dov jacobson - hands on learning
TRANSCRIPT
DOV JACOBSON
HANDS ON LEARNING
Did you miss my talk? No problem.I added these yellow speech bubbles for you!
Studio Historyand personal
First employer: Carl Sagan Made 7 COSMOS animations.
Art serving Science.
Then a ton of games for the entertainment industry.
Science serving Art.
Now a dozen years making applied (“serious”) games.
Art and Science Fused.
ASPCA: Fetch
National Institute of Health: Brush Up
NYU Medical Center: Pete Armstrong
Intelligence Adv’d Research Project Act: Enemy of Reason
Acton Entrepreneurship Institute: Lemonade Standoff
Acton Entrepreneurship Institute: Price Point
DARPA: Tee Zero
Air Force Research Lab: Avant Guard
Air Force Research Lab: Battlefield Airman
Office of Naval Research: People Kit
US Navy: Swarmada
Army Center for Leadership: Influence Trainer
Vivendi: Meba
Our ExperienceField Museum: I See Sue
Smithsonian Institute: Red, Hot and Blue
National Science Foundation: Mouseprint
Blue Heat: Nintendo DS - ATV Super Tour
Random House: Lost Symbol
[Passion Project]: Gas Hogs
Simon & Schuster: Pie Jackers
Starlight Six: Drive-In Vasion
TBS: Know The Show: Seinfeld, Friends, etc.
Microsoft Studios: Hands on Atoms
[IR&D]: Reign of Ronin
Coca-Cola: Vanilla Coke Mystery Game
Coca-Cola: Pop Quiz
Our clients and supporters.Become one!
How do I call in an Air Strike right here…without the bombs hitting me?
How do I make people do what I want… when I cannot command or coerce them?
How do I win a price competition…without starting a price war?
How do I solve chemistry problems…when atoms are so darn small?
How do I do brush my teeth?
How do I perform algebra…
when I am not smart enough?
How do I keep track of my crops…
when there are so many factors?How do I notice evidence of evolution…
when I do not believe in it?
How do I make important decisions…
despite all this uncertainty?
The clients address very tough questions.
We don’t know the answers.We just know how to make games.
We get an answer from an expert and put that idea into the game.
But that ain’t enough.
We don’t just put the idea into a game.We must put the idea into a player.
Programming a game is easy.
ding!
See?
It isn’t so easy to put an idea into a human being.
donk.
oops.
Here’s your problem. The human brain.Like all living tissue, it rejects foreign matter.
Anyway, you don’t use a game for a little idea.
It rejects even a little idea, if the idea does not match the existing pattern.
Use games to promote big ideas.Ideas that color all the player’s thinking.
Brain hates this.It defends itself against such alien ideas.
It defends itself with the big thick skull.
Your job is to find a hole in the skullto push your ideas through.
Eyes are an obvious choice.
Look at the pathway the ideas take!Starting with retinal images...
..crossing through the brain, emerging as patterns of recognition and relationship
The ear provides a hole straight into the brain.It works for ephemeral ideas
Ideas that can go in one ear and out the other.
The nose is another hole leading to the brain.Ideas that fit through this hole: “Dinner Time”
“The House is On Fire” or “It Wasn’t Me!”
It’s easy to overlook the biggest hole in the skull, where the biggest bundle of nerves
enters the brain - from the rest of the body.
Nerves carry signals from all over the body.But all parts are not equally represented.
Look at how the hands are disproportionately endowed with neurons.
They have their own intelligence.
Unlike the eye’s analytic intelligence, the hand has an intelligence of action.
I can see the problem.
It’s in our language.
I can handle the problem.
Maria Montessori
...first in play and then through work, the hands are the instruments of man's intelligence...
Maria Montessori
...first in play and then through work, the hands are the instruments of man's intelligence...
play
Seymour Papert
...most effective when the learner experiences constructing a meaningful product.
Seymour Papert
...most effective when the learner experiences constructing a meaningful product.build
Thinking with hands: William Kentridge
It is not that you know something in advancethat you carry out...
Thinking with hands: William Kentridge
...but rather that you recognize something when it appears.
Thinking with hands: William Kentridge
...but rather that you recognize something when it appears.
aha!
Visualize
Manipulate
Visualize
Manipulate
PlayBuildAha!
Next: I demonstrate seven recent games, to show how they use these principles
to promote manipulative learning.
Brush Up the toothbrush training game
Brush Up the toothbrush training game
No surprise here. Kids learn a manual skill with a hands-on game.
Brush Up the toothbrush training game
And the skill persists.
video
Hands On Atoms
THINK MachineANALYSIS OF COMPETING HYPOTHESES
Visualize
Manipulate
PlayBuildAha!
Finally, I conclude with exercisesfor everyone in the room.
If we have time.
How do four people choosePizza Toppings?
How do I resolve conflict involving the Tragedy of the Commons?
Why should I believe that variable speed limits
will make my commute quicker?
How do I resolve conflict involving the Tragedy of the Commons?
How do four people choosePizza Toppings?
Why should I believe that variable speed limits
will make my commute quicker?
DOV JACOBSON
HANDS ON LEARNING
Dov@ GamesThatWork.com
Questions? Comments? Quarrels?Please write!