Mexican Journey

Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey
Campus San Luis Potosi

Last week Jenny and I traveled to Mexico (our first time!), having accepted an invitation to participate in the Global Faculty Program at Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education. The gig emerged from a dinner conversation with Claudia Ugalde in St. Petersburg, Russia of all places. We’d both completed three weeks of a study abroad program in Finland and were enjoying a meal with other friends and colleagues when Claudia recommended the Mexico program. Since I’d enjoyed working with her students so much, she figured I’d have a swell time on one of their home campuses. So after submitting an application I received to word: I’d be heading to San Luis Potosí.

Pozole in SLP Old Town

I had no idea of what to expect. Her colleagues and I discussed plenty of logistics: flights, lodging, that sort of thing. But my actual duties remained flexible until a few days before departure. That’s when I received word of their request that I’d teach ten lectures on a broad range of topics. They’d read my vita and found topics that fit with my skills and interests, and in fact I really only needed to prep a handful of presentations. They were happy for me to repeat lectures for several class sections.

Searching for Street Art

Still, there are few things that are both as exhilarating and terrifying for an educator as flying into another country, arriving late at night, waking up super early to prep, catching a ride to campus, being shown around various spaces, finding my assigned classroom, figuring out the tech, getting to know the professor hosting this lecture, sizing up the students as they walk in, and then hearing a silent voice in my head that goes, ".... and nowwwwww... teach!" 

Campus San Luis Potosí 

Thus I especially appreciated the pleasure (and relief) in knowing that the old tricks and half-forgotten techniques, the familiar dance and untrodden path, managed to connect. On my first day I presented two versions of "Gamification: Disrupting Business and Higher Education,” smiling to find that this topic is just as relevant in Mexico as it is in Belarus, in Finland, and in California. Pretty soon I got into a pleasant groove, presenting lectures on "Silicon Valley Startup Culture," "Intercultural Communication: Crossing Borders and Dismantling Walls" (with some snippy Trump references, of course), and "China: The Once and Future Superpower.”

Nighttime in Jardín Guerrero, Querétaro

Somewhat embarrassingly, I also prepped a lecture called "Mediated Communication: Rethinking Engagement in the Age of Ubiquity” but accidentally fired up the wrong Prezi one day and ran the “Intercultural Presentation” talk instead. Neither the professor nor the students seemed to mind, though, and we ended up having a rollicking visit. The conversations that ensued gave me much to contemplate about life in Mexico, and about local perceptions of U.S. culture. That evening Jenny and I joined other visiting faculty and a wonderful campus host for late-night dinner in a restaurant themed after Frida Kahlo. The food and chat were delightful.

El México de Frida

After finishing my tenth lecture and saying goodbye to our new friends in San Luis Potosí, we joined a Monterrey Tech tour of Teotihuacán, which included an opportunity to learn about indigenous astronomy, agriculture, and spirituality - and to climb the Pyramid of the Sun. I can still hear the whistling wind and see the clouds roll over the valley, and I can still smell the burning sage we used for a ceremony that gave us permission to ascend those sacred steps.

Pyramid of the Moon, Teotihuacán

Afterward our group sampled some local tequilas (Jenny passed on that part, of course) and then cruised back to SLP. With all the driving back and forth, we ended up getting three hours of sleep before our return flights. But we’re wide awake in our love and affection for Mexico. My new pals there have encouraged me to return one day, and I hope I can. Indeed, I can't believe it's taken me this long to begin exploring this amazing place!

Atop the Pyramid of the Sun, Teotihuacán

Check out my Facebook album for more pix.

The Sandbox Project - Enhance

Inspired by Darcy Osheim's thesis that examines World of Warcraft from a pedagogical perspective, I'm launching a little experiment in paragraph-level writing that explores the intersection of pedagogy and sandbox style gaming, focusing mainly on console games like GTA, Red Dead Redemption, and LA Noire. Aside from common interest, my project and Darcy's thesis are unrelated. These 'graphs are written without an outline. Their connections may be tenuous or superfluous. I may never finish.

"Freeze and enhance."

This command, typically ordered up by the lead investigator in some neo-brutalist command center, conveys technological sophistication. Blade Runner was my first encounter with this fantasy of infinite gaze, back in '82. There's Decker with his Esper machine, trying to glean the truth from an old photograph: "Enhance 224 to 176. Enhance. Stop. Move in. Stop…" He commands and the image clicks, left then right. Closer. Left then… Decker's machine somehow manipulates a mirror's reflection to peer around a corner. "Enhance."

Image from The RPF

Halo's Theater option offers up a similar thrill, allowing the player a chance to halt gameplay and fly through the expansive battlespaces of previously saved missions, to click frame by frame through every minute of an encounter, to zoom and enhance - even the boring parts, such as when hero stands lazily in the hanger bay while marines are getting annihilated by aliens nearby ("Ah yeah, that's when I got up for a snack and forgot to pause the game"). Halo's narrative pathways are far too rigid to enact a sandbox experience. Yet in Theater-mode, the player becomes a director: tilting, panning, and advancing through scenes [sometimes racing, sometimes crawling], discovering previously unknown options. "So that's where the sniper was hiding!"

The player-as-director reveals an important dimension to the sandbox concept, one that might offer useful insights for anyone interested in teaching and learning. Instructors often deliver course concepts in dribs and drabs, epitomized by the click of phrases on a slideshow. Knowledge wasn't there; now it is. Better write it down. But what if all the information, all the tools, and all the toys are present in one open space, and the student isn't reliant upon the steady drip-drip of instructor-wit? What if the student can direct her or his learning narrative, or at least feel some sense of control and creativity in the process?

That latter proviso ["some sense" - italicize either word] is, of course, the point. After all we have such a world right now. Someone seeking knowledge could do far worse than to cruise the vast and growing Wikipedia data-sphere. Sure, there's plenty of dreck in those pages: vandalism, provincialism, and goofy editorial nonsense by folks who have more time than expertise. Still Wikipedia is undeniably able to offer up at least a semblance of knowledge, not to mention useful breadcrumbs to genuinely peer-reviewed research. Add YouTube educational videos, a decent local library, and the occasional free public lecture, and the determined student can learn nearly anything without setting foot in a school. Yet while a student may enter a grand and seemingly endless array of ideas [Isn't there something creepily antisocial about the much-hyped "Internet of Things?"], that person needs guidance and encouragement to make sense of it all.

An alarming number of university administrators dream of Intelligent Agents that whisk students from automated prompt to automated prompt. They envision a spreadsheet comprised of one hundred professionals, one thousand technicians, and one million students [clients? customers?]. For many of these folks, the long-form lecture and small group seminar makes no sense; it just costs too much. A few of us, particularly those who bemoan the de-professionalization of our craft, will guard the old barricades for another generation. We will practice the art of first-person learning. Few of our students, though, will replace us at the gate.

Our goal therefore should be to adapt the sandbox to our purposes. To "direct" student learning - dripping knowledge at our pace - is one approach. And sometimes such direction is the best way to teach. I merely hope we can practice a more experimental, more entrepreneurial ethos too, one not easily commodified into the MOOC model. We all have the tools, and goodness knows, there are plenty of people yearning to learn. What we must build is a practical and economical model to craft learning spaces that meet local needs. A hundred or so professionals can design the widgets and interfaces that enable our best creative efforts, But no one can know our students as we do. We can help students become directors of their own lives (and not cells on a spreadsheet), maybe to investigate the knowledge-space as they might fly through a Halo theater. The question that remains is a matter of will.

Will we master the games of our new world, or will we get played?

Communication Studies Questionnaire

Recently I was asked by some students at a nearby college to answer a survey about my experiences in the field of communication studies. Here's the result:

1. How did you get interested in studying rhetoric? 

Participation in college forensics inspired my love of rhetoric, especially when I learned to deliver a type of speech called rhetorical criticism (also known as communication analysis). Part of the appeal of this event was the chance to write and present a piece of original scholarship about contemporary communication. One year I analyzed a speech presented by Boris Yeltsin before the U.S. Congress; another year I tried to make sense out of the rhetoric of former Yugoslavian president Slobodan Milosovic. In these speeches, I began to read published research in the field of communication studies in order to apply methods of analysis to topics that fascinated me. I really enjoyed the opportunity to solve the rhetorical criticism puzzle while competing with some of the smartest folks in the country. When I discovered that some college professors can dedicate their professional lives to solving these puzzles - getting paid to do so! - I was hooked.

2. What are you currently working on?

Having wrapped up a multiyear project of essays and a book built around the omnitopian framework, I'm just now thinking about the next five to ten years. I plan to build a research project around a new topic that reflects some of my current interests. This project might focus on gamification, studying ways to improve teaching and learning by applying insights from "sandbox style" video games. On the other hand, this project might expand on some in-progress research on world's fairs to focus on a broader intersection of architecture, mobility, rhetoric, and resistance. This work would include essays on augmented reality and street art. Of course I've also co-written an essay about rhetoric in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea), following a research trip to that country last year. We've already submitted that essay to a journal for review. Depending on the response, DPRK research might become an increasingly central part of my scholarly profile.

3. What got you interested in researching omnitopia?

A number of experiences and conversations got me interested in omnitopia (a mashup of Latin and Greek roots that I've used but do not claim to "own"), but mostly the topic emerged from conversations during family road trips. Driving thousands of miles along interstate highways, we'd observe certain qualities to airports, shopping malls, theme restaurants, and casinos, and we noticed that these environments inspired different feelings within us, different forms of interaction. As is my practice, I found myself theorizing about the places we visited, positing ideas and concepts to make sense of the "placeless" vibe that both troubled and intrigued me. Jenny and Vienna, my patient and thoughtful companions during these lengthy sojourns, asked questions and pointed out errors in my thinking. Gradually I formed a framework that seemed to make sense. Back on campus, I found ways to build lessons and even an entire course around the questions I was seeking to answer. There I could count on students to pose more questions offer more challenges to my still inchoate ideas. By the time I published a few essays on the topic, it was clear that I'd be living in omnitopia for a long while.

4. Who was your faculty advisor in graduate school and what did they teach you?

My grad school advisor was Roger Aden, a professor at Ohio University specializing in rhetoric, popular culture, and a wide range of topics that include fandom and spatial practices. Among his principle lessons was a reminder that I should strive for simplicity and clarity in my planning, writing, and speaking. It's relatively easy to build a byzantine structure of thought and attempt to bamboozle readers with a dense fog of words. It's a much finer thing (and a much more rigorous challenge) to communicate plainly and directly. I continue to struggle with that goal, and I thank Roger for instilling its value in my life. I would merely add here that many women and men guided me through those years. Roger played a key role as my advisor, but he'd be the first to insist that my training was a team effort. [Additional note: My dissertation committee included Roger Aden (chair), Judith Yaross Lee, Raymie McKerrow, Tim Simpson, and Julie White.]

5. What do you fine most fascinating about studying communication?

The most fascinating thing about studying communication is always the most personal thing, the fact that you can follow your bliss and concentrate on any aspect of life that involves human sense-making. Folks in this field study a vast array of topics, each one drawn from some aspect of their life stories. Our goal is always to useful outcomes, not simply to gaze at our own navels. Yet I can think of few other professions where folks enjoy such freedom to explore ideas and follow them wherever they may lead.

6. What is the best piece of advice you can give a transfer student to your program? 

I fear that any advice I'd offer will be generic, given that the best guidance comes from one person speaking to another person's unique concerns and talents. Nonetheless I'll offer one tip that would apply to most transfer students: Get to know the faculty. Read their published works, attend their colloquia, and chat with them outside of class. Your education will include access to books and articles, syllabi and assignments, but there is no better resource than a professor who knows you. Such a person can direct you toward internships, travel opportunities, and other forms of professional development. Of course you must take the first step by learning about various faculty members' strengths and interests. Show a genuine interest and think about the relationship you seek to build - don't just fixate on what you want - and you'll have a chance to enter a collaboration that can transform your life. Some of my best friends are professors who instructed me at all levels of my schooling. Allow yourself such a meaningful gift by getting to know the folks who've dedicated much of their lives to teaching you.

The Sandbox Project - Tutorial

Inspired by Darcy Osheim's thesis that examines World of Warcraft from a pedagogical perspective, I'm launching a little experiment in paragraph-level writing that explores the intersection of pedagogy and sandbox style gaming, focusing mainly on console games like GTA, Red Dead Redemption, and LA Noire. Aside from common interest, my project and Darcy's thesis are unrelated. These 'graphs are written without an outline. Their connections may be tenuous or superfluous. I may never finish. 

Educators should play more video games. After all, consider how the contemporary video game teaches its player how to play; there's a lot of serious theory at work. And that theory is backed by mammoth budgets and based on high expectations for ROI. Yet the standard video game contains no syllabus, not much of one at least. I can't think of the last time I started a console game by reading the instructions. And what if I did? Most booklets include a glossy, mostly useless insert. There may be a basic overview about running and shooting and driving, maybe a fold-out map, but little else. The instructions that come with LA Noire? 12 pages of pictures and button-functions, followed by 11 pages of tiny font listing everyone involved in the game's production. Generally the "instructions" that come with most console games are scanned once and never used again. We learn to play videogames through trial and error, advancing through tutorial levels that implant button combinations at an almost unconscious level. If the process works we learn by doing, sometimes aided by explicit instruction but generally by playing. One may debate the virtues of video game content, but one can hardly doubt that game designers know how to teach.

To Read: Erik Andersen et al.'s "The Impact of Tutorials on Games of Varying Complexity"

Sim City

Want.

Classroom Phone-a-Friend

What happens when an instructor calls on a student to answer a question in class and receives nothing but a blank stare - or worse, a look of panic? I've experienced that tension more than once in my years at SJSU, and I've found that gamification can help transform those moments into opportunities.

No doubt, gamification may sound like nothing more than yet another buzzword churning its way through some academic circles. Nonetheless I'm exploring ways to implement this idea into my teaching, especially in moments of anxiety. One technique: Phone-a-Friend.

The idea's pretty simple. When I call on a student to answer an impromptu question, I allow some time for percolation and try to offer supportive nonverbals. A little tension in this moment is OK, but I'm not trying to freak folks out. If the student tries to pass with a limp "I don't know," I stay with her/him, encouraging a bit more time and reflection on the question. If, however, the student starts to sweat I sometimes offer an alternative: "Would you like to phone a friend?"

The phrase, as you know, comes from Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. The reference is no longer contemporary, but the phrase has nonetheless sunk into the broader culture. Most folks know what it means. Still, I found it useful to offer some clarification the first time. "You can ask anyone in this class for the answer," I say, "Then you can confirm whether you agree or disagree."

The first time I do "Phone-a-Friend," students invariably ask their most proximate neighbors. They're a little unsure of the game and want to get it over with. But they catch on before long, and eventually they start to use the technique more strategically. "Why ask this person, when I can ask that one across the room?" Their choices reflect many different motivations. Yet the result is generally a richer sense of community. Best of all, students discover more value in paying attention; questions could come from anyone.

Phone-a-Friend is initially about stress-reduction. When feeling "called out," students can transform anxiety into power. They can call on someone else, practicing a dual role of student and instructor. Ultimately, though, Phone-a-Friend is about adding a bit of playfulness to classroom learning. From this perspective gamification leverages a recognizable and pleasurable process to encourage attitudes and behaviors that may be otherwise difficult to habitualize. From my admittedly anecdotal experience, Phone-a-Friend represents one way in which gamification can produce meaningful results.

Living in Cityville

OK, I admit it: I got suckered into playing Cityville, lured into the snare by a friend's Facebook invite. I suppose Jenny would label the past three days a "lost weekend." True, I helped string Christmas lights, organized our family's holiday newsletter, responded to student queries about a looming assignment, and left the house to see a movie. I lived my life. But most of my attention was drawn to Cityville.

Ostensibly I took the Cityville plunge to research how Zynga is leveraging social networking techniques to produce an experience that keeps users clicking. After all, this is the company behind Farmville, Mob Wars, and similar time-sucks. Zynga knows what it's doing. At the same time, miniature cities have always appealed to me (cue obligatory Logan's Run reference). While I couldn't care less about managing a cartoon farm, I'd love to run my own tiny town. I had to give Cityville a try.

If you've ever lost a night to SimCity you have a pretty good idea of how Cityville works. Borrowing liberally from Sid Meier's blockbuster urban simulation game, Zynga allows players to produce their own villages by laying out streets, erecting houses, starting businesses, and launching civic projects. There are no taxes in Cityville (no plumbing either, thankfully). Frustrated citizens won't riot in the streets if you fail to build a post office. And I've yet to see a building toppled by a natural disaster. But this game still produces a SimCity-like high, starting with the pleasure of the God's eye view.

Acting as an urban deity, you design your city, watch its tiny inhabitants wander about (sometimes they wave up at you), and survey the growth of your creation from tiny burg to bulging metropolis. Better yet, you can be a merciful god by helping others. Indeed, sociability is fundamental to the Cityville experience. Want to plunk down a few houses and start a business or two? All you need is a computer and a halfway decent internet connection. Wanna complete quests and expand your borders? You're going to need "neighbors."

Neighbors, you see, can help you secure vital resources like energy, supplies, and currency. Energy allows a player to perform an action (build a house, pick a crop, collect some rent, or reap profits from a business). Supplies, typically from harvested crops, allow businesses to keep serving customers and thereafter produce profits. Currency follows when businesses make money or when residents pay rent. [It's not incidental that Cityville has been called a mashup of SimCity and Monopoly.]

Energy is the prime mover of this game; it's necessary to do just about anything. The good news: it accumulates by itself, one unit every five minutes. That's the sweet spot, an increment that is endurable - at first. The bad news is that the pace of replenishment feels absolutely glacial after a while. That's where neighbors become essential. They can share their energy with you, generally at no cost to themselves. And that's just the beginning of their utility.

Neighbors can also share supplies, collect rent, and increase growth by allowing you to plant franchise businesses in their cities. That's right: Cityville is an omnitopian expanse in which every locale becomes a doorway to a shared perception of community. With neighbors, you can staff buildings without being forced to pay employees' salaries. Salaries? You betcha. Unless you've got neighbors willing to help, you must use in-game currency to pay wages. Once that money runs out, you're forced to buy bucks with real money. Neighbors equal growth.

Returning to my city, I smile. One neighbor (a pal in Texas) has revived a crop that I'd neglected to water. Another neighbor (in Florida) has visited my houses and collected rent. Adding to the sense of community, I observe a tiny picture of a neighbor hovering over my city. The icon hops from place to place, a dancing deity come to sprinkle gifts from heaven. Perhaps the Cityville universe is polytheistic. So while I planned to limit my stay for a couple minutes, I'm now happy to return the favor. I'll need my neighbors to staff a hospital later. Just five minutes more. Click, click, click.

Minutes turn into hours, especially when waiting for that ultimate kick, the gambling high: a rainbow-reward of clinking coins. Ahhhh, the sound of money popping from a slot machine. Then there is the burst of colorful icons forming "collections" that I can trade for still more energy, more supplies, more currency. Best of all, I get an extra boost when I scoop my prizes quickly. More coins, more clinking, more energy, more experience points, more life. Oh, and I can't forget the cheers of happy residents that greet every wise decision I make. I love that sound. My Cityville advisor tells me that I might even be elected mayor!

That's the fun of Cityville: its clever concoction of giddy anticipation, the hope that imminent reward waits beyond the next click. Learning from Las Vegas, Zynga creators have crafted a game that requires little strategy and virtually no effort. You can keep it running in the background, like the buzz of a receiver turned low. Dip in and out whenever you choose (plant strawberries and you don't even have to worry about withering crops). If you feel like swooping into your friends' towns, you get a quick charge of easy altruism. You did some good, and you can expect some good in return. Return, or not. It's your choice. Only, you want to return. That's the point.

Keep playing, the game teaches, and you will build that library, which will allow that population increase, which will allow that tall building, which will justify that territory expansion, which will yield that bigger crop, which will enable that big harvest, which will earn that next level, which will reap that burst of coins, which will… It never ends (at least not yet).

Just remember, the longer you play, the more neighbors you need. The more neighbors you have, the longer you must play - if only to keep watering your friends' crops. The cycle is virtuous when you're having fun with friends. Yet there's something vicious at work too. At its worst, Cityville becomes something less like a game and more like a virus, an addiction. I'm reminded of E.B. White's evaluation of the General Motors Futurama exhibit at the 1939-40 New York World's Fair: "There is a strong, sweet poison which infects the blood."

My daughter is immune to this poison but my wife graciously founded a city to help me complete a police station [There is no crime in Cityville - yet]. She announced that her urban planning career would be short lived, but she was back in town today, clicking for friends and family. Jenny kindly sent tourists by the busload to my thriving Level 19 town a few hours ago. I'm glad she did, because I'm just about to reach the next level! Just 118 experience points until I become a Level 20. So close.

Sure, I could wait for my own energy supplies to replenish themselves, but it's so much easier when neighbors chip in. Now I'm so close to opening the school for which my citizens have been clamoring. I'm so close to turning the sad icon (a sign of their impatience) into a happy face. I'm so close to leveling up! My citizens will be happy. I will be happy.

Then I can quit. Really.

(Screencaps are for purposes of academic comment and criticism. No ownership is implied.)

Draft Policy on Mobile Devices

Lately I've been thinking about how and why students use electronic gadgets in class. A fair amount of research and anecdotal evidence shows that students are using mobile phones (and other devices) far more than most faculty recognize. Quoting Wilkes University research:

"95 percent of students bring their phones to class every day and 91 percent have used their phones to text message during class time. Almost half of all respondents indicated that it is easy to text in class without their instructor being aware. In fact, students frequently commented on the survey that their professors would be 'shocked' if they knew how much texting went on in class."

I certainly remember taking a community college refresher course last year and observing that roughly one third of my fellow students seemed more interested in updating their Facebook pages than in focusing on the topic at hand.

My initial response to the notion of students fiddling with their machines in my classroom is to propose a draconian rule: no mobile devices, ever. I didn't use them in my college classes, I figure; students don't need them today. Upon reflection, though, that approach strikes me as being shortsighted.

So now I've developed a more nuanced response, one that affirms my basic respect for the autonomy of adults while trying to maintain a minimal standard of decorum and practicality.

My plan is to share a revised version of this note with my students this spring [here's the current draft]. It's over-written, I admit it, and it's crafted in a more legalistic tone than I'd prefer. But my written policy is merely a supporting document for a conversation I intend to conduct with my students.

Few students (if any) will actually read these words. I just want to have something written down. At a minimum, a message like this signals that I've considered the issue carefully. Better yet, this note might help us avoid frustration later on.

Here's a draft.

Any thoughts? Concerns? Recommendations? Please post a comment.

Also, fellow faculty members, do you have a mobile device policy that you'd like to share? I'd love to see it.

Mobile Devices in Class

You may use mobile devices (phones, laptops, etc.) in my class so long as you follow basic social and ethical guidelines.

To explain those guidelines, let me first explain why I created a mobile device policy at all. Like it or not, virtually all students bring electronic gadgets to class. And why not? You want to stay connected to friends and family, and sometimes important news just can't wait until the end of class. Moreover, these devices aren't toys; they're tools.

Today's mobile devices enable you to check notes, update your calendar, or perhaps get a second opinion on assertions I may offer. Additionally, mobile devices play an essential role in our university's emergency notification network. It therefore seems silly to mandate that you cannot access your phones, laptops, and other electronic tools in class.

That being said, there are three obvious exceptions to this policy, related to testing, privacy, and distraction. In these cases I must adopt a hard line.

1. You may not use any mobile device while any student is taking a quiz or test in the classroom. Restricting the use of mobile devices in a testing environment is a matter of integrity, both practical and perceptual. And I would be well within my rights to interpret any such usage (without my express permission) as a sign of cheating.

2. You may not use any mobile device to record sound or images in class without my consent. Why? Well, for starters, even though you are attending a public university, my classroom is not located in the "public domain." No one in this class has authorized you to record their images or voices. Doing so without gaining permission thus constitutes an invasion of privacy - and potentially a form of theft.

Let me explain: My lectures and other classroom activities are my intellectual property. And while I recognize that student fees help pay for the costs of this room (and for my services) I do not wave my right to create and distribute classroom content as I see fit. That's why you must ask my permission (ideally in written form) to photograph a slide, record a lecture, or distribute my likeness in any way.

3. You may not use any mobile device in a manner that distracts other people. If your use of a mobile device disturbs other folks (especially with ringtones or loud buzzing) - or if attention paid to your device means that you cannot participate meaningfully in our conversations - you may be required to leave the class.

That regrettable action may seem harsh. But ultimately it's a matter of respect. You deserve my full attention in the classroom; I ask for a reasonable portion of the same. If you want to send a quick text or perform a brief web search, feel free. Just be discrete. If you need a gentle reminder about this policy, I'll provide one. Thereafter my approach must become much more strict.

After all, our classroom is a community. What we do and say here matters. There's an anxious, busy world beyond our walls, I know. But that world can wait, at least for the brief time we share together. And when it can't, you can always quietly step outside. I merely ask you to remember that this class - indeed, your choice to seek a degree - is ultimately your choice. And with that choice comes certain responsibilities. One of them: contributing to a respectful learning environment.

Otherwise, there's really no point in coming to college at all.

Gamification

Lately I've been doing some preliminary research on gamification - the convergence of video game and social networking experiences that's entering domains not traditionally associated with gameplay. In her MSNBC piece, FarmVille invades the real world, Helen A.S. Popkin writes that Tim Chang coined the term, which has largely supplanted Gabe Zichermann's notion of "funware."

One of the most prevalent examples of gamification is Foursquare, a social-networking application that allows users to "check in" to physical places and earn badges [Learn more]. People who check in to places most frequently can become "mayors" of those environments. The twist is that companies like Starbucks are using Foursquare to make their businesses more "sticky" (by offering discounts to mayors, for example). They know that more frequent visits can yield increased revenue.

Another example of gamification is LinkedIn's use of a progress bar. Once more, we see a non-traditional use of the principle: getting users of a business-networking site to stay longer and do more, transforming the drowsy act of inputing information or writing a recommendation into a sort of game. The trick is the use of (frequently) graphical feedback to produce a positive stimulus upon the brain in a manner similar to that found in video games.

Gamification represents an expanding domain of opportunity, appearing in health, educational, and personal finance fields - even in applications designed to inspire people to reduce their energy consumption [Learn More]. Chris O'Brien's writes in the San Jose Mercury News that "gamification has become one of the hottest buzz words in Silicon Valley" [Learn more].

The historically short shelf-life of buzzwords aside, I'm especially intrigued by potential uses for Gamification in pedagogy. This is not to say that game theory hasn't long been integrated into teaching - rather that emerging applications have more potential for success. Students raised on video games are likely to respond to experiences whose pleasures are similar to those with which they are familiar. Going on "quests," gathering tokens, and showing off their prowess with badges may seem silly to veteran educators, but it's serious business to Millennials.

Many faculty complain that today's students are unwilling or unable to work for their learning. At the same time we kvetch about students' willingness to devote hours upon hours to games. What if there's a way to harness that enthusiasm? In the perfectly titled article, Video games keep tricking us into doing things we loathe, Leigh Alexander writes, "we gamers demonstrate a fascinating willingness to apply ourselves tirelessly to any number of tedious tasks." In an article called Gamifying homework, Jason B. Jones adds, "people will do anything for a virtual badge."

I'm not sure if I like the direction this conversation is going. But I certainly want to know more. And I'm not alone. In fact a number of folks are embarking on ambitious research projects to make sense of this phenomenon. Jones describes Old Dominion University's Richard Landers's plan to seek National Science Foundation funding for a multi-campus interdisciplinary open-source gamification platform. I visited Professor Landers's call for participants and was impressed with his preliminary results. Here's a quote:

"We took advantage of many principles of casual gaming (sometimes called the [gamification] movement) to create a reward system for completing these quizzes. Several levels of “mastery” were created, with increasingly difficult bars to reach in order to achieve them. But when a student achieved a new rank (which they could never lose), a badge would appear next to their name in class discussion areas to provide a social reward for doing well. For example, if the aforementioned student completed the social psychology quiz enough times to reach Mastery Level 3, a little blue ribbon would appear next to their name when they chatted in that classroom. This system was ridiculously well-received. Across those 400 students, 113 (28%!) willingly chose to take optional multiple choice quizzes that would never have an effect on their grades." (emphasis in original)

Gotta follow up on this stuff...