn anyone anything.
What he produced is the Basic Set.
You'd get Sodium Hydroxide in the Acids & Bases expansion, Organic compounds in the Carbon Expansion, etc.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
I think what he meant to say was that stupid educators do not acknoweledge six-sided cubic time.
Frosty piss posts are worthless, GNAA posts are worthless and hurtful, but they are the least of this site's neuroses.
Wrong things, but things, nonetheless.
Vote Gridlock, 2008.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
I think that this idea could really work, but these kids need to learn what I learned in my current job as a web programmer - to look like a professional, you need to rely on other professionals.
These kids have a concept. Now they need people. Hand-drawn art and crude bitmap editing may cut it when you're making a game for your friends, but if you want to look professional, you need someone who knows what they are doing. You need someone who knows how to use a vector graphics program (probably Adobe Illustrator), you need someone who knows how to use a page layout program, and you need someone with artistic talent. In other words, you need a graphic designer.
I don't go it alone when I'm working on a major site. I have a graphic designer creating compositions and producing the final images for the site. I have a layout designer who takes the graphic designer's vision and converts it to CSS. I have a copyeditor to make sure that the text is clear and concise. I have a (white hat) SEO professional analyzing link structure, page layout, and code structure, to ensure that the site is properly indexed. And, in some cases, I have a human factors professional doing user testing to ensure that users will be able to find what they are looking for.
Now, I know quite a bit about graphic design. I can use Illustrator and Photoshop. I also know plenty about CSS and XHTML - I can hack together a website just fine. I'm decently good at copyediting, I know the basics of SEO, and I have an eye for UI design as well. But I'm not as good at any of those things as the people I rely on. They are more effective, more efficent, and make fewer mistakes.
They make me look professional. I make them look professional.
When you're 13 (that was only 6 years ago for me!), the desire is to do everything yourself. But that's the last thing you want to do. Maybe you've picked up a copy of Photoshop. Maybe you can scan photos into your PC and make graphics. What you lack, however, is the experience that's necessary to look professional.
That's OK if you're starting a business. Most of our clients have no idea how to run a website. That's fine, because that's not what their business is. If you're big, you can have dedicated professionals who will work on your website. If you aren't, there are companies like mine who will do it for you. We can make you look as good as the big guys because we are as good as the big guys. This is our whole business - just like the professionals who work for lare companies, we practice our trade every day.
So, my advice to these kids would be - hire people who know what they are doing. At a minimum, they are going to need the services of a copyeditor (to ensure that card and instructional text is clear, concise, and free of grammatical and spelling errors), a graphic designer (to prepare print-ready, professional graphics for the cards), and an accountant (business = accounting and taxes, two things that 13-year-olds tend not to be very good at).
Find people you can trust. Find people you can count on. Their professionalism will make you look professional.
"RPG gamers are quite used to dealing with the interactions of HUNDREDS of pages of rules."
;).
Yeah but then you might have the problem of ending up with a subset of "kids who like chemistry" and "Classic RPG gamer type kids". Both of which aren't very large sets
Anyway, I guess its worth a shot if they take the time and effort to do it well.
0.5
Note that CEOs have to be Lawful Evil; you might want to kick some puppies to get your alignment into place. You do get some rather nice feats, though - for example Outsourcing and Improved Outsourcing with level 9 or Sociopathy with level 15. You also get a +(Level) AC bonus on all saving throws against common sense.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
Your guild never heard of Ventrilo or Teamspeak??
What the hell? What kind of company is this?!
Sheldonsoft?
So say we all
In larger companies, HR does the interviewing, and they don't have the slightest idea about what constitutes a useful interview. On top of that, we typically get Random Indian #73 rammed down our throats by management via some vague, mostly unconstrained contractual agreement with Tata or some other lowest-bidder rent-a-coder offshore operation.
Slashdot quality declines as the number of hot grits posts decreases. - Provolt's Law, Apr-09-2005
1999...
If you look into the history of the US public school system you will find out it was designed around producing technically capable factory workers. They need a populace that can read, write, and do wrote math but next to no effort was put into critical thinking skills. I could go on but I encourage you to look into the matter.
I don't know...
I had a prob/stat teacher at College who was a former stand-up comedian. He didn't precisely perform a routine during the class, but it was still way more entertaining than any other class I had. Perhaps I'm not a prob/stat whiz now, but I sure remember way more of the material than I do from any of my other College math courses.