Creativity and the Shower

I wish I could get a quick degree in neuroscience. I wish I could stand side by side with a neuroscientist and watch learners brains under a variety of test cases – lots of learners, where we could do statistical analysis on inquiry-based learning, game-based learning, teaching to the test, everything we can think of…and watch the synapses fire (or not).

I have been at several talks lately where the slides come up showing all the areas of a brain that glow when a player is in flow. Jesse Schell spoke at G4C about how we need to keep many parts of our brain active or they get “itchy” and will wander off and get distracted if we don’t keep them satisfied. This is why, he explains, even though one might think that while driving a car the last thing we need is a distraction like music or audio books, that in fact it helps our brain not wander off completely.

What also makes complete sense to me now is why my best leaps of innovation come in while gardening or often in the shower. While taking care of the daily ritual of showering that I have completed for more decades than I care to admit, my body and reflexive parts of my brain are on auto-pilot and other parts of my brain are in a relaxed but fruitful state of processing. I will often have a sheer moment of brilliance in the shower –  coming up with a perfect next step to a nagging problem or a great “why not do such-and-such ?” just out of the blue…and then not remember if I had washed my hair or not. I’ve conceived major projects in my head while splitting hostas or pulling weeds.I think much more clearly away from my desk.

I don’t have the neuroscience terminology at hand, but I am coming to understand from the talks I hear that it is not the activity in one range of the brain (or of one certain stimulus or set of practices and behavior) that lends itself to innovation and creative leaps – it is when the brain is in flow and providing the environment for knowledge and ideas to become fluid and connect with one another. There is so much to learn from neural research that might blow the doors off everything we think in learning sciences – and even more, once we think we know what learning is and how it works, it could just change before we know it.

Math and Science Can Be Fun and Games

I’ve always believed in the work we do at EdGE and that games have real potential to transform education, but after attending this year’s Games for Change Festival, you might say that I am now fully drinking the Kool-Aid. Hell, I’m ready to set up a sidewalk stand and sell it to my friends, neighbors, and thirsty passersby.

I attended a lot of great sessions, but was most impacted by a handful of inspiring keynote speakers. Jane McGonigal opened the festival by telling us how playing games literally saved her life and made her a SuperBetter version of herself. She then showed us a glimpse of how to SuperBetter ourselves, added 7.5 minutes to everyone’s life, and made a very compelling argument for how games can help us avoid the top 5 regrets of the dying. Sounds pretty great, right? Then, Nolan Bushnell, founder of Atari (and Chuck E. Cheese!), talked about his newest endeavor, Brainrush, which uses video game metrics to addict students to learning. Each lesson is a mini-game that adapts to the individual student’s skill-level. He gave us a vision of gamified classrooms where teachers would be free from the time-consuming tasks of being clerk, judge, and disciplinarian, and only have to focus on what they are meant to do, what they love to do—mentor students and foster a love for learning. Can you picture it? Finally, Jim Gee blew me away with his description of “Big G” games—games plus affinity spaces (interest-driven online communities where people come together over shared interests and passions for problems they are trying to solve within the game). Each and every one of his 20+ principles for good Big G games really resonated with me, especially the notion that through good games, you shouldn’t be learning just one discipline, but rather learning new skills, problem solving, and mastering expertise. In Dr. Gee’s own words, “We ought to be learning 10 things at once, not one.” Yes!

I think the pen that came in my conference welcome packet said it best: “Math and science can be fun and games.” Designing good games is hard, especially educational games. But, if we can do it, it will be so very worth the effort, and I for one am excited to be part of a team that is taking on this challenge to put the fun back in learning and to make a new generation of more engaged, productive learners.

So, play on my friends. You might just learn something while you’re at it.

Gaming in a Controllerless World

I didn’t grow up a gamer. I am terrible with a controller. My 22-year old son said he would play PS3 games with me only after I spend a lot of time practicing myself. It hurts my wrists, I never get better for longer than one session. Each time I start I have to tell myself x is enter, o is jump, my son rolls his eyes.

But I love gaming on my IPad. The touch screen is for 50 year old gamers and 2 year old gamers, those who don’t want any stupid controller getting in their way. Osmos, Bejewled, Angry Birds….I don’t have to remind myself what button to press, I just do it.

Kinect gives me hope that we will be even farther away from controllers and keyboards, for that matter, in the next few years. I first heard about Kinect (then called Project Natal) when I was suffering a rotator cuff injury. I was using Dragon Speed software to write (which was a total mindshift in itself!) and was drooling over the idea of an interface that I could use with anything other than my painful arms.

Then I saw Jaron Lanier talk at G4C about haptic learning. That explained, in part, why I couldn’t write with Dragon Speech. My fingers do my talking, quite literally. The way I write is connected to the sensory touch of my fingers, and the connection between my fingers and brain. The way I talk is different. It’s very hard to speak in my proposal writing language.

So as we move to controllerless interfaces, what will change.  I will be a better gamer. Will I be a better writer? A better thinker? A better learner? Certainly, I think, I will be different in all of these.