Education is probably the area where we have failed to innovate the most. This morning we talked about creating clusters of innovation, bringing in various communities, etc. But before we got there, we talked abit about the problem. I want to frame first the opportunity: we often talk about the competitiveness frame in education, that the US used to be number one, and now we are “falling behind.” The trust is that other countries are passing us by.

The good news is that the myth that you can’t make systemic change quickly is just that, a myth. We are seeing the proof in other countries. The countries who are out performing us now are doing what we did before, but better. They do school, the way we do school; they just do it better. People haven’t reinvented school yet. The reality is that it is going to happen, because it has to happen. It has to happen outside this country because so many countries realized that education is the way to economic prosperity. They can’t build the schools and they can’t train the teachers fast enough to replicate our model. They are going to look for innovation solutions.

Here in the US we have had the luxuary of assuming education spending would go up every year, until we hit our limits. And we’ve realized we have to find new and better ways of doing things. And we don’t need to do it for some of our children, but for all of them. Individuals needs to have real opportunity. Our competitiveness as a nation allows us to bring in people to the knowledge economy.

We have to reinvet what we have been doing because we have to do more with at least the same resources if not less. So how do you do that?

You are in the business every day of figuring out how to have people engage, have fun, and build skills – change their behaviors through games. That’s teaching. Fundamentally that’s what teaching should be. Young people should enjoy the educational process. They should want to achieve not just to get a good grade but because they feel the gut feeling of winning.

We have to figure out how we build things that are dramatically better than the status quo and how we take them to scale. That’s innovation.

Discussion

What do you mean about innovation and improvement with education?

I think about innovation and the work about innovation in education in two ways: first, if you have something that is significantly better than the status quo and you are doing it with a few kids, that’s an invention. If you have something that everyone is doing but it isn’t really working, that isn’t great either. It’s where they come together.

What inititiaves are availabiel for funding?

There’s the Dept of Ed and the programs we run, but we are working to align resources across the administration from us to NASA and the Dept of Defense. For example, we just closed an RFP to solicit proposals to build a game for kids k-3 to better understand STEM.

The fact that many people do not understand basic science harms public discourse and makes them rely on ideologies. Helping people understand science will help us as a country. We want to stop wasting the great talent we have and keep people’s interest in science and math going.

What evidence do we need to influence politicians that games can help extend learning of science beyond schools?

There used to be a focus on setting high levels for evidence in evidenced based policy making. But we are seeing that we need to move more things into the category of moderate to strong, not just very strong, evidence. The reality is, though, that it isn’t how decisions are often made. People and policy is often first influenced by compelling stories.

Some have said that coming decades will bring a game layer to the internet. What are your thoughts?

I think that we have a lot to learn about where gamifying is most helpful, but we are so far from the saturation point that we should push ahead with full speed so we can evaluate what works and what doesn’t and make adjustments. I have no future in being a futurist, but I will say that genie is out of the bottle for people being able to be developers. The long tail is very real. I think the cross section of everyone getting into the development and gaming means we will need to evaluate what is quality and what isn’t.

How do you evaluate organizations that you invest in that develop games to support learning?

We currently don’t have any programs that are games focused. We have games that make it into a search for something that helps a kind of learning, etc. I’m now in the process of trying to build requirements that let many different people apply to participate. Scaleability, cost-effectiveness, capacity, etc. So you can judge any kind of organization and the gaming piece is just how well it fits in.

Big initiatives to big corporations – what can small groups do?

Ready to learn, prior to this year, had 3 or 4 applicants. This year, it had 30. Many of them are small development shops in partnership with small public media stations, etc. Among the top winners there were a couple that were not big players. With that program, the goal is to get syndicated but the opportunity is there for anyone.

For I3, you do have to be in partnership with a school, etc. but anyone can be that other partner. And we do see independent and small groups winning those funds.

What do you think of the 20 Under 20 Fellowship?

I think it’s cool but I don’t know what it proves. You read the bios and you see this really incredible people, but you’ve taken them out of college track and give them resources to see if they can still succeed. I’m not sure that proves a point. The more interesting thing for me is if he was to take a set of folks who had just gotten into community college and see what kind of opportunities it could create for them.

Innovation requires risk and failure, how might we address the bifurcation with that and politic’s focus on safety?

When I leave I will write a book that is called the 100 Things We Do to Make Government Worse. We create systems to mitigate all risk. But what that means is that you’ve created a space where you’re unlikely to fail and you’ve also capped the upside opportunity for dramatic improvement, but youv’e also taken the system and created something that doesn’t let professionals exercise judgement.  When you systematize these things they become formulaic. That said, there are structures within government that can handle risk. And it’s in that context that the expenditures are justified with the upsides. We need more of that so we can attract the kinds of people and resources we need for education that we have for war (ie DARPA).

How can you pursue innovation with games when teachers have the kinds of tests and classroom requirements now?

There’s a myth that the best way to get higher test scores is to do more standard practice on those subjects. Spending more time on the same old thing hasn’t shown to make that impact. When have you ever gone to a great school, not a good school, that wasn’t engaging kids in the school in interesting and well-rounded ways? If in fact we are striving for greatness, we need to get passed that myth and that opens up the door for gaming and more. The current environment is ripe for this to happen. There’s still going to be assessments but hopefully better models. And we can broaden the conversation to talk about having lots of tools to get there. And with limited resources, we will have to find ways to keep kids engaged in school when they aren’t there. Things that can connect home and school with the learning objects are really needed.

Turns out that people on disability insurance who go to college and get degrees, half of them don’t go to work – largely because of expectations. Have you considered using games to change expectations?

The reality is, as a Dept, we have an underdeveloped focus on motivation, confidence, expectation, etc. We don’t spend a lot of resource or research on. Therefore, a sub-portion of the nalsted is a smaller portion of nothing. Where we see the opportunity is to leverage games as a way to reach a broader spectrum of things beyond just the education. I think we will see a lot more of it.

Learning outside the classroom, what’s your opinion of games that support tangential learning?

I can’t give you an answer in my job, but I can as a dad: I love it. I had one of the best educational moments with my son after watching Fight Science this passed weekend when they talked about the blow dart. I think we need to be smart about wrapping things around the things they really want to learn about, and then bridge that to where they can apply it. The broadest challenge we face is that we ask teachers to do something incredible every day and we give them very little to do it – we need to provide teachers the tools they need so that all of them are as great as the greatest teacher and games can play an incredible part in that.

• Tracy Fullerton – Electronics Arts Game Innovation Lab
• Ruth Cohen – American Museum of natural History
• Elaine Charnov – The NY Public Library
• Jason Eppink – Museum of the Moving Image
• Syed Salahuddin – Babycastles

Elaine Cohen: The New York Public Library

100 Years of the flagship library in New York. Goal of the centennial project was to shine the light on the library’s resources and get new audiences engaged in the collections and connected to the curators and staff. Research libraries have been facing daunting challenges in the digital world, but not everything is digital in research and the library really wants to connect people with the curators and staff that can help them. Staged a major exhibition celebrating the spectrum of what is in the library, public programs partners with The Moth. Trying to engaged the teen-to-twenty-something who normally may not use the research library. They thought, wouldn’t it be interseting to create a game to get people in the library who may not have ever come?

Find the Future: The Game

Find the Future was the overarching theme of the projects. Involvement from the curators and staff to develop 100 quests that the public could participate in on the night of the 20th. An overnight at the library, only 500 people – over 5,000 entered and many more were viewing the site etc. During the period that the 500 were selected, they learned a lot about how various social networking tools could be used as they saw participants start partnering up and organizing themselves for the game. There were pregame efforts, during the night, and post-event where people joined up and have continued networking. 70 teams of about 7 people each were sent on various quests like writing about loyalty based on the Pooh series in the library. What made the game so unique is the social element – the game designers spent a lot of time writing about the participants and their visions for the future on postcards and distributing them throughout the night, giving them to random participants so they were prompted to seek out others.

The result was an 800 page book of narratives, pictures, stories, and much more that will now be part of the library’s collection. People are now coming to the library to see it as it includes content by all the 500 participants from that night. So much of the project was really about convening social groups and we see it continuing.

Ruth Cohen – American Museum of natural History

For years we have been producing digital media to fulfill our mission of educating the public about science and history. We are trying to change the visitors’ experience at the museum as well as ownership of what is in the museum, break down the walls between the public and the museum. My focus is on how children learn science.

Learning Science by Design

The opportunities for engagement now include exhibitions, digital space, and education. The goals include learning made personal, extension of experience onsite and online, and access for all learning and lifelong learning – underlying all of it is innovation in learning. Within our exhibitions, we have a focus on creating very dynamic, interactive opportunities. The Brain exhibition, for example, has a table where people can work together to put together the pieces of the brain neuron by neuron. It provides an opportunity for learning but also for strangers to connect. In our digital space, we have a new innovation called the Explorer. It is an app for iphone that started as a way for way-finding but is more: it has personalized tours, it has games, etc. Visitors can challenge themselves, each other, etc. The education work has three areas: ology (their first online game space for kids), Urban Biodiversity Network (mobile and networked, youth-driven) which brought together kids from around the world and the Bronx Zoo where kids created eco-stations around the zoo and the Museum explored if this kind of game/engagement helped kids actually learn, Virtual Worlds Camp (happening this summer in the second pilot) 3-d virtual worlds where kids will spend 2 weeks researching under seas environments, building their animals/characters, and so on. In the future, Games in Exhibition that then extend online and in class, expanded out of school offerings including space, bio-luminescence and other areas, and expand into AMNH in school partnership programs.

Jason Eppink – Museum of the Moving Image

The museum was founded in 1981, opened in 1989. Since 1989’s Hot Circuits exhibition of arcade games, they have always had arcade games on display, and all playable. In 1995, they offered downloadable ROMs to export the games. Digital Play commpared and contracted console games with arcade games. Real Virtuality had two games that were on display that augmented reality. We are also planning a big exhibition for next year.

Syed Salahuddin – Babycastles

Babycastles is New York’s first independent video arcade. We wanted to created a space where people could get together and talk about games. There are a lot of places online where people can meet up, have game jams, etc. but there wasn’t an offline space for that. When we first started babycastles, we had no idea there was any kind of community in NY for it. They knew of a few people but it was nothing like the communities on the West Coast. We started out in Queens and within a month or two had 50-60 people coming. We wanted to put arcades everywhere: museums, public spaces, insinuations, etc. Our first arcade was in the basement of Silent Barn and it cost about $650.

“There’s not much I can tell you about this game because I’m confused completely,” said Paul Cox, a first-time visitor to Babycasteles, as the attempted to navigate a game called “The You Testment,” based on Noah’s Ark. “It’s actually a blast so far.” – The New York Times

Next they were invited to start The Arcade Returns to 42nd Street, popup gallery. It game them the chance to expose people to independent games at a larger scale – we had walk-in traffic, etc. One man came in that was 82 years old and said he’d never played a video game before – he was given a controller and taught how to navigate. It lasted for four months. We started a Kickstarter that was pretty successful and were able to buy new hardware, etc.

“For the opening exhibition at a temporary space near Times Square last year, Thu Tran, the inimitable maestro of the IFC show “Food Party,” turned a former storefront into a veritable zoo of brightly-colored furniture and cabinets. In painted wood and styrofoam, it was a masterful and whimsical refusal to answer that pesky question of whether games can be art. here was a kind of proof that you don’t have to choose.” CNN

“Many of the games at Babycastles don’t fit the traditional definitions of the medium; they veer closer to artistic experiementation than they do to mass-market viability.” – New York Times

Future Babycastles is in Williamsburg, just opened. And the next location will be at MoMA where they are teaching a 10 week digital media course about building arcades and will actually build one with kids.

Questions and Discussion

Tracy: When we speak about cultureal spaces, we are really talking about caging and preserving culture. I wonder if you might speak to the excitement and interest in games from your perspectives:

Ruth: the excitement is in the potential. Your comments are close to our heart – as an institutions we make decisions every day about how people are going to engage. We want to focus on experiences and the experience of culture is an interaction, that’s why these places need to be live. There is potential for creating a game for that experience, especially with the participants.

Elaine: In terms of the compassion, and as an organization that collects and preserves, we wonder how to engage people into the real thing while also translating that real thing into the real world. We have one of the copies of the Declaration of Independence, so people can engage with the real thing but also think about the things in the 21st century that inspire them. We want to work with the real, tangible history, but draw on all the technologies and forms of play that get folks involved and excited. That’s one of the goals of research institustions and cultureal spaces in general.

Tracy: Games are about subverting a system. And here we have places where we are preserving and saving important things and then we say wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could invite people in to play. I do think it’s great to invite play into those spaces.

Elaine: We invited some people in to create a game about the museum, Accomplice, that is like real-time Clue. We think it works, it is still piloting, but that’s a big risk for an instituation.

Tracy: The problem of showing games in public spaces, it is problematic. Games, if they aren’t public events, then a lot of times they are meant to be played for longer periods of time on one’s own. Going through a public space and stopping for a few minutes to observe doesn’t work for a game.

Syed: When I went to PS1’s exhibit, it took up an entire room, the walls were the actual screen and you literally walk as you are in the side scroller. It was a beautiful exhibition, but no one was playing it. There was a facilitator there that would play it and she played it all day. But people felt weird playing with her. I’ve seen that happen before.

James: The best exhibition game I’ve seen was because all of these people were willing to play. So people were willing to try, others would watch and learn and then when they played they could get further and those watching would learn and it just helped collectively get through the game.

Tracy: When we were developing The Night Journey, we got two sets of pay testers over a few months and I thought of it as a V: gamers who were interested in experiemental play, people who had visited a gallery in the last few months – people who were far away from each other in the comfort zone of the game. They would wait for you to tell them what to do. Through the course of a lot of play testing and simplification, we got to the place where there was enough simplicity that the truly non0game playing public could pick it up and do something meaningful and the more sofisticated game-players could do something more deeper but equally engaging.

James: Yeah, it’s all about context. When someone is playing Grand Theft Auto, they have a good idea of how the controller works and they’ve gone past lots of learning but someone in public space hasn’t worked through everything with the game to know what to do.

Tracy: The questions of really of usage and usability and appeal start to sound like questions we might not normally ask when we talk about museums and preservation.

Ruth: Public spaces become known as the places where people interact with each other and where it is safe to interact. That’s the doorway into the 21st center. There’s so much knowledge and information that they are intimidated when they come in the museum. So, finding games and interactions that make it easy for people to engage with the information.

Elaine: The media often undermines the role of games in institutions as showing them just as scavenger hunts and not interaction and personal exploration of learning and information.

The Virtual Village

When you visit the Unwrapped Virtual Village, you are given three different villages to help:

Hovering your mouse over one of the villages in the circles gives you a dexcription of what issues face that village and how you can help.  Clicking on one transports you to the village where you can click on items throughout the area that can help the local village members.

Clicking on one of the dots lets you see what it is with more detail and to “get the item” for the village.  So far, the experience has been like that of an educational game: finding and helping but also learning the real world side of it all.  Once you click on “get the item” though, you are give the opportunity to move from playing a realistic or educational game to actually buying an item and supporting the village in real life.

You can now click to get the item for the village in the game, or you can buy the item as gift via Oxfam.  What I like most is that the educational side of the scenario doesn’t stop: you’re given a case study about how, in this example, solar panels are actually impacting the lives of others.

It is really important to me that organizations continue to educate their supporters about the work they are doing as well as how they as an organization as well as the supporters are helping and positively impacting the service areas.

Telling stories of impact comes both from the organization as well as from those supported…and even comes from those who support you!

A Little Story

I have a very close friend who came to me with a “problem” a couple holiday seasons ago.  The problem was that her family was very excited about doing something for the holidays that was going to really impact people around the world who were struggling more than they were and that they were really excited about an opportunity they had heard about to buy a goat from Scotland that would be taken to a village or a family in Africa.  She was thrilled that her family was excited to be philanthropic and support others, but she felt like they had made their decision of how to help without investing any time or due diligence into who they were helping and if what they were doing was really something needed.

She challenged them to investigate other options, who they wanted to help, and what could really do the most for them with the amount they had to donate or invest.  It turned out that they did not end up purchasing a goat from Scotland.

This story isn’t to say that people should stop funding or supporting programs that deliver livestock to needy areas, not in the least!  The lesson here to be sure you are educated about the impact you want to make and how best to make it.

I think Oxfam’s Unwrapped Virtual Village is a fun way to get the whole family involved in investigating and learning about issues in other parts of the world and choosing the gifts that they care about and know will also make a good impact.

What do you think?