I had the honor of sharing a passionate conversation about the environments kids learn best in with Dr. John Medina, author of Brain Rules. I highly recommend the book if you haven’t read it already.

I was introduced to John through Dr. John Bransford(UW). John (Bransford) is the renown learning scientist who led my team’s collaboration while we were in Microsoft Research. My co-founders and I enjoyed several years with John (Bransford) and team absorbing John’s work on How People Learn and coming up with new game mechanics injected with his team’s 30+ years of research in cognitive psychology. Magical things indeed happen when exceptionally gifted game designers are free to come up with Living Ink to create a new kind of drawing game that is REALLY FUN (which makes learning authentic for our kids) and is fine tuned based on John’s research to give practice in really important, really hard work-life skills – in ItzaBitza’s case – creativity and reading comprehension.

OK – from now on – when I refer to John – I will mean Dr. John Medina.

John’s thoughts on the ultimate learning environment is much more like a video game than a classroom. John is an amazing story teller, and he didn’t disappoint. His point is the ultimate learning happens when the experience engages sight, sound, smell – everything, immerses our kids, and is non-linear. This is pretty much what video games do – except for the smell – although I have seen USB smell attachments but I’m not going to go there right now. It is definitely what we strove for in ItzaBitza – where a kid helps his Sketchy character by drawing what Sketchy needs in their environment.

John starts his story by asking if I have ever been to the Shark Reef at the Mandalay Bay Casino in Las Vegas, NV. I haven’t but now that I’ve heard this story …family – pack those bags (WHY three bags of makeup I will most likely ask my oldest daughter?) – we’re going to Vegas!

The learning goal: learn about approximately 100 predators. At the beginning, kids are given a little gadget that can shoot an infrared beam that they can point on an animal to learn more.

The kids start their adventure in the shark reef – a non-linear environment with many directions in which a kid can go. Kids pick a direction and off they go. They start in a Cambodian Jungle. As they walk around, steam starts SHHHHHHSSHHHHING at the kids. At first there is the sense of surprise, followed by curiosity, followed by exploration. Many kids go back several times to cause and react to the SHHHHHHHSSSHHHHHHING steam.

Fish and snakes are cleverly placed behind acrylic Plexiglas. Kids can get right up to a snake and put their beam on it. They won’t hear a TV broadcast version on snakes – because John points out – the kids will zone out after ten seconds. The audio tells the kid about THAT snake. “See that snake. Look at its tail. It’s got a bite in it because of a rat. They had a tussle and that’s why he has a bite…” John noted he has seen kids just staring at snake for 15 minutes trying to find the bite mark! According to John, what happens is a video game experience. The kids are beginning to engage and get drawn in deeper – which is the magic of real learning in John’s view.

Eventually the adventurers descend into a beach. Finally at the end, they are standing very close to the third largest shark tank in the world. Spending three hours at the exhibit, John saw the kids going nuts. Information was repeated, but in different environments. And then John exclaimed: “I have just seen the best classroom in America” Places to go and things to do in the order the kids wants to, multi-sensory engagement, immersive environment.

THIS is what many great video games do. This is true with ItzaBitza and ItzaZoo with one slight difference. While kids are curiously exploring, they are getting a heavy dosage of practice in creative thinking and reading comprehension.

        

                                       

Ah…what a great time to discuss cookies!

The following story is true.  It would mortify my daughter if she knew I posted it.  My daughter doesn’t read this blog – something about a new South Park episode (hmmmm…) so until she does, please don’t tell her I told you this story.

Shopping – This Season’s Sporting Event

My daughter and I were out shopping – her favorite sport – and I got her two cookies.  One was peanut butter, the other chocolate chip.  Unlike me, she is able to control herself and the cookies were not eaten by the time we get home.  On reflection, I don’t know where this self-control comes from.  I guess her dad.

My daughter puts both cookies on the kitchen table and stares at them.

After what seemed like a long time to me (which means it was more than two seconds), I ask her why she is staring at the cookies.

C is for Cookie!

She says she only wants one cookie, but wants some peanut butter AND chocolate chip.  Oohhh…..I kept looking at her…until…finally….I unfortunately tell her she COULD have half of each.  Once I told her this, she looked very relieved.  And I felt that I let my own parents down.  My parents did a more "you can figure it out for yourself."  And I am GLAD they did.

Go Ask Alice

My grandfather used to quote me lines from "Alice in Wonderland."  Here was one of my favorites:

"One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree. "Which road do I take?" she asked. "Where do you want to go?" was his response. "I don’t know," Alice answered. "Then," said the cat, "it doesn’t matter." – Lewis Carroll

I am fascinated by the choices we have in life and work.  We typically say "good luck."  And some people seem to have better luck than others.  My opinion is their better luck has a lot to do with coming up with creative solutions and following that path.  Not the right or wrong path.  There are a few of those, but most of the paths are good, better, best.

Video Games Bring out the Explorer

This is what I love about REAL video games that let kids explore, try stuff out.  Find things, solve challenges.  And this is what our game designer (Duncan) did in ItzaBitza and ItzaZoo.  I got a mail message from a concerned parent that their kid was having difficulty figuring out a quest.  I emailed him back and said a little frustration is good.  Because he WILL figure it out.  And when he does, the feeling of success and power that brings to him will be worth it.  The parent mailed back and said (to my relief!)  this is exactly what happened.  I see as being a bit frustrated at times a very positive thing.  And good games – like ItzaBitza – have the ability to do this.  Just not too frustrated that you can’t figure something out – ever.