As a University Professor (of Education), I really appreciate this suggestion. However, I don't see how it would be feasible at scale, considering how challenging it is to design assessments that are valid and reliable.
If these allegations are true, then forever shame on the Annals of Internal Medicine. The entire editorial board and reviewers should be sacked and anyone directly involved with any reviewing of the paper should be black-listed from every participating in any other academic journal. The only value that an academic journal provides is acting as a filter to prevent shoddy research from seeing the light of day.
I can't speak to legality of the researcher's actions, but as a Social Scientist (cue jokes about not being a real scientist), I can tell you that their actions were unethical. Specifically, I'm shocked that their Internal Review Board (IRB) thought it was ok to upload this data to a forum where all can have access.
Social Scientists, when conducting research, are under a moral obligation to make sure that their participants are not under more than 'minimal risk' as a result of the research. The most common heuristic for that minimal risk is whether the researchers are making the participants susceptible to more risk than they would normally be susceptible to. In this case, while the participants had provided data to a semi-public forum (i.e. OkCupid), make the data more easy to extract and able to be mined is definitely putting the participants at higher risk for data related crimes (e.g., identity theft, bank fraud).
If those researchers aren't in proverbial hot water yet with their institutions, they will be when the law suits come. The lesson to be learned here if you are a researcher....your IRB exists for a reason; check with them before creating a new protocol.
[Sarcasm On] Now that's some clear logic. You must studied a lot of Math to know that we should give credit to one person who has not a shred of empirical evidence to suggest that his approach has led to positive learning outcomes. Let's keep to anecdotal claims - that will surely help us to understand how kids learn Math better. I'll even have a go: From my experience with kids of this generation, there's one teacher who's responsible for most of the positive increase in mathematical competency in recent years: The Flying Spaghetti Monster. I'm sure you'll find any number of politicians and their cronies at the textbook corporations who will claim credit, but when they mess everything up and the children find themselves mystified and befuddled, they turn to the Flying Spaghetti Monster for help.
Nope! While 'Semites' are people with a middle-eastern language, 'Anti-Semitism', as defined in ALL dictionaries, is prejudice against Jews. On a side note, I find it ironic that people who hate Jews will often include arguments that the term anti-semitism should not exclusively mean prejudice against Jews. They hate Jews so much that they don't even want to allow Jews a term to label that hatred!
If you are interested, the data shows that parental involvement isn't all that big of a factor in determining learning gains.
http://visible-learning.org/ha...
Which kind of makes sense since their are plenty of individuals who achieve large learning gains despite having terrible parents.
But I'll be the first to note that parental involvement is likely super important in an indirect way.
I'm glad that the original post presented both sides of the argument because the truth is that no one really knows whether gamification of anything is a good idea....yet.
My own research is in education where scientists have been looking at how games can teach and motivate since at least 1987 (I'm talking about research and not educational games which go further back). Classically the debate has always been two fold:
1. Can anyone prove that knowledge transfers from a game to another setting?
2. Can games increase intrinsic motivation to learn or are they just another extrinsic motivator?
The first question is still undetermined for a lot of reasons (i.e. how does one even determine whether someone knows something).
The second question is important because education research has proven pretty conclusively that extrinsic motivators don't work - people driven by extrinsic motivators drop their motivation as soon as motivator is removed. But new research in motivation has illuminated what drives individuals to learn; that framing motivation as extrinsic vs intrinsic is possibly a misrepresentation of what drives us to learn something. In addition, integrating a badge or achievement system is different than what we are used to thinking about when making something game like. The badges aren't necessarily replacing goals, just supplementing them. And if that is true (TBD) then that could also increase a type of motivation necessary for learning (or accomplishing other goals).
Does gamification work? Sit tight and I hope to have an answer in the next 6 months.;)
There are plenty of NEW and possibly better methods awaiting funding.
I wouldn't advise waiting for their resolution to begin making those fruits available for consumption.
Excellent. Neither would I. How do you feel about scientific research? Do you think it's a good idea or do you hate that it holds things up? I mean, would you like to take a potential drug cure before its trial?
I'll stay away from your Flame-bait (you really think I demonized them?) and show how you made my point for me.
This seems like an excellent opportunity to throw a little money at an interesting education opportunity, and see how it pays off.
Where is anyone talking about see how this 'pays off'? How do you tell if it 'pays off'? Anecdotal evidence is just that and not the substitute for a scientific evaluation. How about we spend some of the money to explore that?
Now you're demonizing Google for giving 1/289th that amount to an institution that will likely reach 50+ times the audience, who are probably more in need of a better education anyway?
Don't you think that something that has the potential to reach a much wider audience should be carefully tested before released into the wild?
But it IS an excellent way to prime yourself for an upcoming class by seeing some example problems, or simply to gain an introductory level knowledge through recorded survey-type courses requiring little technical background (iTunes U has a lot of this kind of material).
No and that's the point. There is nothing to say that this is a good way to introduce anyone to the subject. It might be but we have no way of knowing short of conducting research on the problem.
This isn't the same as Wikipedia, which is a resource designed to serve as a reference. These videos are meant to teach and must bear the burden of being able to do so.
No matter who the learner is, there will be some better and some worse ways to learn something. How do you know that this is a good way to learn something for anyone? There is a real problem with people miss-learning concepts and requiring extensive, if even possible, re-education to get the concept right. Take for example the average explanation of why we have seasons - completely wrong and requires significant explanantion.
And I can lament the fact that the very little money given to educational projects is being spent on unproven concepts. Applaud all you want but know that you might be applauding for nothing more than entertainment.
Maybe. Current research would point out that unless you gave the students something specific to do with their knowlesdge that they might not actually learn something.
But your larger point is exactly what I was trying to convey! No one knows how best to use these videos and that is what we should spend money discovering before sending them out to the world.
As a former educator (middle and high school Social Studies) and a current researcher of new technology and learning science I get frustrated about the amount of praise given to the Khan Academy.
I applaud Khan's effort and I'm sure the videos do help some people but I draw the line at it deserving a two million dollar grant for growth. What are these videos other than direct instruction (i.e. the traditional lecture)? We have a lot of evidence that direct instruction is a very inefficient way to learn something. Furthermore, access to videos only helps those who have the required internet connection and are intrinsically motivated to seek out the knowledge (the typical Slashdot user might fit that model but I assure the rest of the world does not).
Shouldn't there be some some scientific testing of the effectiveness of the Khan Academy before giving it $2million to expand. The summary even calls the videos courses! Courses have an implied pedagogical trajectory that helps learner gain some level of mastery on the subject being taught. These videos barely qualify.
I think one major problem is with transfer. None of the skills (according to research) that a player develops in a game like Zelda (even a Link to the Past) are transferable to anything in real life, that can be measured. Of course, the problem could lie with how we measure.
A couple of points:
1. The research shows that traditional methods aren't any better than the new methods. The traditional methods might work well for your children (and thus they should be used) but their are plenty of students for whom the traditional methods don't work (not that the new methods are any better).
2. I think that idea is that the games do provide a reason to learn. The reason being accomplishing the goal of the game.
3. I agree that there aren't many effective implementations. The problem is that we know so little about how individuals learn that we can't even agree how to measure it (Standardized Testing for example). How can we make effective games when we don't even know how we learn?
4. That being said, there are theorists who bring up interesting points on how games do unique things in terms of pedagogy. Check out James Gee and Marc Prensky to start. Contact me if you want more!
"Will they work as a large-scale adoption technique for schools across the nation? Never... that is, until a large-scale societal shift happens in viewpoints about how much money should be spent on education, and how much freedom teachers should be given to use it."
The main grant that I am working on is the effective use of games in the classroom. As you said in your post, the potential is there. As technology and teachers who grew up playing games become more ubiquitous in the classroom then the possibility or necessity of using games is that much closer.
I am actually working on a Federal Grant on using games in the classroom. Most of my focus is on Math and Reading but as a former government teacher I can tell you I played your game and found it good. There are two major hurdles you will find in getting a game into an American classroom.
1. Price 2. Educational Standards
The first is a very complicated topic that isn't worth going into on Slashdot. The second is an issue I can explain briefly. Our school districts all have government standards as to what they need to teach. A game is a viable option in the classroom only if it helps students meet some of these standards. I would say that Democracy certainly does qualify but that qualification needs to be documented in order for a teacher, school, or district to even consider usage. I would be happy to explain in far more detail if you or anyone else would wish. Feel free to contact me at my work email address which you can find on our website (I won't post it here for fear of being spammed).
-Sam Abramovich Project Manager for Emerging Technologies Center for Technology in Education Johns Hopkins University
I don't want to troll but I am shocked at whst seems to be the general assumption that games shouldn't be educational or couldn't be educational. Some books (or television shows or movies or websites) are entertaining, some are educational, and some are both. Why can't games be the same?
Remember that all games are educational in a sense. They give you a goal that you cannot accomplish immediately but through repeated attempts and failures you build the skills required to acomplish the goal. And then they repeat that process over and over! I am currently working at a major university working on a federal grant to see how games can be effectively used in the classroom (the key word being "effective").
There really is a lot of work being done on this front. Check out this video of a lecture by three Wisconsin professors who have spent time researching games in the classroom. I think many slashdotters will find it fascinating: http://wistechnology.com/media/accel_games/viewer. html
What about all those poor car owners whose ride is stolen in Grand Theft Auto? Don't the zombies in DOOM have a right to shamble? Should we be force feeding Pacman?
Seriously, what's next? Will we hear an argument from a Veegan that they can't play Mario because eating flowers is wrong?
SCO's Lawyer: "Your honor, I'm just a caveman. Your world frightens me with its boxes with devils in them that make noises. But there is one thing I do know, that there is a 2.7 Linux kernel."
Judge: "I find for SCO's motion and their caveman lawyer!"
Slashdot Mirror
As a University Professor (of Education), I really appreciate this suggestion. However, I don't see how it would be feasible at scale, considering how challenging it is to design assessments that are valid and reliable.
If these allegations are true, then forever shame on the Annals of Internal Medicine. The entire editorial board and reviewers should be sacked and anyone directly involved with any reviewing of the paper should be black-listed from every participating in any other academic journal. The only value that an academic journal provides is acting as a filter to prevent shoddy research from seeing the light of day.
I can't speak to legality of the researcher's actions, but as a Social Scientist (cue jokes about not being a real scientist), I can tell you that their actions were unethical. Specifically, I'm shocked that their Internal Review Board (IRB) thought it was ok to upload this data to a forum where all can have access.
Social Scientists, when conducting research, are under a moral obligation to make sure that their participants are not under more than 'minimal risk' as a result of the research. The most common heuristic for that minimal risk is whether the researchers are making the participants susceptible to more risk than they would normally be susceptible to. In this case, while the participants had provided data to a semi-public forum (i.e. OkCupid), make the data more easy to extract and able to be mined is definitely putting the participants at higher risk for data related crimes (e.g., identity theft, bank fraud).
If those researchers aren't in proverbial hot water yet with their institutions, they will be when the law suits come. The lesson to be learned here if you are a researcher....your IRB exists for a reason; check with them before creating a new protocol.
I'm embarrassed to agree. I live in Buffalo, NY and with another winter like the two previous I'd start considering using coal to fuel my car!
[Sarcasm On] Now that's some clear logic. You must studied a lot of Math to know that we should give credit to one person who has not a shred of empirical evidence to suggest that his approach has led to positive learning outcomes. Let's keep to anecdotal claims - that will surely help us to understand how kids learn Math better. I'll even have a go:
From my experience with kids of this generation, there's one teacher who's responsible for most of the positive increase in mathematical competency in recent years: The Flying Spaghetti Monster.
I'm sure you'll find any number of politicians and their cronies at the textbook corporations who will claim credit, but when they mess everything up and the children find themselves mystified and befuddled, they turn to the Flying Spaghetti Monster for help.
Nope!
While 'Semites' are people with a middle-eastern language, 'Anti-Semitism', as defined in ALL dictionaries, is prejudice against Jews.
On a side note, I find it ironic that people who hate Jews will often include arguments that the term anti-semitism should not exclusively mean prejudice against Jews. They hate Jews so much that they don't even want to allow Jews a term to label that hatred!
If you are interested, the data shows that parental involvement isn't all that big of a factor in determining learning gains. http://visible-learning.org/ha... Which kind of makes sense since their are plenty of individuals who achieve large learning gains despite having terrible parents. But I'll be the first to note that parental involvement is likely super important in an indirect way.
I'd prefer to think that an avid Holocaust denier is crazy rather than simply evil.
I'm glad that the original post presented both sides of the argument because the truth is that no one really knows whether gamification of anything is a good idea....yet.
;)
My own research is in education where scientists have been looking at how games can teach and motivate since at least 1987 (I'm talking about research and not educational games which go further back). Classically the debate has always been two fold:
1. Can anyone prove that knowledge transfers from a game to another setting?
2. Can games increase intrinsic motivation to learn or are they just another extrinsic motivator?
The first question is still undetermined for a lot of reasons (i.e. how does one even determine whether someone knows something).
The second question is important because education research has proven pretty conclusively that extrinsic motivators don't work - people driven by extrinsic motivators drop their motivation as soon as motivator is removed. But new research in motivation has illuminated what drives individuals to learn; that framing motivation as extrinsic vs intrinsic is possibly a misrepresentation of what drives us to learn something. In addition, integrating a badge or achievement system is different than what we are used to thinking about when making something game like. The badges aren't necessarily replacing goals, just supplementing them. And if that is true (TBD) then that could also increase a type of motivation necessary for learning (or accomplishing other goals).
Does gamification work? Sit tight and I hope to have an answer in the next 6 months.
the absence of better methods
There are plenty of NEW and possibly better methods awaiting funding.
I wouldn't advise waiting for their resolution to begin making those fruits available for consumption.
Excellent. Neither would I. How do you feel about scientific research? Do you think it's a good idea or do you hate that it holds things up? I mean, would you like to take a potential drug cure before its trial?
This seems like an excellent opportunity to throw a little money at an interesting education opportunity, and see how it pays off.
Where is anyone talking about see how this 'pays off'? How do you tell if it 'pays off'? Anecdotal evidence is just that and not the substitute for a scientific evaluation. How about we spend some of the money to explore that?
Now you're demonizing Google for giving 1/289th that amount to an institution that will likely reach 50+ times the audience, who are probably more in need of a better education anyway?
Don't you think that something that has the potential to reach a much wider audience should be carefully tested before released into the wild?
But it IS an excellent way to prime yourself for an upcoming class by seeing some example problems, or simply to gain an introductory level knowledge through recorded survey-type courses requiring little technical background (iTunes U has a lot of this kind of material).
No and that's the point. There is nothing to say that this is a good way to introduce anyone to the subject. It might be but we have no way of knowing short of conducting research on the problem.
This isn't the same as Wikipedia, which is a resource designed to serve as a reference. These videos are meant to teach and must bear the burden of being able to do so.
No matter who the learner is, there will be some better and some worse ways to learn something. How do you know that this is a good way to learn something for anyone? There is a real problem with people miss-learning concepts and requiring extensive, if even possible, re-education to get the concept right. Take for example the average explanation of why we have seasons - completely wrong and requires significant explanantion.
And I can lament the fact that the very little money given to educational projects is being spent on unproven concepts. Applaud all you want but know that you might be applauding for nothing more than entertainment.
Maybe. Current research would point out that unless you gave the students something specific to do with their knowlesdge that they might not actually learn something.
But your larger point is exactly what I was trying to convey! No one knows how best to use these videos and that is what we should spend money discovering before sending them out to the world.
As a former educator (middle and high school Social Studies) and a current researcher of new technology and learning science I get frustrated about the amount of praise given to the Khan Academy.
I applaud Khan's effort and I'm sure the videos do help some people but I draw the line at it deserving a two million dollar grant for growth. What are these videos other than direct instruction (i.e. the traditional lecture)? We have a lot of evidence that direct instruction is a very inefficient way to learn something. Furthermore, access to videos only helps those who have the required internet connection and are intrinsically motivated to seek out the knowledge (the typical Slashdot user might fit that model but I assure the rest of the world does not).
Shouldn't there be some some scientific testing of the effectiveness of the Khan Academy before giving it $2million to expand. The summary even calls the videos courses! Courses have an implied pedagogical trajectory that helps learner gain some level of mastery on the subject being taught. These videos barely qualify.
Where is that from? Is that yours? If so it is excellent.
I think one major problem is with transfer. None of the skills (according to research) that a player develops in a game like Zelda (even a Link to the Past) are transferable to anything in real life, that can be measured. Of course, the problem could lie with how we measure.
A couple of points: 1. The research shows that traditional methods aren't any better than the new methods. The traditional methods might work well for your children (and thus they should be used) but their are plenty of students for whom the traditional methods don't work (not that the new methods are any better). 2. I think that idea is that the games do provide a reason to learn. The reason being accomplishing the goal of the game. 3. I agree that there aren't many effective implementations. The problem is that we know so little about how individuals learn that we can't even agree how to measure it (Standardized Testing for example). How can we make effective games when we don't even know how we learn? 4. That being said, there are theorists who bring up interesting points on how games do unique things in terms of pedagogy. Check out James Gee and Marc Prensky to start. Contact me if you want more!
"Will they work as a large-scale adoption technique for schools across the nation? Never... that is, until a large-scale societal shift happens in viewpoints about how much money should be spent on education, and how much freedom teachers should be given to use it."
Which is the goal of an organization such as mine http://cte.jhu.edu/.
The main grant that I am working on is the effective use of games in the classroom. As you said in your post, the potential is there. As technology and teachers who grew up playing games become more ubiquitous in the classroom then the possibility or necessity of using games is that much closer.
You go through educational organization such as mine: http://cte.jhu.edu/
I am actually working on a Federal Grant on using games in the classroom. Most of my focus is on Math and Reading but as a former government teacher I can tell you I played your game and found it good. There are two major hurdles you will find in getting a game into an American classroom.
1. Price
2. Educational Standards
The first is a very complicated topic that isn't worth going into on Slashdot. The second is an issue I can explain briefly. Our school districts all have government standards as to what they need to teach. A game is a viable option in the classroom only if it helps students meet some of these standards. I would say that Democracy certainly does qualify but that qualification needs to be documented in order for a teacher, school, or district to even consider usage. I would be happy to explain in far more detail if you or anyone else would wish. Feel free to contact me at my work email address which you can find on our website (I won't post it here for fear of being spammed).
-Sam Abramovich
Project Manager for Emerging Technologies
Center for Technology in Education
Johns Hopkins University
I don't want to troll but I am shocked at whst seems to be the general assumption that games shouldn't be educational or couldn't be educational. Some books (or television shows or movies or websites) are entertaining, some are educational, and some are both. Why can't games be the same?
. html
Remember that all games are educational in a sense. They give you a goal that you cannot accomplish immediately but through repeated attempts and failures you build the skills required to acomplish the goal. And then they repeat that process over and over! I am currently working at a major university working on a federal grant to see how games can be effectively used in the classroom (the key word being "effective").
There really is a lot of work being done on this front. Check out this video of a lecture by three Wisconsin professors who have spent time researching games in the classroom. I think many slashdotters will find it fascinating:
http://wistechnology.com/media/accel_games/viewer
What about all those poor car owners whose ride is stolen in Grand Theft Auto?
Don't the zombies in DOOM have a right to shamble?
Should we be force feeding Pacman?
Seriously, what's next? Will we hear an argument from a Veegan that they can't play Mario because eating flowers is wrong?
The author's smirk (not to mention the terrible logic) makes me think this type of article is just done for attention.
Mouse 1: "Brain, what are going to do tonight?"
Mouse 2: "Try and take over the world!"
Dammit, it's "food trough water", not "wiper"!
I need a life.
SCO's Lawyer: "Your honor, I'm just a caveman. Your world frightens me with its boxes with devils in them that make noises. But there is one thing I do know, that there is a 2.7 Linux kernel."
Judge: "I find for SCO's motion and their caveman lawyer!"