% (applause)
% >> Thanks for inviting me.
% It sounds like we're a little
% loud there.
% Thanks to all of you for coming
% on this lovely Wednesday night.
% I'd like to start by, if I can,
% is it okay if I dim the lights
% a little bit?
% So I'm going to see if I can get
% the lights to the right place
% here.
% It makes the slides a little
% easier to see.
% And I'd like to start by telling
% you a story.
% Our story begins tonight
% with this gentleman,
% who some of you may recognize
% as Fray Luis de León,
% a Spanish academic from
% the 15th century,
% and it ends with this gentleman
% who is probably less familiar,
% he is Will Wright, the developer
% of Sim City, one of the most
% famous video games of all time.
% Our story begins in Salamanca
% in 1575.
% Actually it begins with a trip
% I took to Salamanca in 1995.
% And in the University of
% Salamanca which as some of you
% probably know is one of the
% oldest universities in Europe,
% there's a classroom that's
% perfectly preserved.
% The classroom is deep in the
% bowels of the university, and
% like all Medieval classrooms, at
% the front is a giant lectern
% with a candelabra, lighting
% where the speaker stands as the
% professor held forth in class.
% Around the edges of the
% classroom are a set of ornate
% benches where the faculty sat,
% as they came and listened to
% lectures.
% And taking up the center of the
% room are a set of relatively
% crude benches and tables where
% the students sat, taking notes,
% writing down everything that the
% professor said because of course
% in Salamanca in the 1500s there
% were no textbooks.
% So students took notes, that was
% the only record that they had of
% what the professor had talked
% about.
% The classroom is perfectly
% preserved the way it was in 1575
% because this man taught
% there, Fray Luis de León.
% He was a famous Spanish
% academic, a cleric.
% And he was famous for his book
% "De Los Nombres De Christo,"
% which was a book that looked at
% the various depictions of the
% life of Christ in the texts
% in the bible, and also the texts
% written around the bible,
% works known as the Vulgate
% and the Septuagint.
% Those of you who remember your
% Spanish history know that in the
% 1500s, to be writing about the
% life of Christ using texts
% other than the Bible was a
% little bit dangerous.
% And sure enough, one day in the
% middle of Fray Luis' lecture,
% the Inquisition came,
% hauled him out and threw him
% in the dungeon.
% Fray Luis was fortunate in that
% he was arrested towards the end
% of the time of the Inquisition,
% and he spent something like four
% years in jail.
% And at the end of the time of
% the Inquisition, he was released
% and he came back to his
% classroom.
% And the story goes that on that
% day, everybody who could fit
% in this classroom was there.
% All of the professors of the
% university were packed into the
% ornate benches around the edges
% of the classroom.
% All of the students who could
% get in were crammed onto those
% benches in the middle,
% looking to see, what would
% Fray Louis say when he came out
% of the dungeon?
% Would he rail against
% the Inquisition?
% Would he talk about the
% importance of religious freedom?
% What would the great professor
% say as he came back into the
% classroom?
% And the story goes that
% Fray Luis strode back into his
% class, opened up his notes,
% and said, "As I was saying
% last time..."
% And went on with his lecture
% exactly where he had been
% before.
% (laughter)
% And my friends, if you're
% interested in getting a statue
% erected to yourself outside
% a great university, I suggest
% that this is one way to do it.
% But being a professor myself,
% this story got me to thinking,
% because of course it had been
% four years since Fray Luis
% had been giving that lecture.
% Almost no one who was in the
% room when he walked in, had been
% in the room the last time.
% What he was doing was picking up
% where he left off, but the
% people who were there
% had no record of where that was.
% This got me thinking,
% halfway across Europe, and
% about a century earlier,
% to Mainz, in Germany in 1450,
% which was about the time
% the Johan Gutenberg
% was inventing movable type.
% And he was inventing it,
% of course, because he wanted
% to be able to print Bibles.
% Now we have to assume that
% Fray Luis knew about this
% invention because of course
% he got in trouble for printing
% a book.
% So, let's conduct a little
% thought experiment.
% What would have happened if when
% Fray Luis walked back into his
% classroom, instead of saying,
% "As I was saying last time..."
% and going on with his lecture
% exactly where he had been
% before, he said
% "For homework, read Chapter 3."
% What would the illustrious
% professors around the edge
% of that classroom have said?
% They might have said, "But
% students won't learn to memorize
% if they read a textbook.
% They'll spend all their time
% mesmerized by books,
% lost in the print.
% What will they do when
% they need to know something
% and they don't have a book?"
% And of course, these professors
% to some extent,
% would have been right.
% Socrates argued over 2,000 years
% ago, "Those who read and write
% will cease to exercise their
% memory and become forgetful...
% They will receive a quantity
% of information without proper
% instruction, and in consequence
% be thought very knowledgeable
% when they are for the most part
% quite ignorant."
% I can say as somebody who has
% learned to read and write,
% it is absolutely true that I
% have become more forgetful as
% a result.
% But the critics also would have
% been wrong, because again,
% halfway across Europe,
% this time in the same century,
% Vesalius and his followers
% de Graaf and Falloppio and
% Eustachio, after whom
% the graafian vessels,
% fallopian tubes and
% Eustachian canals in our ears
% are named, were conducting
% the first systematic dissections
% of the human body, and
% publishing their results
% in atlases, in books, which
% traveled across Europe so that
% again, halfway across the
% continent and this time,
% a century later in England,
% William Harvey could use these
% detailed anatomical drawings
% to produce his theory
% of circulation.
% And beginning in the 1600s,
% we can chart the development of
% the science of modern medicine
% through the texts that were
% produced:
% Treatise on the Heart,
% On Animal Motion,
% On Fevers, Morbid Anatomy,
% and so forth.
% Beginning in 1700, the number
% of titles written about medical
% science becomes almost too
% numerous to count, such that
% today there are--
% Pub Med alone indexes
% 5,000 medical journals, and
% some 400,000 articles each year
% written about medical science.
% My point of course in not about
% medicine per say, but that
% the development of medicine
% and similarly much of science,
% engineering,
% democratic capitalism,
% vernacular literature, and the
% rest of the culture, society,
% economy, and technology
% of the modern world depended
% on the printing press.
% Or, to conclude our thought
% experiment, you'd hate to be
% the person who invested in
% quill pens in the 16th century.
% Now it's easy for us to look
% back and chuckle at the things
% people didn't know 500 years
% ago, but I submit that people
% who live in glass houses
% shouldn't throw stones.
% Or perhaps I should say people
% who live in silicon houses,
% because we face some
% of the same blindness today.
% As a quick example,
% consider "Star Trek."
% The creators of "Star Trek" have
% imagined a world where we can
% travel faster than the speed of
% light, where we can communicate
% across vast distances.
% Those of you who know
% "Star Trek" know
% they have a holodeck.
% The holodeck creates
% a computer-generated simulation
% so real that if something
% goes wrong with the safety
% mechanisms, which of course it
% being "Star Trek,"
% something always does,
% you could die.
% And in that amazing futuristic
% world, this is what the creators
% of "Star Trek" imagine education
% will look like.
% n>> All right,
% nlet's settle down.
% nLet's settle down!
% nRight, let's get out
% nour homework pads.
% nThis assignment was to write an
% nessay defining the term ethics.
% nLet's start with Nog.
% n>> I don't have my essay.
% n>> Why not?
% n>> My pad was stolen.
% n>> Any idea who stole it?
% n>> It happened at Quarks.
% nI put it on a table, and
% nthere was some Vulcans nearby.
% n>> Hold on, you're saying
% nVulcans stole your homework?
% n>> Yes, sir.
% >> Yes, that's right,
% 300 years in the future, people
% are writing essays on their
% homework pads and claiming
% that Vulcans stole them.
% In other words, in the world of
% "Star Trek," education,
% 300 years from now, looks very
% much like education today.
% And the problem is that many
% of the technologies that
% the creators of "Star Trek"
% imagined are with us today.
% Let me just give you
% one quick example.
% Many of you are probably
% familiar with this,
% this is Google Earth.
% It's available for free.
% You can run it on any computer
% made in the last two years,
% or so, powerful enough to run
% the simulator.
% It's a very high fidelity
% representation of the entire
% planet earth, which takes
% satellite images and lets
% you zoom in on them.
% So last time I went traveling
% to Washington for example,
% my daughter asked me, "Where are
% you staying dad?"
% I said, "Well I'm staying
% right here."
% And she said, "Well are you
% going to go see anything
% interesting?"
% And I said, "Well let's see
% what's around that I might see."
% Well, oh, it looks like
% the White House is nearby.
% She said, "Are you going to go?"
% I said, "Well, it looks like
% it would be pretty easy."
% I could just go out of my hotel,
% take a left turn,
% I would walk down 15th Ave.
% When I reached Pennsylvania,
% I take a right at
% Lafayette Park, walk a block,
% and the White House
% would be right there.
% So, being a teacher, I thought
% "Wow, this is amazing."
% Look at the geographic
% information,
% the sophisticated technology
% that could be at kid's
% fingertips.
% What incredible things we must
% be doing in geography classes.
% So I went online, and I looked
% up some geography activities.
% This is one that I took
% from a college course,
% a community college course,
% from the syllabus.
% Here's a map
% of Ancient Mesopotamia.
% And the assignment in this
% community college course
% is to fill out the map
% of Ancient Mesopotamia.
% You're supposed to identify
% things like the
% Taurus Mountains, and Uruk, and
% Babylon, and Ur, and so forth.
% You get one point
% for each of those.
% You get one point for titling
% your map "Ancient Mesopotamia"
% and for having your name
% clearly displayed.
% You get one point for shading
% the water with an appropriate
% color, which I assume is blue.
% And you get the most points
% of all, three points,
% if the map looks neatly done.
% And the problem is, in the era
% of Google Earth, we have kids
% worrying about this map
% of Ancient Mesopotamia, when
% the map they should be
% worrying about is this map.
% This is a map that shows
% the outsourcing partners
% that one company uses
% in producing its products.
% We've all heard about how
% the world is becoming flat.
% How we are entering an era
% of global competition,
% in popular press reports
% like Tom Friedman's book
% and in more scientific studies,
% we see that "Thanks to
% globalization, driven by
% modern communications
% and other advances,"
% as one report puts it,
% "workers in virtually every
% sector must now face competitors
% who live just a mouse click
% away...
% Without a renewed effort
% to bolster the foundations
% of our competitiveness...
% the nations's children could
% face poorer prospects than their
% parents and grandparents did."
% What is it that we need to do
% to compete in a world where
% things that can be done easily
% using basic facts and
% basic skills can be done
% by somebody with a computer
% anywhere in the world?
% Young people today need to learn
% to think about innovative
% and creative ways about
% complex technical problems.
% How good of a job is school
% doing at giving them those
% skills?
% The answer is not very.
% Something like 50% of Hispanic
% and African American students
% in the United States
% don't complete high school;
% 33% of students leave overall
% before completing school;
% 50% of those who left said that
% they left because classes
% were boring and irrelevant
% to their career goals.
% And 80% said more real world
% opportunities might have
% kept them in school.
% If we look at international
% comparisons, we lag behind
% the relevant competitors
% internationally, in terms
% of producing young people with
% science and engineering degrees
% and other technical skills.
% In the most recent
% Intel Corporations International
% Science Fair, a high school
% science fair for kids,
% 60,000 students in
% the United States participated.
% But before you think that number
% is impressive, in China
% the number was six million.
% And so we have to ask ourselves,
% what is it that we need to do
% in order to prepare our young
% people for this...
% and not this,
% or this,
% or this?
% And my answer is that in order
% to answer that question,
% we have to look back.
% We have to look way back
% and understand something about
% the history of thinking itself.
% Because the technologies
% of the digital revolution
% are profoundly changing what it
% means to think, and thus
% what it means to learn.
% I'm drawing on some work in
% a wonderful book that I highly
% recommend by Merlin Donald,
% called the "Origins
% of the Modern Mind."
% Merlin Donald asks essentially
% the question, what makes this
% fellow different from this
% fellow?
% And his answer is this:
% gestures.
% The fact that we can communicate
% with each other
% using our bodies.
% Gestures let us transfer
% information to one another
% about how we feel,
% about what we think.
% They let us practice and
% rehearse skills to build tools,
% and to pass that knowledge on,
% to create what Merlin Donald
% calls a mimetic culture.
% The most early hominid culture
% of communication by gestures,
% by signaling to one another
% that lets me communicate
% to you what I understand,
% and you understand something
% about what I intend.
% The problem with gestures though
% is that they're a little hard
% to interpret.
% What is this woman trying
% to communicate?
% Is it love?
% Is it hope?
% Is it happiness?
% Words are symbols, and
% what symbols let us do
% is communicate more efficiently
% than gestures alone.
% Oops, sorry I didn't mean
% to jump to that!
% But once we have words, we're
% not only able to communicate
% about isolated ideas,
% it's possible to string those
% words together into sentences
% and ultimately to make stories.
% So, for example, last year
% after we had gone ice skating
% for the first time on a cold day
% on Madison's lakes, when we came
% home, my daughter said this.
% n>> I raced you!
% nCome on up here!
% nYou couldn't catch me!
% nI was too fast.
% nHey, let's get some more hot
% nchocolate.
% nI haven't had
% nsome hot chocolate in years.
% nOoh, yummy!
% nGood, good, good.
% >> So here she is
% telling a story.
% It helps her make sense
% of her world.
% And our ability to tell stories
% leads to what Merlin Donald
% calls a mythic culture,
% the stories of the great myths
% that help us understand
% who we are and what our place is
% in the world.
% Beginning about 10,000 years
% ago, this mythic information,
% this understanding of who we are
% and how the world works
% began to be recorded, first
% in cave paintings in Moscow
% and other place across Europe.
% Later this idea of recording
% information gets picked up
% in the Middle East in Babylon,
% Ancient Mesopotamia--
% Used principally to record
% financial information, who owes
% what to whom and how much.
% Progressively over time, these
% early symbols become more and
% more abstract, like this symbol
% for barley, until eventually
% we get our modern ideographic
% and pictographic scripts.
% The point about writing is that
% what it lets us do
% is store words,
% store symbolic information.
% That means we can communicate
% over time and over space
% with one another.
% Words make it possible
% to organize much more complex
% activities.
% But even more than that, it
% makes it possible to record
% information, to step back
% and to look for patterns,
% to understand the way things
% are related to one another,
% to create scientific theories,
% so it's no accident that
% the scientific revolution begins
% in part when Tycho Brahe
% spends a lifetime carefully
% observing and recording
% the positions of the bodies
% in the heavens.
% This body of work recorded
% in an atlas gets passed on to
% his assistant, Johannes Kepler,
% who uses this lifetime's work
% of careful observation
% and recording of planetary
% information, to produce his laws
% of planetary motion, which gets
% picked up 100 years later,
% and again halfway across the
% continent, by Sir Isaac Newton,
% who combines Kepler's laws
% with Galileo's work to produce
% his theory of gravity,
% which of course gets published
% in a book.
% In other words, writing
% makes it possible
% to create a literate culture.
% It makes possible civilization.
% And it makes possible science.
% But it does so for a price,
% and the price is the long
% cognitive apprenticeship
% that young people have to face
% in order to master the tools
% of symbolic thinking that
% make it possible to participate
% in a literate culture.
% So it should come as no surprise
% to us that formal education
% was essentially invented
% by the literate Greeks.
% They had the Quaderivium:
% arithmetic, music, geometry,
% and astronomy;
% and the Trivium:
% rhetoric, grammar, and logic.
% And if today, we organized
% these disciplines of human
% understanding differently,
% for example we put geometry with
% logic rather than with music,
% these are the basis of our
% modern academic disciplines.
% The situation remained
% relatively unchanged for
% the Middle Ages where writing
% was preserved and
% reading was preserved
% principally so that scholars
% and monks could read and write
% the Bible.
% What changed all this was
% the Industrial Revolution.
% Beginning in the early 1800s
% the United States and other
% countries going through
% industrialization saw a massive
% growth in the size of industrial
% cities and workers came in
% to work in factories.
% And with the growth of cities
% came all the problems
% 150 years ago that we associate
% with over crowded cities today.
% And then, as today, we saw the
% people turn for a solution to
% these problems to education.
% And so you get educators like
% John Philbrick in the 1800s,
% arguing that the future
% of our cities will be largely
% what education makes it.
% Or William Harris, who was the
% superintendent of schools
% in Massachusetts, later for the
% Federal Government, argued that
% the industrial community
% cannot exist without free
% popular education carried out
% in a system of schools ascending
% from primary grade
% to the university.
% The purpose of these schools
% was to train young people for
% life in an industrial society.
% He said, "Each pupil must be
% taught first and foremost
% to conform his behavior to a
% general standard...
% to the time of the train,
% to the starting of work
% in the manufactory..."
% And William Harris
% and his colleagues Horace Mann
% and Samuel Howe, and the other
% school reformers of the 1800s
% literally set out to build
% what they called the
% "One best system."
% It was a system that was
% designed to train people
% to do this
% by having them do this.
% It's from this period in time
% that most of what we think of
% as modern schooling,
% most of the features
% of modern schooling, come.
% The egg crate school
% with individual classrooms
% and individual desks
% all in a uniform building,
% the age-graded classroom,
% the nine month school year,
% the five day school week,
% the fifty minute period,
% the Carnegie unit.
% All of these were developed
% in 1800s to produce a system
% for training young people
% for life in industrial America.
% And they did it by training
% people to work with symbols.
% But here is the problem.
% If writing stores symbols,
% what computers do
% is manipulate symbols.
% Or to put it another way
% in the language of business
% if you prefer, if writing
% outsources memory, computation
% outsources thinking itself.
% Let me give you a quick example
% of what I mean by that.
% So when I made this slide,
% it didn't look like this.
% On my computer, the slide
% looked like this.
% Those of you who have used
% Microsoft products,
% Microsoft Word
% or Microsoft Power Point,
% know that when you type in a
% word like "outsources,"
% there is a little squiggly line
% that appears under it.
% And the squiggly line is telling
% you that the word is misspelled
% because ironically, Microsoft
% doesn't recognize "outsources"
% as a proper English word.
% (laughter)
% Now, here is how it does that.
% It's no great trick.
% It has a list of proper English
% words.
% It searches through that list
% to see if it can find
% "outsources."
% If it can find it,
% the word is spelled correctly.
% If it can't, then the word
% isn't, and it marks it for me.
% Now, you could ask, is this
% an important part of thinking.
% Is it really a big deal that the
% computer can check my spelling?
% Well, for me it is, because
% I'm a terrible speller,
% and I always have been.
% And I make my living with words.
% I write words down
% and send them to people.
% I put words up on a screen
% in front of people.
% And I promise you, every single
% time I've ever had a typo
% in my Power Point presentation,
% and I sometimes
% put them in just to test this,
% somebody comes up after the
% presentation and reminds me
% that I have a typo
% in my Power Point.
% Now of course,
% they're just being helpful.
% But the point is that
% people notice these things.
% And so for me, the fact that
% the computer does this means
% I don't have to check every word
% in my Power Point against
% a dictionary, or I don't
% have to pay somebody else
% to do it for me.
% In other words, what computers
% do is outsource simple thinking
% so that we can do
% more complex thinking.
% Let me give you an example
% of what the educational
% consequences of that
% might look like.
% So this is the algorithm
% for extracting a square root.
% My guess is looking around
% that almost no one in this room
% learned the algorithm for
% extracting a square root by hand
% when they were in math class
% in school.
% I actually first saw it when
% I was teaching school in Nepal
% where they still do
% learn this algorithm.
% I won't take you through it.
% It's a little bit like doing
% long division, only harder.
% There's a reason that we don't
% teach this in schools in
% the United States, and haven't
% for the past 75 or 80 years.
% Actually, it's probably
% more like 90, now.
% That's because for almost
% a century, we've had
% slide rules available.
% And slide rules are
% much more efficient
% at extracting square roots,
% and doing lots of other things
% than the algorithm
% doing it by hand is.
% But in order to use
% a slide rule, you have to know
% something about logarithms,
% which is why, looking around,
% I'm guessing about half or
% 3/4 of the people in this room,
% including me, learned at some
% point in school to read
% a log table, and you learned
% a very particular skill.
% In fact, you learned how
% to interpolate, which is how
% to figure out the correct value
% to use on the table was
% when the exact value you wanted
% didn't appear, but it
% was between two other values.
% This is a skill
% that was taught principally
% in trigonometry classes.
% The reason is that you use
% the same skill of interpolation
% to read a table of sines
% and cosines, so it was sort of
% a good time to teach this
% little piece of information.
% Kids spend almost no time
% on this skill today.
% And in fact, the kids in the
% audience probably, either
% won't see this at all,
% or see it very briefly
% when they are in high school.
% And the reason is this.
% You can go into any drugstore
% anywhere in the country,
% and for 99 cents,
% you can buy a calculator
% that does all of that for you.
% And in fact, it does almost
% everything else that kids learn
% in the first five years of their
% mathematical education, too.
% And so this raises the question,
% what is it that's worth learning
% in a virtual culture.
% Because computers can do
% parts of thinking for us,
% we have to think about
% what it means to be educated,
% to be virtually literate
% in a new way.
% There are certain things
% that we've taken for granted,
% that we don't teach anymore.
% But if that's the case,
% what do kids need
% in order to be able to succeed
% in a global economy?
% How should we prepare them
% for that life?
% Now my answer, as you
% can probably tell
% from the title of the talk,
% is they need to play games.
% And when you say kids need
% to play games to learn, that's
% not necessarily controversial.
% We have an idea that there are
% games that kids can play
% that are good for them.
% But when you say kids should
% play computer games, many people
% I think, imagine this.
% This is a screen shot from
% one of the most popular
% computer games of all time.
% Well, I don't mean that.
% I mean a different kind of game.
% One of my daughter's
% favorites games is "zoo."
% They love to play zoo.
% They love to make a little zoo
% and pretend that they are
% giving out tickets,
% and so forth.
% So it's not surprising that
% one of my daughter's
% favorite computer games
% is this: "Zoo Tycoon."
% In Zoo Tycoon, you build
% and run a zoo.
% You get to decide things
% like where to put the fences and
% how to shape the different cages
% that the animals are in.
% You decide what to feed
% the animals, and where to put
% the food and water.
% Because if you put the food
% and water far away from
% where the people are,
% then they don't see the animals
% while they're eating.
% You get to decide what kind
% of animals you want to have
% in the zoo, how many
% and where to put them.
% You get to decide things like
% what the paths should look like,
% where to put trash cans.
% Because, of course, if you don't
% put enough trash cans,
% your zoo gets dirty
% and people don't like it.
% You can put donation boxes
% and concessions stands.
% You decide what to sell
% at the concessions stands,
% and how much to charge for them.
% Once you have built your zoo,
% you can actually go into your
% zoo and see what it looks like
% to walk around as a patron.
% You can see the other patrons,
% and find out something
% about what they think.
% This little girl is apparently
% learning something about
% elephants right at this point.
% You can also find out
% a whole bunch of information
% about how your zoo is doing.
% You can get a graph
% of the monthly attendance
% of your zoo over time.
% You can get a profit and loss
% statement of your zoo,
% showing the different expenses
% and the different sources
% of revenue and
% how your balance sheet looks.
% You can see here that in March,
% my daughter's zoo was losing
% money, but that's actually okay,
% because the reason she was
% losing money is that she had
% a large animal acquisition
% that month.
% She bought some elephants.
% And then the next month, because
% of the increased attendance,
% the revenue has gone back up
% and her zoo is back
% in the black,
% or in the green, in this case.
% And there's nothing particularly
% unique about the game
% in this respect.
% There's Railroad Tycoon,
% and Roller Coaster Tycoon,
% and Sim City,
% and a whole host of other games
% the similarly present kids
% with a very rich virtual world
% that they can solve
% real problems in.
% One of the things I'd like to
% emphasize here, is that
% this is not the game
% that my daughter is playing
% when she plays Zoo Tycoon.
% This is.
% n>> Put an ice cream stand
% nthere.
% n>> I will.
% n>> Really, sometimes I do.
% nThen you have to clean up
% ngarbage.
% nI don't like doing that.
% n>> Oh yeah,
% nthen we won't do it.
% n>> No, but it's okay.
% nI can clean up garbage.
% n>> Then they'll get more money.
% >> One of the great
% developmental psychologists
% of the last century,
% Lead Bvegotsky argued that
% "Pleasure cannot be regarded
% as the defining characteristic
% of play."
% Rather, what happens when
% kids are playing, is that
% in play a child creates
% an imaginary situation.
% And all play is the
% realization, in play form,
% of tendencies that cannot
% be immediately gratified.
% That's why, of course, when
% my daughter plays zoo, there is
% always a concession stand
% that she builds where you
% can buy gifts and trinkets.
% Bvegotsky's point
% is that games create worlds.
% But again to reiterate, this
% is not the world of the game.
% This is.
% Just as this is not the world
% of the game.
% This is.
% Or to put it another way,
% a game is always a culture.
% As anyone who, for example, has
% been to a Gambler's Anonymous
% meeting knows.
% But what does it mean to say
% that something is a culture?
% It means that in order
% to be a part of the culture,
% you have to know certain things.
% There is just knowledge that
% you have to have in order
% to be a participant in this
% particular way of being
% in the world.
% You have to have certain skills.
% There are just certain things
% you have to know how to do
% in order to participate
% in a culture.
% You have to have certain values.
% You have to care about the same
% kinds of things that other
% people in the culture care
% about.
% And you have to have
% a certain identity.
% You have to see yourself
% a member of this culture.
% In addition to knowledge, and
% skills and values and identity,
% you have to have something else.
% You have to have
% a particular of epistemology.
% You have to have a way
% of making decisions
% and justifying your actions,
% of knowing what it is
% you should do and why.
% And these things, knowledge,
% skills, values, identity,
% and epistemology come together
% in what I've called in my work
% an "Epistemic Frame."
% You can think of an epistemic
% frame like a pair of glasses
% that somebody puts on when they
% become a member of a community.
% When they start thinking like
% a particular type of person.
% That's a nice metaphor,
% because what is suggests
% is that part of what
% an epistemic frame does, is it
% colors how you see the world.
% It makes certain things
% seem important and other things
% seems less important.
% It brings certain things into
% focus and hides other things.
% But at the same time, it marks
% you as the kind of person
% who sees the world in that way.
% Other people see you wearing
% that set of glasses,
% and they think that you
% are a particular kind of person.
% Now it turns out that this idea
% of epistemic frames is not just
% a property of games like this.
% It is also a property
% of cultures where people
% do innovative and creative work
% of the kind that matters in the
% world, because as it turns out,
% we know a lot about innovation
% and creativity.
% And we know a lot about
% how people think about problems
% that don't have standardized
% answers, that aren't just solved
% with basic facts
% and basic skills of the kind
% that we see in school.
% And one of the things
% that's true about innovative
% and creative thinking, and
% the people who practice it,
% is that innovative and creative
% thinkers, professionals
% in the broad sense of the term,
% practice a certain kind
% of thinking that Don Sherm
% has characterized
% as "Reflection-in-action."
% The idea
% of Reflection-in-action
% is that it's thinking
% that reshapes what we are doing
% while we are doing it.
% To put it another way,
% innovative and creative thinkers
% link ways of knowing
% with ways of doing.
% This linkage between thinking
% about something and
% being able to work on a problem
% simultaneously, takes place
% in a professional practicum.
% You can think of an architecture
% studio for architects
% and graphic designers,
% internships and residency
% for doctors,
% moot court for lawyers,
% capstone courses in engineering
% or journalism.
% The idea of a practicum is that
% you have the opportunity
% to take action,
% to work solving problems.
% But then to systematically
% step back from what you're doing
% and reflect on that action.
% To think about what worked
% and what didn't, and why,
% with your peers and mentors.
% This combination of action
% and reflection-on-action,
% these cycles that get closer
% and closer together
% until eventually it forms
% the mature reflection-in-action
% of a trained professional.
% What this means is that
% the practicum creates
% this epistemic frame.
% It creates this way of thinking,
% and therefore,
% we can simulate that.
% We can look at a practicum
% and we can build
% a computer simulation of it
% that lets players have a chance
% to do the same thing
% and learn to think
% in the same way.
% Let me give you a quick example.
% Here's a game we've developed,
% "Urban Science."
% In the game Urban Science,
% players become urban planners.
% Urban planning is a great
% example of the kind of
% innovative and creative thinking
% that young people need to master
% in order to succeed
% in a complex world.
% If you look at the Association
% of Planning Web site,
% they say planners
% need to develop plans
% for how land is used,
% work with the public,
% analyze problems,
% visualize futures,
% compare alternatives,
% describe implications,
% and be technically competent
% and creative.
% In the game, players become
% part of Urban Design Associates,
% a planning firm, redesigning
% their city.
% So when we play it
% here in Madison, the kids,
% middle school kids mostly,
% redesign State Street.
% They redesign the
% Schenk-Atwood neighborhood.
% They redesign a neighborhood
% on the North side of Madison.
% They have a desktop
% where they get emails
% from the people in their firm.
% They communicate back and forth
% about the things that they
% should do, the problems that
% they're facing, what it is
% that they need to do
% to solve those problems.
% As part of the game,
% they go on a virtual site visit
% on Google Earth
% where they can talk
% with different stake holders
% in the city, and find out
% the things they care about
% in their neighborhoods,
% and whether they're interested
% in traffic, crime, housing, or
% waste or pollution, or the other
% issues that face the city.
% They can take that information
% back, that is what people care
% about in their neighborhoods,
% and they use a geographic
% information systems model,
% the same tools that planners
% really use to look at
% how different land use choices,
% different zoning
% changes the things
% that people care about,
% things like parking or culture.
% In this case, you'll see
% a player is taking
% the Civic Center and
% turning it into a parking lot
% to see what would happen.
% Not surprisingly, the amount
% of parking goes up,
% and the cultural index
% for the street goes down.
% They are able to take all this
% information and produce
% what planners call
% a preference survey.
% A preference survey is actually
% a series of different possible
% planning alternatives,
% different possible futures
% for the city, that they give
% to the stakeholders,
% and then they get feedback.
% What parts of the plans
% do you like?
% What parts of the plans
% don't you like?
% And they are able to take
% all of this feedback
% and use it to produce
% a comprehensive plan for
% the redevelopment of Madison,
% which they're then able to
% build out in a three-dimensional
% model, showing people who move
% through the model
% of their proposed redesign,
% why they've made particular
% planning decisions, and
% what the features and advantages
% and disadvantages of their
% particular plan might be.
% Now of course, we're not
% just interested in whether kids
% learn to play this game well,
% although that's
% a nice thing too,
% but we want to see whether
% this has any impact
% on the way they think about
% problems in the real world.
% So one of the things we do
% is we test them before
% and after they play the game.
% And we give them problems
% that don't come up in the game
% but are of the kind
% that you might face
% and might use urban planning
% as a way to think about.
% So for example in one problem,
% we asked them about
% a fictitious town in Wisconsin
% that has too much trash.
% They don't have enough space
% for the trash they produce,
% what should they do?
% So before playing the game,
% one player says, "I mean, they
% could look for a new landfill,
% like a new place
% to build a landfill."
% After playing the game,
% the same player says about
% the same problem, "They should
% not have closed down
% the recycling plant.
% They could have cut other
% stuff, or they could've raised
% taxes to increase revenue...
% They should keep a recycling
% plant because they should be
% helping to reduce the amount of
% waste which is...
% their goal...
% They could export the trash...
% but then that would cost
% a lot more money... and
% they're making budget cuts..."
% This is actually just a small
% excerpt from the player's
% answer after playing the game.
% In other words, after playing
% Urban Science, the players
% of this game are thinking about
% the same kinds of problems
% and issues that my daughter
% was thinking about
% in Zoo Tycoon.
% n>> Yeah, I can
% nclean up garbage.
% n>> Then they'll get more money.
% >> But now, the players
% in Urban Science are starting
% to think about them the way
% an Urban Planner does.
% In other words, Urban Science
% is a game to be sure,
% but it's a very particular
% kind of game.
% It's an epistemic game.
% In general, an epistemic game
% is a game that re-creates
% the epistemic frame
% of some valued social practice.
% I'm going to give you
% one more quick example,
% and then I'll make
% a few closing remarks.
% And hopefully, we'll have
% some time for questions.
% So here's another game
% we've created,
% another epistemic game,
% "Digital Zoo."
% In the game Digital Zoo, players
% become bio-mechanical engineers.
% They design virtual creatures,
% creatures of the kind
% that you might see
% in say a Pixar movie.
% The tool that they use
% to do that is called a
% SodaConstructor, which is
% available free online if you
% look up SodaConstructor.
% SodaConstructor, when you
% open it up, you see
% a little creature called
% the "Dainty Walker,"
% which walks around.
% And this is a simulation of
% a spring mass modeling system.
% You can go into the construct
% mode, and you can add parts
% to this little creature.
% You can add little masses
% and little springs
% that connect them.
% In this case, we'll add a mass
% on top of the Dainty Walker.
% And what we'll see is when
% we run the simulation,
% the Dainty Walker
% becomes less dainty.
% You can also change some of the
% parameters in the simulation.
% In this case,
% we can increase gravity.
% What we find is if we increase
% gravity enough,
% the Dainty Walker
% doesn't even walk anymore.
% As players are doing this
% construction, they're working
% as engineers do.
% That is, they're going through
% iterations of what is called
% the Design, Build
% and Test cycle,
% explicitly coming up with ideas,
% building them,
% and then testing out the results
% of their design,
% and improving their design
% through this process
% of continual iteration.
% What they are trying
% to construct are creatures
% that have some kind
% of emotional content.
% That they are characters
% that might appear in a movie.
% So for example here's
% one player's creation.
% They are supposed to be
% a voiceover with this
% that goes something like,
% "I'm sad. Why me?"
% Interestingly, I was looking
% over the shoulder of one of
% my students while they
% were showing me this.
% And another graduate student
% came by and said, "Oh, it's
% a graduate student working
% on their dissertation."
% (laughter)
% So clearly,
% it's fairly communicative.
% While they're taking this
% action, they are also
% reflecting on that action
% in the same way that
% real engineers do
% in their capstone course.
% In fact, we studied
% a capstone course
% in bio-mechanical engineering.
% And what we found
% is that there are three ways
% in which engineers learn
% to step back from the action
% that they are taking and
% think about what they are doing.
% One of them is in
% their design notebook.
% Players keep design notebooks
% as part of the game.
% They also have team meeting
% with their design advisors, who
% are more experienced engineers,
% who help them think through
% the design process.
% And of course they meet
% with clients who tell them
% what's working about
% their designs, and what
% still needs improvement.
% In the end, they produce
% a prototype and proposal
% for characters in the movie,
% in this case,
% "Lindsay the Happy Butterfly."
% Again, we're not just interested
% in whether or not kids
% can learn to play this game.
% We want to know whether
% they learn something
% about engineering design.
% So again, we test them
% before and after.
% And one of the tests that
% we give them is we ask them
% how they would solve
% an engineering problem.
% In this case, it's making
% a structure out of toothpicks
% and marshmallows
% that would hold up a book.
% We don't actually have them
% solve the problem.
% We have them draw a flow chart
% of how they would solve it.
% This is a pretty typical
% flow chart before players
% play the game.
% And you'll notice
% it's pretty linear.
% I would do this.
% This is the same player's
% flow chart
% after playing the game.
% As you can see, it's more like
% the iterative cycles
% of a good engineering design.
% And in fact, we conduct
% a controlled study
% where we look at players
% playing Digital Zoo,
% that's the engineering game,
% and players who play
% another epistemic game,
% the same length of time,
% same kind of players,
% but they're not doing
% any engineering in the game.
% What we find, not surprisingly
% is that the control group,
% their engineering designs
% don't get any more complicated,
% because they haven't been
% learning to think that way.
% Whereas in the Digital Zoo
% group, even though they
% start out with less
% sophisticated designs
% than the control group,
% they improve substantially
% from playing the game.
% Now some of you may be thinking
% "Wow, that seems like
% an awful lot of work."
% Is this really fun?
% Well, it turns out, yeah.
% Because part of being a
% professional is taking pleasure
% in what you do.
% Professionals enjoy
% the kinds of challenges
% that problems present
% when they're not
% problems with the same answers
% every time.
% Part of developing the epistemic
% frame of a professional,
% of learning to think
% the way a professional does
% in a practicum is learning
% to care about the things
% that professionals care about.
% So what happens is that
% through the process of playing
% this game, players are changed
% into the kind of people who care
% about these kinds of problems.
% More than that though,
% young people in adolescence,
% and even before,
% are tremendously interested
% in power.
% They're interested in
% their own sense of efficacy,
% in how the world works
% and what place
% they're going to have in it.
% What these games do, is they
% can peel back the curtains
% and show them
% the way that the world works, or
% at least some part of it works.
% The point isn't necessarily
% to create them all as engineers,
% or architects, or doctors
% or lawyers, but to give them
% opportunity to see what it would
% be like to be somebody
% who makes the decisions
% that make the world run.
% Now, part of the reason
% for doing this, obviously,
% is economic.
% But part of the reason
% is also that games like this,
% like Digital Zoo,
% and Urban Science,
% and Science.net
% about journalism,
% and a host of other games
% is that they allow us to imagine
% a world where everybody who
% went into a doctor's office
% understood something about how
% a doctor thinks about problems,
% about the questions they ask,
% about the kinds of evidence
% they look for,
% about how they make decisions.
% What would our medical system
% look like, a medical system that
% takes something like a sixth
% of our Gross Domestic Product
% every year.
% If everybody who went
% into the doctor's office
% had the way of thinking.
% What would our body politic
% look like?
% How would decisions get made
% in the public sphere
% if everybody who picked up
% the newspaper or
% turned on the radio
% or watched the television
% understood something about
% how a journalist thinks,
% about why some stories
% get reported and others don't,
% about why coverage looks one way
% and not another.
% What I'd like to do is
% to contrast this way of thinking
% about what games can do
% with most of the games
% that probably many of you
% have seen targeted
% for educational purposes.
% Here is one of the best known
% educational games of all time,
% "Math Blaster."
% In Math Blaster,
% you fly around the universe
% taking on obstacles
% and overcoming challenges
% like finding the sum
% of 30 and 10.
% There is a host of games
% like this.
% This is "Zombie Division,"
% where you move through a dungeon
% killing zombies
% by finding their proper factors.
% There are games about learning
% spelling, games about
% learning Bible verses, although
% those aren't used in public
% school for the most part.
% There are even games
% about learning typing.
% What all these games
% have in common in this.
% They're all about
% mastering the basics.
% They're about learning
% basic facts and basic skills
% of the kind that you need
% to pass standardized tests.
% In other words, these are all
% the modern day versions of this.
% There is a reason that when
% we think of uses for technology,
% we tend to think about doing
% more of the same, rather than
% doing something different.
% And it's because if this is
% an epistemic game,
% so is this.
% It's in fact a very effective
% epistemic game.
% It's just that it's a game
% about a way of thinking
% that isn't particularly useful
% anymore.
% Now of course, the point
% of all this isn't that every kid
% should spend all their time
% playing with computers, and
% not doing all the other things
% that we know are valuable
% for kids.
% Of course, it's important
% that kids should be outside,
% that they should be
% walking in nature,
% they should be playing football,
% and stickball, and baseball.
% Shows where I grow up
% that I say stickball, right?
% They should be spending time
% hanging out with their friends
% talking about nothing.
% They should be spending time
% reading good books.
% They should be spending time
% watching movies,
% and watching television,
% and learning how to do that
% responsibly, and do it well.
% They should be doing
% arts and crafts projects.
% And they should be spending
% some time using the technologies
% that shape the world
% around them.
% Growing up is all about
% finding a balance.
% And our job as parents
% and as educators is to help kids
% find that balance.
% Because ultimately,
% if we live in a world that
% looks less and less like this,
% and more and more like this,
% we have a choice to make.
% We can use the technologies
% that are creating a world
% of global competition,
% complex innovative thinking
% and problem solving
% to prepare kids
% for a life in that world.
% Or, we can essentially say
% to kids that what we've been
% doing for the last 150 years
% is just fine,
% and we don't need to change it.
% So, I'll stop there.
% For those of you who are
% interested in learning
% more about this, I have a book
% that came out recently,
% "How Computer Games
% Help Children Learn,"
% that gives these examples
% and many others,
% and gives some more background
% on these ideas.
% For those of you who
% can't wait to find the book
% in the bookstore,
% there is also a Web site,
% epistemicgames.org
% that not only has
% more information, but has a blog
% where you can
% join in the conversation
% and share your ideas, and
% share some more of our ideas,
% and the research group
% about games and how they
% might change the way
% we think about education.
% So, I'll stop.
% Tom, I trust you'll tell me when
% we're out of time for questions.
% But in the meantime,
% if you folks have any,
% I'd be happy to talk.
% Thanks very much.
% (inaudible)
% This book is geared to parents
% and teachers, although I do know
% of some children who've read and
% enjoyed it, too.
% Yes?
% (inaudible)
% Sure, I'm just going to repeat
% questions, because they're
% taping this.
% The question was, how about
% games for conflict resolution,
% bullying and other problems like
% that.
% We haven't developed a game for
% bullying, although there is a
% commercial game that is about
% the issues of bullying.
% As you might imagine, the
% questions about whether bullying
% are good or bad are a little
% more complex in the commercial
% game.
% It's not designed specifically
% to be educational.
% There is a game that I talk
% about in "How Computer Games
% Help Children" called the
% Pandora Project, which is about
% learning to think like a
% mediator, somebody who does
% mediation and conflict
% resolution.
% It turns out that there's
% actually been a lot of work in
% the last 20 years on how people
% learn to exercise that skill.
% And we've taken that and turned
% it into a game, which we've
% tested with some very good
% results.
% One of the things that you hope
% comes out of learning to think
% like a mediator is recognizing
% that problems don't necessarily
% have right and wrong answers.
% There are people who have
% legitimate differences.
% The job of a mediator is to help
% them work through those
% differences.
% That's the kind of result that
% we see coming out of kids
% playing the game.
% (inaudible)
% Yes, the Pandora Project is
% described in the book.
% The game on bullying, which I
% think is called "Bully," is not
% described in the book.
% Yes?
% (inaudible)
% That's an excellent question.
% The question is what about games
% for children with disabilities,
% which is an excellent question.
% None of the games that we've
% developed have been designed
% specifically for children with
% disabilities.
% But interestingly, I was
% speaking at the National Center
% for Technology Innovations
% conference a year ago, which is
% a government funded organization
% that looks at adpative
% technology and technologies for
% kids with special needs.
% And one of the things that
% people there were very
% interested in, and actually have
% published a paper about is the
% fact that one of the problems
% that all kids face is, what
% happens when I'm done with this
% thing that I've been doing for
% much of my life, which is
% school, and I suddenly have to
% move on and do something that
% has a very different set of
% rules and expectations.
% That problem is even harder, in
% many cases, for young people
% with special needs, because
% schools are, at least these
% days, make adaptations in ways
% that the workplace doesn't
% necessarily.
% And one of the things that games
% like these provide kids an
% opportunity to do was to try out
% what it would be like to a
% professional, what it would be
% like to do work in the real
% world, to understand what you
% might be interested in, to
% understand what some of the
% things that are hard and easy
% about it are.
% So, although we haven't tested
% these with kids with learning
% differences or other special
% needs, it's certainly possible
% to imagine that in the same way
% that these games can help kids
% who don't have issues with
% school, and with learning as
% it's currently done, that they
% would have an opportunity to
% actually get something more out
% of it.
% Other questions?
% (inaudible)
% So the question is, how does
% this fit into a no child left
% behind world.
% And in one of the arguments that
% I make in the book is that it's
% not entirely clear that in a no
% child left behind world that
% schools are moving in the right
% direction.
% In fact, they seem to be moving
% in exactly the wrong direction.
% So my hope right now is that
% what we can do is develop these
% games and play them in settings
% that don't look like traditional
% schools.
% We test these in summer programs
% and after school clubs.
% We've worked in community
% centers.
% And the idea is to show what's
% possible.
% If we take technology and use
% them to teach the kinds of
% things that we know kids need to
% learn, rather than trying to
% help kids do better on
% standardized tests, one of the
% things we find, of course, is
% that kids who have an experience
% like this over the summer often
% go back and do better in school,
% because they have a sense of
% themselves as being somebody
% who's capable and competent,
% because they get specific
% academic skills like writing or
% math or science, because they
% learned to talk to adults in a
% way that makes them more
% comfortable in school.
% So, there are positive effects
% in schools.
% But I think the bigger thing is
% to be able to show what's
% possible if we use technologies
% to their fullest.
% And to build up the political
% bill that it would take to
% change a system like no child
% left behind, that ultimately
% what we need to do is build an
% example of what would be better
% than what we're doing right now,
% so that parents, and teachers,
% and school board members, and
% other people who care about
% kids' education can say, "Hey,
% what about that over there?
% What they're doing over there is
% really cool.
% Why can't we do that over here
% in school?"
% Because in order to make schools
% do these kinds of things,
% schools have to change in
% fundamental ways.
% What it is that we're looking
% for kids to get out of school
% has to change.
% There's nothing wrong with
% accountability.
% There's nothing wrong with
% testing what kids get from their
% learning environment.
% But if you test the wrong thing,
% if you test basic facts and
% basic skills in a world in where
% what you have is basic facts and
% basic skills, you don't become
% redundant in the workforce, you
% start out redundant in the
% workforce.
% Then there's no way to use
% technologies to get kids what
% they really need, because the
% school's asking you to do
% something totally different.
% So in a sense, these games are
% about changing no child left
% behind.
% They're not about adapting to
% the conditions of no child left
% behind.
% Yeah?
% (inaudible)
% Sure, and let me just try and
% summarize that.
% If I haven't summarized it well,
% you can tell me.
% The question is along the lines
% of what role is the technology
% really playing in this.
% You could learn many of these
% things without these
% technologies.
% And in the future, we'll learn
% them with a different technology
% anyway, so what's important
% about the technology here.
% And a way to think about that is
% I have a colleague here at the
% university who I was talking
% with about these ideas and these
% games.
% I was telling him about a game,
% the Political Machine.
% So the Political Machine
% is a commercial game
% that's available today.
% It's along the lines of some of
% the games that I was talking
% about.
% You run a political campaign.
% You're the campaign manager.
% You decide what the candidate's
% position on the issues should
% be.
% You decide where to set up
% campaign headquarters, where to
% give speeches, what the content
% of the speeches should be, where
% to raise money, where to have ad
% buys and in what medium, what
% should the ad be, should they be
% positive or negative, who's
% going to be your running mate.
% You have a budget, obviously,
% that you're keeping track of.
% The game is based on continually
% updated real world data about
% the voting patterns of people in
% the various states.
% The game's called the Political
% Machine, by the way.
% I said, so here's this
% opportunity to run a
% presidential campaign, and he
% said well, why wouldn't you just
% run a campaign for student body
% president in your school.
% That's a real campaign about
% real issues.
% It's not a virtual campaign.
% It's not a campaign on a
% computer game.
% I said, well that's true, but
% only one or two people get to
% run the campaign in a campaign
% for student body election.
% Somebody has to just be the
% voters.
% If you play the Political
% Machine, everybody can run the
% campaign.
% Not only that, if you have a
% campaign in school, you wind up
% talking about issues about, you
% know, who should have access to
% the water fountains and when.
% If you play the Political
% Machine, you actually are
% looking at the issues facing the
% body politic of the day.
% So the point isn't that we're
% able to do things that we were
% never able to do before.
% But we can do them on a scale
% that we weren't able to do
% before.
% And we can make them accessible
% to kids in ways that they
% weren't accessible before.
% So of course, ultimately the
% technology will change even
% more, and we'll be able to do
% even more things.
% But the point is in some sense,
% these are old ideas.
% John Dewey was talking about
% learning by doing things that
% matter in the world 150 years
% ago.
% But now we have technologies
% that make it possible to do that
% in a way that was much more
% difficult in the past.
% So the point isn't that these
% are things that we couldn't ever
% imagine before, although some of
% them are pretty cool, actually,
% if you look at some of the
% games.
% But what they do is make it
% easier to take the good ideas
% and to do them in ways we
% weren't able to do easily
% before.
% Did I get your question right?
% Tom, one more question, or were
% you asking a question?
% (inaudible)
% Great.
% (inaudible)
% That's an excellent question.
% I'll just repeat it quickly.
% Tom's question is, there's some
% really important differences
% between the apprenticeship kind
% of learning that these games are
% about, that learning to do
% things in a real world,
% vocational education, other
% things, are about, and learning
% in a class of 20 kids.
% And one of the differences is
% that you have more adults, more
% experts, more mentors per kid
% than you do in a typical
% classroom.
% There are a few answers to that.
% The first and most important is
% technology is not going to help
% us get good education on the
% cheap.
% We need to pay for things that
% matter.
% We need to be investing in
% schools.
% And it doesn't just mean buying
% them computers and buying them
% Internet connections, although
% that does.
% Adults matter.
% And if we want kids to learn
% well, we have to have--
% We have to be willing to pay for
% adults who are thoughtful and
% well-trained to be interacting
% with them.
% So nothing that I say after this
% should be taken to believe that
% what we're going to be able to
% do is drastically cut our school
% budgets because we could replace
% teachers with computers.
% The second thing is, if you look
% at professional training, almost
% always, professional training
% doesn't happen in isolation.
% It happens in connection with
% people in the community who are
% really doing work.
% So architects come back and they
% serve as critics in the design
% studio.
% In medicine, their training
% takes place in the hospital.
% In engineering, people who are
% practicing engineers come back
% and participate, and so on.
% So part of what we need to do is
% change our idea that school and
% education is something that
% takes place in a little isolated
% bubble with no connection with
% the outside world.
% And the fact that we can make
% education be about learning
% important ways of thinking by
% working on real problems, makes
% it much easier to bridge that
% gap.
% You're not asking engineers to
% come and teach high school
% physics.
% You're asking them to actually
% interact with kids around
% engineering, just as an example.
% The third thing is that part of
% what these games are about is
% this relationship between action
% and reflection on action.
% Right now, games are very good
% at letting kids take action.
% Reflection, having an
% opportunity to talk about what
% you've done and think through it
% with people who know more than
% you do, is a little bit harder.
% It's not impossible, but it's
% harder.
% And one of the things that we're
% working on, and ultimately we
% hope is going to be possible,
% is not to just let kids have
% that action be something that
% the computer supports, but to
% actually have the players
% interacting with non-player
% characters, with characters from
% the computer that help them
% think through some of the same
% kind of issues.
% So in the same way that the
% computer helps with spell
% checking now, our hope is that
% one of the things that we can do
% is have the computer help with
% other parts of mentoring and
% feedback that kids need in order
% to play these games.
% We have, in the game Urban
% Science, where they communicate
% over email.
% They're communicating with
% non-player characters sometimes.
% These are non-player characters
% who are not very smart.
% They're just literally going
% through a script.
% But one of the things that's
% interesting is, the kids start
% to relate to those characters as
% if they're real people.
% So one of the characters is
% Kurt, the head of Urban Design
% Associates, the person who says,
% "Okay, here's what we're working
% on next."
% He's the boss.
% And when players were sick or
% late with an assignment, they
% would send an email to Kurt,
% apologizing for being late, and
% telling him when it was that
% they would have the next thing
% in.
% Of course, they knew that Kurt
% wasn't real.
% There was no pretense that Kurt
% was a real person behind a
% curtain somewhere.
% But when you interact with
% somebody who gives you the right
% kind of feedback in the context
% of a game, you're willing to
% play along.
% So we think that it's going to
% be possible not only to let
% one real person play many
% different characters in the
% game, which obviously makes it
% much more efficient in terms of
% the number of people that are
% there, but also to start to use
% our understanding of those
% interactions to let the computer
% simulate some of them.
% So part of my answer is that
% over time, it will get more and
% more efficient to be able to
% play these games.
% Other questions?
% Yeah?
% (inaudible)
% Yeah, excellent.
% (inaudible)
% Sure, an excellent question.
% Let's just start by
% acknowledging there are a lot
% of bad--
% Oh, I'm sorry, my bad.
% The question was, what about
% violent games.
% What about games that are bad
% games.
% These games are good.
% They're designed to try and get
% people to think in good ways.
% What about games that are things
% that are not valued social
% practices, that are in fact
% shunned social practices.
% Everybody's favorite example is
% Grand Theft Auto, but there are
% lots of them.
% If these games are teaching kids
% good things, aren't bad games
% teaching kids bad things?
% Is that a fair summary?
% Yeah?
% Okay.
% So let's just start by
% acknowledging there are a lot of
% bad games out there.
% There are a lot of games that
% are really good games that are
% really bad for kids, just as
% there are a lot of bad books out
% there.
% And there are a lot of bad
% movies out there.
% And there are a lot of great
% books that I wouldn't read to my
% five-year-old.
% I love "To Kill A Mockingbird."
% It's one of the best ever
% written, but I wouldn't read it
% to my eight-year-old right now
% because I don't think she's
% ready for it.
% So there's no question that part
% of our job as adults is to make
% decisions for kids about what
% they read, and what they watch,
% and what games they play.
% I wouldn't let my kid go into a
% book store and just choose any
% book to read, or into a video
% store and just choose any video.
% I wouldn't let them go into a
% game store and just choose any
% game.
% So part of what we have to do is
% be selective.
% I don't think anybody's denying
% that if games have good effects,
% it's possible for them to have
% bad effects.
% What's important, I think, is
% recognizing that we have to help
% young people learn to choose
% good games, help them choose
% good games, and play them well.
% And part of what that means is
% playing them reflectively,
% having a chance to step back
% from what they're doing and do
% just what you were saying about
% the bad games, as well, which is
% to think about what they're
% doing, what worked and what
% didn't work, and why.
% And how computer games is help
% children learn, the single
% biggest recommendation I can
% make is play games, if you're a
% parent or a teacher, play games
% with your kids.
% For one thing, you'll find out
% a lot about what they know
% and don't know.
% For another thing, you'll
% probably learn a lot about games
% and how they work.
% You'll certainly have an
% opportunity to talk to them
% about something that they care
% about.
% That's always good for relating
% to kids.
% But even more than that, you'll
% learn something about how these
% games work.
% You'll learn something about how
% to help them choose good games.
% And you have an opportunity to
% engage them, to talk with them
% about what it is they're doing
% and what the lessons that
% they're learning are.
% So absolutely.
% Anything that can be done well
% can also be done badly.
% Games are no exception.
% But what that means, is it's
% even more important to
% understand something about how
% games work, and what can make
% games good, so that we can focus
% on how to build good games and
% use them well.
% And obviously, how to steer kids
% away from games that are going
% to be bad.
% (inaudible)
% Oh, the amount of screen time.
% Yes.
% The question was, what about the
% amount of screen time, does that
% change, would you recommend that
% kids spend more time if they're
% playing good games rather than
% if they're not playing good
% games.
% Screen time is actually an
% interesting notion.
% The American Academy of
% Pediatrics, for example,
% recommends that kids under two
% have no screen time at all,
% which is interesting to me
% because it suggests that movies,
% and television, and games, are
% all the same because they have a
% screen.
% And that that's the property
% that's most important.
% I don't think that's actually
% the property that's most
% important.
% I think there are reasons for
% limiting the amount of time that
% kids spend doing any one
% activity.
% I would be just as worried about
% a kid who spent all their time
% reading books and never got
% outside and played sports, as I
% would about a kid who spends all
% their time playing sports and
% never picked up a book, as I
% would about a kid who likes
% sports and books so much that
% they never learn to use a
% computer.
% So the question is about
% balance.
% It certainly, obviously,
% I'm like any parent or educator,
% I'm happier if kids are spending
% time reading good books, rather
% than just reading trashy novels,
% or if they're playing good games
% rather than playing bad games.
% But I also recognize that it's
% important that not everything a
% kid does has to be fundamentally
% educational.
% It's important to spend time
% just doing something because
% it's fun, as long as it's not,
% you know, damaging in some way.
% So again, the watch word is
% balance.
% It's fine to play some games
% that we otherwise wouldn't say,
% "Wow, you're learning a socially
% valued way of thinking."
% If that's the only kind of game
% you ever played, that's probably
% not such a good thing.
% So it's really less a matter of
% if you're playing the right
% games when you could spend more
% or less time, as thinking
% overall about what's the balance
% of experiences that any young
% person is having.
% Yeah?
% (inaudible)
% Well, there are certainly
% countries that are focusing much
% more than we are on using
% technologies and even using
% games, either in their culture
% at large, so games play a much
% larger role in Japanese and
% Korean culture, for example.
% Or there are countries that are
% investing much more in thinking
% about how these technologies
% could change their schools.
% Britain, for example, does
% probably a better job than we do
% in investing in technology and
% thinking about games in schools.
% Singapore.
% I'll just give a quick example.
% In Madison, we have a
% $10 million structural school
% deficit in our school district
% every year.
% Singapore, which is three or
% four times larger than Madison,
% is investing about that much
% money, $10 million, in each of
% seven schools, which are going
% to be model schools of the
% future, over the next ten years.
% So there certainly are places
% that are taking this more
% seriously than we are today.
% Interestingly, many people here
% in the United States have looked
% to overseas competitors that
% have lots of high-stakes tests,
% that do lots of drill on basic
% facts and basic skills, and
% we've tried to move our school
% system in that direction.
% At the very same time, many of
% those same school systems,
% Singapore being a great example,
% are actually looking to the
% United States to try to make
% their curriculum less about
% basic facts and basic skills,
% because what they're finding is
% they have kids with lots of
% technical skills, but they can't
% think in creative ways.
% So nobody is doing this
% perfectly.
% But on the other hand, if you
% look at the directions that
% people are moving, you could
% hardly be moving in a worse
% direction, in terms of where
% we're putting the focus of our
% schools.
% (inaudible)
% The question is competitiveness
% and has research shown that it's
% important for kids to be
% competitive with one another
% while they're playing, or just
% competitive with themselves,
% trying to do better.
% We actually haven't looked at
% that directly, except in the
% case of the conflict resolution
% game, which is an interesting
% one because when you're a
% mediator, you're working for
% your side.
% When you're playing a game where
% other people are representing
% the other side, so it's
% intensely competitive in some
% sense.
% And yet, one of the things that
% we find is that many of the same
% things that are true about
% cooperative learning and working
% together in a group operate in
% the same way, even though
% people are in competition with
% one another.
% For the most part, though, in a
% professional setting, if you're
% in competition, you're in
% competition with some other
% group, or some other firm.
% I mean, there are cases,
% obviously, where you're trying
% to get advancement over the
% people in your own firm.
% But these games tend to mostly
% focus on cooperation and working
% together to solve problems
% rather than trying to compete to
% out do another group.
% So the short answer is we don't
% have a lot of data specifically
% on whether or not it's better to
% have kids be competitive or not
% in the context of these games.
% Anything else?
% Well, thank you.
% (applause)