Game Theory

The other day I tweeting a link to a GigaOm article on How everything is becoming a game. In the tweet I jokingly referred to Matthew Sobol, the creator of the Daemon (if you haven’t read the book, do it now), but in reality this trend towards the gaming experience might just a very real one. In the sciences we have various screensaver products like folding@home that try and engage the user and even more directly we’ve seen foldit, an attempt to make protein structure a true game (foldit could be a great starting point for high school teaching), but when Matthew Ingram writes about the game experience, he is not writing about using video games per se, but rather the system of rewards and points that is such a core part of game play.

In a similar vein, Lee Sheldon, a professor at Indiana University has introduced the gaming experience in his game design courses. For game design, it’s not that much of a stretch. After all game designers should understand those systems to implement them in their games, but what about the sciences. Is there a mechanism by which we can reward students for achievements? For example, you could have a choice of assignments, with a varying degree of difficulty and different achievement scores. You earn these micropoints along the way and in the end you tally up your score and then perhaps a regular grading system could come into play. This is just one possibility. In a response to my tweet on Friendfeed, Ruchira Datta points to Stuart Yeh who has shown that rapid assessment (e.g. with immediate feedback and leveling up) is a very effective way to enhance student performance. I have a feeling this is not the last we’ve heard of this topic.

Quite honestly, I like the idea. It keeps you engaged, and if done right, it could be a load of fun. I’d encourage teachers to try it out.

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