Technology is changing learning and education forever. It is inevitable…

I’ve thought more about it and I really do think it is inevitable.  Education has to evolve on a larger scale and some of the traditional approaches aren’t going to cut it anymore.

I think there are many ways different people learn, and I don’t know what is best for everyone,  but I do know that it is never going to be a case of one hat that fits everyone.  Those kids who are not well suited for the academic grinder are being made to feel terrible about themselves.  Even if they may turn out to be highly skilled in some areas.

My whole life growing up I was told by schools that I am essentially a failure.  I never got exceptionally good grades in my academic classes and many of my teachers seemed to despise my personality because I did not fit in with the rest of the kids.  I was made to feel constantly like an outsider by the schools, and I feel that has affected my self confidence throughout my life of my ability to accomplish things and feel good about it.

When I reached college, it felt a lot more exciting, because I could finally begin to study the things that I found interesting.  However, again there were academic classes forced on me, and I was frustrated with it being a distraction from learning about things I am passionate about.

I can tell you that I think the way that my learning methods have changed since I was a kid is an amazing thing to me. To go from reading books and feeling like I am forced to try and comprehend all sorts of uninteresting complex information, to being able to look up and target the things I want to learn about quickly, is just an amazing and wonderful thing.  Yet I am still feeling affected in so many ways by the experiences I had when I was younger in the way that I was labeled in schools as being a problem for not fitting into the typical mold.

I find it easier to learn things in a video format than I did when I was trying to absorb information from books. I don’t have a photographic memory but I find learning with video to be far superior in many ways and my memory for visual information is far superior to my memory for words or numbers.  I am sure I am not alone and many people who are more artistic minded might struggle as they are processed through the academic grinder.

Not long ago there was scarcely any video on the net, now you can look up just about anything and find someone has made a video about it. Give or take a few random things here and there, but for the most part you know what I mean.

I think it is interesting that schools would still invest so much money on printed materials these days, when it would make more sense to just invest the money in creating high quality video for education. A lot of jobs might be lost, but also more work on the video production side would be gained. It is also going to only get easier for teachers to make high quality content as software tools are getting easier to use all the time.

Many intellectual folks are leaning towards this trend of using progressive methods in digital learning, but I don’t know, although if we suddenly run out of power to run our computers one day I guess a lot of information would suddenly be inaccessible. Hard to say what is the best call at this point because loosing power is a reality that could occur any day from what I have heard. A massive solar flare could wipe out our entire electric grid supposedly, not to mention a billion other ways we could get the juice cut.

Salman Kahn gives a pretty good talk here about his take on using video to reinvent education. He talks about his method of teaching which is very interesting, he makes the students watch his lectures online, and then he has them doing their traditional ‘homework’ in the classroom where he can interact with them and aid them. He makes a lot of great points, and this is worth a watch for sure.

I think this is pretty interesting, because I did not always have someone to help me with my homework and many times I just didn’t understand. Most of the time, I didn’t care about it though, and that is another topic.

I think kids should have more time to learn about things that they find really interesting which may be outside of the realm of academic study. Not every kid has an interest in math, history, etc. Yet they are all forced to memorize and study it and penalized if they do not. It really sucks to be a child and feeling like adults hate you because they think your stupid if you do not memorize the information required of you.

Here we have another very interesting video that directly addresses the topic of boys and how they may help from an approach that they will find more engaging and interesting. Video games!!!

Ali Carr-Chellman brings up a lot of interesting things and about the violent nature of boys and how modern school attitudes are towards their inherent nature make them feel alienated. It is awesome to hear from a woman how she has noticed this sort of negative perception many women have about men and video games. Her whole talk is fascinating. In her closing part, she talks about the importance in designing better educational games and this is something I believe would balance the whole issue out a bit more. For a long time I have felt that educational games are something which has always been poorly invested in but hold perhaps the greatest potential.

Games are getting more investment that are entertaining, and it is hard to make education entertaining. Yet if you look at a game like minecraft, it is very educational in so many subtle ways. Despite its simplistic graphics, it holds a depth of complex concepts to be understood in a super fun way. Where does metal come from? In minecraft you dig it out of the ground, smelt it in a furnace, and then you can fashion it into a tool, or weapon if you so require.   It is more simplistic than in real life and you wouldn’t want to try digging for diamonds in real life the way you would in minecraft.  I do believe it gives kids a fun way to understand how some of these things in real life work in a way they enjoy without having to approach the more technical aspects of how it might be done for real.  It can foster an appreciation for different things they might have found hard to understand if they just read about it.

There are some games I think about that would be seriously engaging, and have tremendous educational value.  There are great success stories already beginning to appear that games can be used for the greater good. For example, there is the Foldit project…. Check it out here… http://fold.it/portal/This brilliant game allows people to play and contribute to the advancement of scientific research. There were some claims it was helping tremendously in finding a cure for HIV. I recommend you check this out!

I wanted to also talk for a minute about video games and girls. I feel like every day there are more and more women who do seem to enjoy video games, but women in majority have historically been late adopters with gaming. According to Ali Carr-Chellman, parents need to start to rethink how boys feel about video games. I think they need to begin to understand there is a passionate relationship which can be turned into something useful and positive.

However many adult women have a bad attitude towards video games, and they look down on it, or have complete disinterest. They see it as a childish thing, and fail to recognize its only in its infancy, yet has amazing potential. It is kind of understandable, because violence and doing naughty things you wouldn’t want to do in real life, can often be very entertaining in games.

Games can be used to teach you though that naughty things are not good and there are repercussions. In GTA IV, if you are driving through the streets and run someone over, you might have the cops start to come after you. There is a repercussion. Yet GTA IV was designed to also be an action game for adults.

Lets though, rockstar made their game engine for GTA available to the public, someone could make a different game that was similar. It could be called, AutoSmart for example. In this game, we remove the guns and all the murderous quests for the player, and treat the game as a driving simulator for drivers ed students.

With a bit more detail payed to the way the police enforce the law in the game ( it is unrealistic in GTA IV since they let you run a red light and get away with lots of illegal stuff before going after you) you could have a very interesting and educational game that millions of kids would like to play. You could simulate a number of situations that are important for getting a firm understanding of the rules of the road. No one has created a really high quality driving simulator though, and nothing that looks as good as GTA IV.

Here is a very intriguing video from Brenda Laurel who is discussing the issues with women and their lack of involvement in the growth of the video game industry, which is a pretty serious issue to consider.  Why is it so few adult women have an appreciation for games? Why are there so few quality games for girls?  Women aren’t involved enough in the game industry and the industry has become dominated with male oriented material, which repulses women even further from forming a relationship with games.

This lack of female involvement is changing with younger generations, who are more inclined to be a fan of some games. For example, who knows how many young women have grown an better understanding of a video games value as entertainment from playing The Sims?  This game has sold very well and is widely praised.  I thought The Sims was a unique masterpiece the first time I saw it and played around. The ultimate virtual doll house, and it is cool to see how it has evolved since.

Are you still not convinced that games and video have a lot of educational power potential? Have a look at these two awesome videos from Jane McGonigal and Tom Chatfield and maybe you can see why games can be used for good.