Demand-driven learning

The online and hand-held worlds of digital content has brought us demand-driven listening, viewing and gaming. Shopping has become more demand-driven as we escaping the shackles of store hours and stock-on-hand inventories. All this has me wondering when demand-driven learning will take hold?

To help answer my question, this morning I pondered what drives us to learn the next thing. Here's the list I generated to explain why we seek what we want to learn:

1. what we're trying to accomplish beyond the learning that may solve a problem or otherwise put the new learning to immediate use
2. what we've just learned that invites us to go deeper in the same pursuit or explore an adjacent expertise
3. what others are learning in our surroundings which sets us wanting to emulate them and fit in by sharing their progress
4. what's immediately available to learn from a scheduled, or otherwise restricted, resource
5. what seems to be challenging, rewarding, fun and/or immersive to pursue
6. what we're already good at the process of learning which increases our odds of a success
7. what needs remediation in our repertoire to become functional, reliable and/or accurate

The delivery of entertainment media is nearly this complex. Our motives to want to listen to a tune, watch a video or play a game can involve our situation and surroundings. We come under lots of varied influences. What's different is how diverse the range of what we might learn can be, compared to the number of songs, videos and games we enjoy.

Another dimension which complicates demand-driven learning is the problem of "not wanting to learn" what others are learning. There's much less of a problem when we don't want to listen, watch or play what others are enjoying. These problems open up another breed of demand for immediate learning - demand for solutions to a lack of demand. These problems include:

1. making the learning useful in a personal context where it can be applied convincingly
2. making connections between the unfamiliar new thing and recent momentum and successes
3. cultivating autonomy and self confidence to defy peer pressure that opposes or dismisses the new learning
4. providing tools and privileges to access the resources more easily
5. changing the instructional design to make the process less boring, menial, punitive and/or overwhelming
6. transforming patterns of personal failure or self-sabotage of independent learning
7. revising the diagnosis of chronic disabilities with motivation, comprehension or retention

Solving these problems involves a much bigger investment than tagging digital files for easier access. Fortunately the work involves learning rather than downtime to prepare to listening, viewing or gaming. The possibility that demand-driven learning could emerge sooner rather than later seems more real to me after considering all this.

Dungeons games and communities

Gamers know their way around lots of PC, console and online games. They expect there to be traps, dead ends, and prison cells. These dungeons usually are disguised by bait that lures the gamer into its lair. It's not discovered that they've traveled into a trap until they are inside and guarded from escaping. The way to get out of these dungeons is by cheating. Anyone who plays by the rules of the confinement remains imprisoned. The challenge is to find the loopholes in the propaganda, possible escapes and ways to effectively game the system.

A dungeon in a game resembles lots of what happens in the "real world": think classrooms, cubicles, committee meetings, social obligations and traffic jams. The rules being played by are confining, stifling, uncreative and overly conformist. They invite breaking the norms. They provoke non-conformist behavior. They ask for cheating.

Non-gamers may jump the conclusion that gaming breeds anti-social monsters. Jumping to this conclusion over-generalizes one facet of gaming and ignores the rest. Games involve far more than escaping out of dungeons. Most of the levels and challenges offer authentic challenges and multiple ways to win. Games offer a tangible progress, a sense of accomplishment and greater confidence for facing future challenges. Game designers know to not make the gamers feel permanently trapped, defeated or powerless to escape. The designers also go one better than offering cheap trills, contrived victories and shallow gains. The narrative, suspense, and significance of outcomes must run deep enough to gain acceptance of the gamers.

Gamers also form communities of cooperation. They compare experiences on getting out of dungeons and advancing to the next level. They share cheats, clues and strategies. This altruistic behavior does not dilute their competing against the game itself. They are teaming up against a common enemy. Each pulls off a personal victory with a little help from their friends. Competing and cooperating work well together, just like cheating and gaining competencies.

Gamers have the sense to defy senseless requirements, to escape limiting traps, and to creative valuable victories together. When these become social norms among us, the world will become a better place as a result.

Questioning gameplay learning

Last week Karl Kapp asked "are we nearing entrance to the Matrix?" That question stayed in the back of mind since then. I've wondered if our sense of the Matrix construct connects to Marshall McLuhan's Tetrad of Media effects involving different facets of current and previous technologies. Here are the questions that have evolved in my reflecting on the possibility of there "being no spoon" in our sense of our minds creating our experiences:

Do you think we have an instinct for learning by playing around? When kids get excited by their teacher making a game out of the next thing to learn, is their teacher connecting with a primal urge in each of us? When anyone gets hooked on playing a game so intently that s/he loses track of time, does that demonstrate a powerful appetite getting fed? Are we hard-wired to succeed when faced with a game-like challenge?

Do our minds getting oriented faster when a situation seems like a game, than when it seems like instruction, assignments or procedural compliance? Are our minds pre-disposed to figure out what to do next when there are rules to play by, levels to advance to and ways to improve our score?

When we're playing games, are we extending our five senses, physical abilities or cognitive prowess? Does game playing overcome our human limitations in some way that we value? Are we leveraging our natural inclinations to explore, conquer, learn and accomplish progress -- by immersing ourselves in game-like situations? Do games function in some way like tools, technologies and vehicles that make it possible for us to be stronger, faster and more aware than we can be on our own?

Can our obsession with the benefits of gaming go overboard? Can the ways our abilities get extended by games become over-extended? Are facets of gaming starting to backfire and do more harm than good? Are you seeing signs of someone's "devotion to game playing" producing patterns of cynicism, social isolation or hostile interactions?

Can games be designed by anyone? Can game-design be liberated from short-tail, top-down, corporate game factories? Can the tools to create new games be moved to desktops and online clients like print publishing, photo retouching, video editing, and musical production? Can games get created collaboratively like wiki spaces, social-networking sites and open source software development?

Are game titles sold by retailers waning? Does the game distributors' competition for shelf space, magazine mentions and competitive ratings -- appear to be on the way out? Is our culture outgrowing blockbuster hits, brand names and game sequels like it has with so many other forms of media?

As we become more accustomed to constantly playing games, learning from game-play and creating our own games, will life seem different to us? Are we changing our minds about what seems real, authentic, valuable and worthy of our attention. Are we morphing into avatars clothed in meat suits, doing time in game called mortality? Is the subtext of playing in imaginary worlds giving us a sense of space-time as a cyberspace? Are we reverting to the archaic worldview that perceived the now moment as sacred and progress as profane?

Using our sense of wonder

In Gadgets, Games and Gizmos for Learning, Karl Kapp reveals some of the wonderful ways his "Gamer 4.0 son" plays computer games. His son wonders if he has to fly the jet off the aircraft carrier or whether he can taxi all the way across the water. He wonders if the customer satisfaction rating in Roller Coaster Tycoon can be amped up by drowning the unhappy customers in the theme park pond.

This sense of wonder is usually schooled out of us. Control systems breakdown when the participants operate with a sense of wonder. The system can only handle our conformity, compliance and consistency. We get punished for pushing people's hot buttons and penalized for finding out how much we can get away with. We're taught to "be nice", "stop asking so many questions" and "not wonder about that thing that seems wrong".

A sense of wonder inspires us to test the limits, explore the consequences and look for loopholes. We wonder how far we can go like this, what trouble we'll get into if we try that and which deviant maneuvers have been overlooked by the system. We use a sense of wonder to think outside the box.

Our sense of wonder is also called possibility thinking or finding freedom within constraints. It's the way innovators create opportunities and change the status quo. When we wonder, we stop assuming and "expecting the expected". We challenge our preconceptions and doubt the sanity of our consensus with others. We think "why not?" instead of "why it has to be this way".

Unlike schools and control systems, games reward us for using our sense wonder. We find the exit, defeat the opponent, or achieve a higher score when we fail to assume the obvious. We reach higher levels, face bigger challenges and control more territory when we proceed with curiosity and suspicion.

Our sense of wonder has a dark side. A scam artist looking for the next sucker uses a sense of wonder. Rather than assume that people have the sense to not fall for the scam, the rip-off racketeer simply wonders who is sufficiently naive, gullible or needy to ignore the signs of deception, exploitation and betrayal.

A sense of wonder also makes us indignant at getting gamed by the system. We wonder where people are coming from and see their subtle intentions to control us. We feel we're being played like a pawn on a chessboard and wonder why this seems like a good idea to them. We become antagonistic and alienated by using our sense of wonder in a system that penalizes it.

I'm now wondering if times are changing. Perhaps a new generation will enter the workforce in another decade with their sense of wonder intact. I wonder if stupid games will come to an end as Gamer 4.0 employees will expect authentic challenges and rewards for using their sense of wonder like games have done all their lives?

Technorati tags: Gadgets Games Gizmos, Karl Kapp

Building bridges to gamers

Welcome to Day Thirteen in Week Three of Karl Kapp's Virtual Book tour that Gordon Snyder and I are hosting. Last weekend, I journeyed through Gadgets, Games and Gizmos for Learning (3G4L) from cover to cover and became delighted with what I discovered. I was already sold on the value of what we learn by gaming from my own experiences. I've already blogged about that some here in the past few months. Karl goes beyond the value of gaming to build bridges between opposing stances about gamers. 3G4L can be used like game cheats to get to higher levels of play in the management and education of the workplace.

You may have noticed three separate islands where you work. There's an island of senior executives with their top-down, bottom line, control-freak approach to the other islands. There's a far away island of gamers thriving on fun challenges and immersive gameplay. In between, there's an island of trainers, instructional designers and content developers struggling to reach out to both of the other islands.

Without 3G4L to give us cheats, each island will continue doing what already looks necessary, productive and goal oriented. No bridges will get built between the islands. Exec Island will continue to act like bosses and Gamer Island will "rage against the machine", "cheat the system", and "stick it to the man". Instructor Island will deliver long sequences of formalized material and gamers will be "bored out of their gourd". Instructor Island will persist in trying to establish legitimacy and credibility with Exec Island by taking their side in the battle against the alienated gamers.

In the post 9/11 world on Exec Island, far off Gamer Island appears to be a terrorist training camp and the gamers look like enemy combatants. The typical MMORPG players' devotion to stockpiling weapons, annihilating NP characters, engaging in PvP combat and conducting death matches -- eliminates any prospect of constructing a bridge between those islands from the exec side. Exec Island feels fully justified in launching attacks on Gamer Island. Likewise, Gamer Island is alienated by the Exec Island's insistence on "gaming the player" without greater rewards, access or challenges. Playing the exec's game is no fun for gamers.

Building bridges is a higher level of play on each island. It's not an option without finding other resources and changing strategies at work. The best chances are building bridges started from Instructor Island. It's positioned in the middle between the execs and gamers. Yet the instructors will think siding with gamers at all will undermine their credibility and nuke the pylons of a bridge to Exec Island. Without the cheats in 3G4L, the instructors will continue to formally deliver long sequences of content and make no use of handheld gadgets, tournament events or teamwork.

Formulating sales proposals for eLearning projects is a great way for instructors to get into the minds of execs and gamers. Winning acceptance of proposals requires understanding the buyers' needs, situations and conflicts. 3G4L helps everyone on Instructor Island get their heads in the game of mapping the other islands and seeing their own island from the other vantage points.

The next level of play on Instructor Island builds the pylons in the water for a bridge toward Gamer Island. 3G4L is loaded with great game cheats for:

• matching the kind of game getting created to the kind of competency getting cultivated
• using handheld gadgets to access real time readouts and the workplace database
• parsing long sequences of instruction into short segments of automation
• converting compliance learning into F2F peer collaborations

The instructors' next level of play bridges to Exec Island. While execs insist on their view of gamers, no pylons can be built. It helps the execs to see the gamers as :

• thriving on increasingly difficult challenges and hidden clues
• improving their gaming experience with the use of cheat codes
• making complex, strategic choices while having fun
• realizing the consequences of their decisions experientially

When gamers look to execs the way they are portrayed in 3G4L, execs can change the control-freak game they've been playing. Rather than continue to boss the gamers around, it will make sense to advise the gamers on changes in their strategies at work. A bridge can be built between Exec and Gamer Islands on pylons of mutual respect and insight.

In Karl's mind and in Gadgets, Games and Gizmos for Learning, these bridges are already well in view. It's apparent how all three islands can make valuable contributions to each other. Gamers are not all the same and neither are the execs or instructors. Getting bridges built allows for appreciating unique capabilities and outlooks. Stereotypes will be replaced by more refined perceptions of individuals. Gamer 4.0 players will be challenged by Exec 4.0 and Instructor 4.0 maneuvers to up each other's game. Thanks to what Karl has given us, everyone's potential will be more fully realized while having more fun at work.

Technorati tags: Gadgets Games Gizmos, Karl Kapp

Two decades of gaming

In advance of reviewing Karl Kapp's Gadgets, Games and Gizmos for Learning tomorrow, today I'm revealing some of my own experiences as a computer gamer of sorts. My first "game" that I played repeatedly was Microsoft Flight Simulator on my Compaq "luggable" circa 1983. I still recall the spellbinding, immersive experience of landing a small Cessna plane at O'Hare Airport. The screen was green and black, but that did not detract from how captivating it seemed to be in complete control of the plane at a location I had flown into countless times on management consulting gigs.

Next I was introduced to SimCity 1.0 after dinner at friends I was visiting in 1989. The first time I looked up after being immersed for awhile, it was 12:45am! Beyond the spellbinding quality of the gameplay, SimCity offered emergent, nonlinear phenomena. I could build roads, real estate and city services. I could change the tax rate and add mass transit. That much conformed to straightforward, make-it-happen, cause-effect dynamics. However, I could not directly control whether a neighborhood turned into a slum, what happened to the crime rate, how snarled traffic congestion became or the ways voter approval of me fluctuated. I was fascinated by the recursive complexity of what was occurring and the surprising feedback I was getting. I was compelled to play that game repeatedly to try different strategies and see what evolved from the indeterminate model in the game engine.

Next I was spellbound by Tetris and a LucasArts derivative called Pipe Dream. Both of these games were gaming me. Both had AI (artificial intelligence) to recognize patterns in my maneuvers and deprive me of future opportunities to score in the ways I had become accustomed to. I was being taught to "up my game" by having my successful routines eliminated. I found myself getting smarter by getting out-smarted. Both games had that addictive reward of breaking into a higher level with different music and graphics. Both increased the pace of action coming at me as I became more proficient. Both redefined "learning from experience" as a very different endeavor from learning to ride a bike or to use a new tool. Changing challenges attuned to my understanding assessed by the thing being learned -- had entered into the mix.

Finally I've been enraptured by Railroad Tycoon II a decade ago and the 3D version more recently. The last time I played it was two nights ago. Like most RTS games (real time strategy) there are long lists of different scenarios with specific objectives to accomplish. Any scenario can be played repeatedly to fine tune the strategy deployed. The process of building networks of rail lines between cities has eventual effects on rail traffic, revenue, profitably, and stock valuation. The game includes rival railroads building networks and unpredictable variations between different cities' economies and growth. As I've reflected on the kinds of learning occurring as I've played this game, I came up with the following list:

• A small change in strategy can yield an enormous impact on outcome measures - e.g. starting with several disconnected routes instead of one continuous rail line, building large stations initially instead of later.
• The AI rivals have limited objectives that can be baited or neutralized once they no longer appear intimidating, overwhelming or unlimited, as-if fear is our worst enemy.
• There are better ways to spend the money, use the available time frame and generate additional revenue-- that can only be discovered by running the same scenario several times to play out the consequences of different strategy mixes.
• Success and failure are cyclical and self-reinforcing: success breeds success and patterns of failure are very costly to turnaround and often unproductive
• There's an unstated need to focus one's endeavors with no clue how to avoid: getting spread too thin, distracted by easy wins, fooled by apparent shortcuts or set-up to pursue dead ends.
• Rewards are more likely to be achieved by slow build, indirect and long term strategies, than by get-rich-quick, straightforward and short-sighted maneuvers.
• The best alternatives are not obvious and require the mind of a detective to uncover them, recognize what's missing, challenge the obvious evidence and suspect oneself as overlooking subtle clues.

The value of this breed of learning to the successful operation of business operations is potentially huge.

Changing expectations from gaming

Yesterday Karl Kapp insightfully characterized a change in learner expectations resulting from playing games:

If, while playing a video game, the player waits for instructions or information, he or she will fail. Decisive action must be taken immediately. The gamer generation has learned this and expects speed in answers and learning. If a gamer needs information, he or she inputs a question into a search engine and then demands accurate, up-to-date results. They seek rather than wait for information.

Rather than framing the students' condition as "impatient", "short attention span", "ADD" or "seeking instant gratification", I'm delighted with his diagnosis of "seeking rather than waiting for information" and " taking decisive action". Karl is giving us more indications that learners no longer need to be taught. Learners need to be given messy things to explore.

I see gamers developing other expectations that are unfamiliar to content delivery systems:

Expecting the unexpected: So much happens in games that is surprising, gamers would naturally learn to be open to the unforeseeable and serendipitous. There approach to formulating expectations would be more divergent and tolerant of ambiguity as I explored in this post.

Expecting to get it by going there: So much is learned in landscapes, learners would naturally expect to gain knowledge, clues or new avenues to explore by moving their avatar, eyes or cursor. Sitting still would equate with learning nothing, playing dead, pretending to be a zombie. Doing seat time in classrooms will not feel right to anyone who gets around easily in cyberspace.

Expecting to change strategy: Games teach us to stop trying harder with the same approach. We figure out what to try differently by what didn't work, what got us into trouble or what lured us into a trap. We challenge our assumptions easily from having so much practice rethinking how to  succeed. Gamers have cultivated an uncanny sense of strategic leverage, reversal, ambush and flanking maneuvers. All the while, content delivery system keep trying to cover the material, stick to the sequence and keep the experiences straightforward.

Expecting to learn by experimentation: Textbooks by experts report on completed experiments and empirically verified hypotheses. The fun is done before the class begins. Learning is assumed to be a process of consuming deliveries, not making discoveries. Games set up "finding out for yourself" better than textbooks, lab courses or practice exercises in classes. Games involve characters, settings and changing challenges. The experiments are imbedded in narrative structures. Immersion in the unknowns is easier and more captivating than content delivery systems can achieve.

As these changing expectations among learners becomes evident in drop out rates and other metrics of content delivery system failure, the changes we bloggers have been anticipating will emerge from the decay.

Two can play this game

When we're threatened by changes, our thinking becomes frantic. We start problem solving on the basis of a misdiagnosis. We fail to see the opportunity while figuring out how to defend our position, justify our intentions and confront the opposition. Our goal is control and that's no fun at all.

When we can see the changes as a welcome sight, very different ideas occur to us. We change the diagnosis before thinking of solving any problems. We realize there are ways to leverage the opportunity, combine two approaches or utilize the apparent resistance to our intention.

The challenge is different than it first appears. We can see the others delivering the changes are playing a game. We get that there is a pattern to all of us. There are rules and a way to keep score. It's not chaos or out of control. We realize that "two can play this game".

Once it's clear that the others are pretending to be changed this way around us, we can have some fun too. It's time to change our tune, outlook and basis for making sense. We can take something from the pages of Harry Potter, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, or the Transformers.

If our act is one of being serious, we can shapeshift into a player. If we've been pretending to be an expert, we can morph into someone who is still learning about this. If we've been sold on ourselves as powerful, we can transform into disguise of hidden power and apparent humility. If we've been thinking like a SCORM compliant module, we can think like a scavenger hunt organizer instead.

When the others get the impression we are playing the game and free to change "our avatar settings", they will lighten up. They'll look more like the enjoyment we're now feeling --as if they are a reflection of us in some mirror. We'll come across as more interesting and interested in them. Minds will open, become receptive and collaborations will ensue. A teachable moment may follow.

Technorati tags: shapeshifting, morphing, transformational change

Still serious about delivering content?

Yesterday, Mark Berthelemy gave us a comprehensive answer to "how is content dead?" This was not sweeping condemnation or diatribe. He nailed the coffin closed incisively and superbly. I'll simply throw a bouquet on the top.

Imagine your audience of learners, trainees, students or attendees already has experience. They have each role played over a hundred different characters. They have hours of practice outfitting their avatar with abilities and resources. They have experimented with different combinations of traits and observed how those choices affected other role players' interactions and one's own outcomes. They know what the letters "MMORPG" stand for (**) and know which ones are the most fun, best challenges and more fulfilling scenarios.

What are the chances they see real people are pretenders? 100%? How can they take their own act seriously when they have changed their traits more times and ways than they can recall. Why wouldn't they expect us to "act like we're acting" and stop pretending we're serious? They must wonder why we don't stop morphing into the same avatar with no settings to adjust, no combinations of resources to explore, and no recognition of other's game face.

So when we are covering material, presenting information or delivering content, they must be astonished. When do they get to pretend to be engaged this process? How do they get to strut their arsenal in the midst of this ordeal? When do they get to confront this assault to their agendas, do battle with this creepy monster, or test the strength of this somewhat clueless, but aggressive warrior?

Why are we in a position of power with no magic spells, weapons or exceptional endurance? What kind of Sim are we that insists on acting the same way all the time? How can we think we are succeeding when the way they keep score says we are accumulating significant penalties and no points in the game. Which beginner level are we still playing on and when will we face the next set of challenges on our own quests?

** massively multiplayer online role play games

Technorati tags: MMORPG, role plays, avatars

Routine successes and failures

Cognitive neuroscientists often use college students as their guinea pigs. Students are given tasks, puzzles and games which conscious reasoning cannot figure out how to solve. The students succeed "in spite of themselves" because their unconscious resources succeed. Upon several repetitions, the unconscious can do this automatically without thinking.

Cognitive neuroscientists have also studied successful college students. These students excel on tests without the performance anxiety of other students. They have the motivation to study, get good grades and turn in assignments on time. Their unconscious minds support playing "the grade & grad game" successfully. So much of what college requires, these students can do without analyzing, hesitating or dreading the challenge. They are not "making themselves" do what is required. They feel the urges, energy and inspirations to do whatever it takes to succeed.

Students who struggle and sabotage themselves in college are not supported by their unconscious minds. They routinely fail to get enough sleep, study before tests, think clearly during exams and keep ahead on assignment deadlines. They see the same challenges as successful students, but the requirements appear confusing signs of opportunity and danger. They hesitate to react because a routine failure may occur. Their unconscious mind may bring out their worst, sabotage their ambition and embarrass themselves in front of peers.

We all have routine successes and failures in mind that we can execute without thinking. Students who routinely fail at "the grade & grad game", may be "unconsciously successful" at dating, partying, friendships, sports, employment or independent study. The successful students may be routinely failing at those other adventures. I suspect there are many students who "run their failure routine" in classes that seem useless, boring and "only good for the grade". Those same students "succeed without trying" when a course appears useful, engaging and good for their career objectives.

Which routine we run depends on our read of the challenge. If it appears as a game, we go for it with a ways to succeed without thinking. There's no comparison or contrasting context. We're looking at "green on green" and pursue our obsession.

If the challenge appears to send mixed signals, we hesitate to react and face dilemmas, Catch-22's and no-win gambits. If we're facing clear danger, we sabotage our involvement and fail without thinking.

Technorati tags: cognitive neuroscience, unconscious learning, success, failure, college

The enchanting side of feedback

Feedback provides objective information about how well we did, what we accomplished or how our result compares to standards. Feedback also tells a story about the nature of learning and how we play along.

We get told a dreadful story when the feedback we receive says:

• You've now completed the fourth module
• Your score on this section is 88%
• You rank in the top 30% on this skill area
• You made (3) mistakes in this unit

We find out our personal experience through the content-laden process does not count. We realize we are pictured as redundant pawns in the instructional system. We discover we are not respected as self-directed learners with unique questions, passions or purposes. Our ambition is imagined to be limited to higher scores and faster completion of modules. Our curiosity and creativity is presumed to be deficient or absent.

 We get told an enchanting story when the feedback we receive says:

• You've worked through all four obstacles to perceiving this challenge accurately
• You've proven you can discern the difference between these superficially similar things
• You changed strategies in order to avoid that dead end and get to this location on your own
• You found this new resource for your quest by changing your selective perception of the confusing evidence

We found out our experience through the process counts. We realized we are pictured as competent gamers who are making valuable decisions to move through the system. We discover we are respected as self-motivated learners. Our ambition is imagined to include: learning how to learn, to reformulate our questions and to revise search strategies.

When we learn all this from feedback, we become enchanted with possibilities. We anticipate how much we can learn on our own and how satisfying it will be. We are energized by the opportunities to get creative and adventurous. Our inquisitiveness is fired up by the seeming mysteries and contradictions in the terrain. We accept the story about how we learn.

Technorati tags: instructional design, feedback, game design

Excellent cheating

Will Richardson recently revealed how many educators consider technology to be the devil:

Recently, in the middle of a presentation to about 500 teachers, one woman raised her hand and said something along the lines of "Look, I'm not the most technologically savvy, but I have to tell you that in a lot of ways I think all this technology is the devil. I mean my kids plagiarize stuff left and right, they don't learn how to spell because of spell check, and I just think we'd be better off without it." And a number of people applauded.

Jennifer Wagner wrote an antidote to the widespread demonizing of iPods in classroom education. Patrick Higgins provided context to the "Liverpool High School 1:1 laptop failure" reported in the New York Times. All these anti-technology teachers' fears of students cheating, plagiarizing and shortchanging their own educations -- are coming true.
These teachers are misreading their situations. They don't see how they appear to their students. These teachers don't realize the subtext of what they are saying when they give out assignments, oppose technologies and define problems with students "cheating".
Students have become sophisticated consumers of meaningful challenges. They welcome an authentic hurdle that makes them think, problem solve or experiment. It's obvious to them when a challenge is bogus, derivative or menial. The obstacle lacks meaning, significance or a narrative context. Students have a low tolerance for "going through the motions" because their technology-saturated lives are filled with real challenges and successes.
Students recognize "the game being played" in new situations. They figure out the rules of the game by messing around and then realize ways to win. They also know a "stupid game" when they see one. The rules don't make sense, the rewards are unfair and the tasks are absurd. The smart thing to do with a stupid game is cheat or bail - not play by the rules for no good reason.
Students expect grown-ups to provide great challenges and games to explore. They rely on older people to be clever, ingenious and slightly devious. Students want to be misled, set-up and ambushed. The challenges become more intriguing and engaging when they are far from obvious. Trying to cheat the game inspires designers to out-think the gamers, not frame the gamers as "missing the point" or "lacking aptitudes".
Teacher still assign research papers and oppose copying from the Web. Classroom instructors continue to give closed-book tests of perishable, short-term memory. Teachers still expect students to learn "because I said so" or "because it's required".
This sends a loud, subtext message to these sophisticated consumers of meaningful challenges. It's as-if the teacher is saying:

1. This is a bogus challenge that's designed to diminish your curiosity and creativity. Please don't think about the pseudo-value of this challenge to you. Don't approach the useless exercise or flawed course design as the actual problem to solve. Don't see through this scam or find solutions among yourselves that I'll be clueless to comprehend.
   
2. I'm pretending the web does not exist. I'm assuming you do not have successes every day where you easily find what you're looking for online. I expect you to experience information as a scarce resource that's difficult to find and disconnected from other sources. You are required to play along with me.
   
3. This is a stupid game to play that deserves your contempt. I'm cheating you out of an authentic learning experience so please return the favor and cheat your way out of this stupid game.
   
4. I'm a pathetic game designer. I have no idea how to add a narrative dimension to the challenges. I can only be blatantly obvious and boring. It's left to you to show me how to be devious, ingenious and clever in hopes I might learn what you know.

Cheating will be the ruin of bogus exercises. Cheating will force learning to become game like. Karl Kapp is showing us way to respond to these challenges posed by plagiarism, hacking and social networking by students. Learning will become a fulfilling adventure as it already is outside of classrooms.
Technorati tags: educational reform, change models, digital natives