

Skillshare, Codecademy and the gamification of education - didgeoridoo
http://plasticresume.wordpress.com/2012/04/11/skillshare-codecademy-and-the-gamification-of-education/

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_delirium
Isn't the education system already pretty full of a pretty large range of
game-like and competition-like scoring and motivational devices? We've got
completion-based ones, ranking-based ones, competition-based ones, the works.
Degrees, points on assignments, percentage scores, exam grades, GPAs,
percentile ranks, science olympiads, etc. They were even made _literally into
games_ starting in the 1970s, with the edutainment-software movement. I can
see tweaking these scores, removing some, introducing others, but the idea
seems pretty standard.

Overall, though, I'm not sure the secret to education is that we just haven't
invented a better scoring system to feed you Skinner-box-esque reward pellets
whenever you do every incremental good thing. In fact we're already pretty
decent at _that_. We're less good at convincing people why they should care
_beyond_ that. It's very easy to convince students that they should care about
their grade and the badge (degree), but much harder to cultivate any sense of
actual interest.

There's also some research that extrinsic rewards tend to reduce intrinsic
motivation: once you start doing something for the brief high of getting the
"ping!", it becomes _much_ harder to bring yourself to do it later if the
reward is removed, even if it's something you originally enjoyed; which means
I think we have to be very careful in gamifying/badgifying/achievementifying
things. It's a bit different debate, but Chris Hecker has a good talk about
that where he worries that modern videogames are focusing too much on the
"achievement unlocked!" aspect of gaming, at the expense of deeper and more
actually engaging game mechanics:
<http://chrishecker.com/Achievements_Considered_Harmful%3F> And if that's true
in videogames, I would also worry about it irl.

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bherms
I came here to make this point as well... Education _is_ gamified. While some
seem to think that changing the scoring/reward system is the key to moving
forward, I think the gamification itself is the problem with education (to a
degree). It's far easier to say "did you answer this the way I wanted you to?
If so, here's your A (or badge, or points) and you win," than to actually make
sure people care about and grok the info they're meant to. I can memorize a
formula to pass a test, but I may not know jack-shit about how and why the
formula is applied to get the answer. That is a problem that is much harder to
solve in education and I'm not sure it will ever be solved except by those
that can inspire kids to see the beauty in the subjects they love.

~~~
ttt_
I don't think being scored in school and game scores are that much alike.

In games, a bad score can be re-tried usually as many times as it takes for
you to be satisfied with it. You're not at a loss as long as you take the time
to re-do them until a good score is earned. On the other, in school, usually,
your bad score sticks. That's it for you. Better luck next time or you might
fail the entire year. Retrying in school takes an entire year of your life,
you have to re-do even the things that you got right. It's quite punitive.
That's without mentioning social aspects of it (peer view, self-esteem, etc).

Also, there's a big difference between scores and game reward system. Game
rewards (nowadays) are designed for addiction. Rewards begin plenty and often,
then are made scarcer and occasional. Not any school system can beat that
behavioral craving.

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aik
I'm not convinced that a society run on supercharged external motivators is
any better off. I'm actually thinking the opposite is true, which is why the
trend of gamifying education scares me. It's a temporary and imperfect bandaid
for a much deeper issue.

The blogger quotes Dan Pink, "job satisfaction is driven mainly by autonomy,
mastery, and purpose." -- however I believe Dan Pink's findings are contrary
to the blogger's points. "Mastery" is generally attained and sought for when
one is intrinsically motivated. This is because extrinsic motivations are much
less likely to lead to mastery as mastery is often not the goal in games, but
rather the successful completion of the goal of the game. For example, grades
in school prove some level of proficiency in something, however grades are
often very loosely connected to proficiency in the discipline. E.g. If someone
tells me they received an A in calculus, I have absolutely no inclination to
then trust they are proficient in calculus. If someone tells me they majored
in Computer Science I have no inclination to then trust they are skilled
computer scientists or engineers.

Alternatively, if someone tells me sincerely that one of their passions in
life (ie. "purpose") is to build computer programs, or play with numbers, and
they have something to show for it (which they must if it truly is a passion),
then I am instantly inclined to trust that they have some competency and
deserve some respect.

So this being the case, gamifying may lead to people learning at some level,
however forming such a dependency I think could be dangerous. Once the game is
removed, ie. once the primary purpose of taking action is removed, what do
people have left? The discipline itself (without the game) may have absolutely
no intrinsic value to the person, so what good is it to the person anymore?

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mgallivan
The only way to be introduced to a discipline is extrinsically. It's
impossible to wake up and enjoy Computing Science - one must have had an
introduction to it in some form.

The idea behind the "gamification" of education is not to trick people into
mastering a discipline. It's to introduce them to it.

~~~
aik
I'm not sure if I understand what you mean. If I do I'm not sure if I agree. A
love for computers and all they're capable of isn't born inside a game that
gives you points for building [insert program]. A love for programming goes
deeper -- it's linked to an internal curiosity and drive to create things and
the knowledge that you have the capability to create nearly whatever you have
the capacity to think of.

Secondly, the blogger isn't arguing for games to introduce people to new
disciplines, but rather to let games drive their entire learning career.

~~~
mgallivan
I wasn't so much concerned with the blogger's views (which I disagree with as
well), as I was with your fear of the trend of gamification.

How come a love of computing can't be born inside a game consisting of
building programs for points? I was introduced to programming because I wanted
to make video games. I didn't want to program - I just wanted the satisfaction
of a completed game. My love of programming came over time as I experimented.

This is, of course, very subjective but whenever I think about any of my
hobbies I recall always being led to them because of some outside factor. It
was only after I began practicing them that I learned to enjoy them for what
they were.

~~~
aik
Oh I see -- I think we're interpreting 'external motivator' differently. You
coming to the decision on your own that you wanted to create a game is not to
me an example of being externally motivated to begin programming. That's an
example of you discovering the world and coming to the decision that you liked
what you saw in video games. Another person might experience the same video
game and be indifferent to it.

An external motivator would be someone telling you that if you create a game
you will get some irrelevant award, and so you go ahead and create a game. The
next time you have the idea to create the game, and the award isn't there,
you'll be less inclined to do it.

~~~
mgallivan
I guess it depends where you draw the line in the sand. I'm still a fan of
whatever the trend may be, but I think we both agree that the blogger goes too
far.

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zamfi
I like this post, even though I feel pretty strongly that the gamification of
everything, and education especially, is net negative.

aik has it right elsewhere in this thread that Dan Pink's findings are
contrary to this blog post's points. Dan Pink's most interesting finding in my
mind is that applying extrinsic financial motivation has positive effects on
methodical, repetitive work, but a strongly negative effect on creative, out-
of-the-box work. I'd be shocked if gamification had a different effect, though
of course I have nothing empirical to offer. I expect that gamification works
for repetitive tasks like playing WoW, but is not that effective for actually
learning something, even if it does push you through Codecademy's tasks.

We have an educational system that repeatedly de-emphasizes intrinsic
motivation. How much of school is driven by what you want to learn and what
you are interested in? I didn't take my first elective until junior year of
high school.

Given that most Americans (and most inhabitants of OECD countries) spend the
first 12 years of their conscious life in a gamified environment, as _delirium
points out, is it so surprising that the "underachievers'" intrinsic
motivation is weak, and that the author finds gamification powerful and
useful? I don't want to sound conspiracy theory-ish, but I think we've been
quite effectively trained to respond to exactly this kind of stimulus.

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davemel37
I think the author is forgetting where eggs come from. (hint: Chickens)

Games work because they mimic life. (By life I mean, you, your emotions, the
circumstances you encounter and how you handle those circumstances.)

Essentially this whole post is a semantic piece interchanging the words
"emotions" with "gamification"

Everything about life is driven by gamification (read:emotions) already, and
everything about games is triggering emotions. forcing people to make
decisions using logic, experience, and driven by their emotional needs.

In other words, we like games because it is life, except there is such a thing
as do-overs.

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foolinator
ANY free education, regardless of a comparison of today's system, is great.

MIT and Stanford's courseware - AMAZING. The courses are THE SAME courses as
CS courses. Now, there's no excuse not to learn it, and a lot of people in 3rd
world countries ARE learning it.

The classroom is going to drastically change very soon. We're entering a great
time for eduction.

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pascalr
Awesome post!

I've recently started gamifying life. It's amazing how much just a little
change of perspective can make you more happy.

What would you do with the character that is yourself if you were playing it
in a game?

~~~
bostonvaulter2
What are some examples of things you gamified? Is it more repetitive things
like exercising or more creative things?

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jonbittner
Great post. I guess the classic argument is something like: "People need to
learn to think outside the box to navigate life, so gamification doesn't
prepare people for life" etc. But I agree that gameification and getting
things done while "being stupid" is underrated, especially when what is being
learned is a core skill.

That completion-oriented learning is effective seems hard to dispute. Somehow
it currently gets lost once we leave primary school.

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aik
I don't think it gets lost, it just loses it's value. In my company we have
"games" all over (also known as extrinsic motivators or artificial targets).
For example, in the consulting world we're chasing higher billability, ie. the
more hours I log as billable a quarter, the happier people will be. If I log
under a certain amount, people become angry. What a fun game, right!? Not
exactly. The fact that I'm pushed to play games rather than pushed to do
something I actually value is demoralizing and off target. If my goal was
rather to ensure the client is happy (within reason), ensure that I'm
producing great stuff, and overall skilled at my discipline, I can guarantee
the outcome would be much better.

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didgeoridoo
This is a great point, but I don't think we're talking about the same thing
when we use the word "game". There is a counter-intuitive difference between a
sales contest and a weekend spent playing Modern Warfare. One has a real
monetary value attached, and the other doesn't. Yet we'd STILL rather engage
in the activity that has no real reward attached. To me, that is the sign of a
well-designed "game".

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davemel37
You forgot Math Munchers, Oregon Trail and Dora the Explorer.

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akurilin
On a slightly unrelated note, is there anything like Codecademy for musical
instruments / music theory?

~~~
MichaelJW
Rock Band 3.

