There are about three different planned blog posts that I won’t need to write because you can just watch this video instead*.
Jesse Schell** talks about the way that games will interact with the real world and how that can change our behavior [about 30 min, but riveting]. So much potential here (good and bad).
* Thanks to dakotareese at UXvsGameDesign and BFchirpy for the pointers to the video.
** Yep – Jesse Schell is another professional crush.
(btw – does anybody know any magic tricks for embedding this stuff in wordpress?)
Cool! If you aren’t reading his blog, you probably should be (http://thingsifinished.blogspot.com/). It will likely help to further your professional crush, though he doesn’t really talk about work much. I won’t be surprising that he seems to be a very thoughtful and unassuming person.
Also, reading his blog has made me very seriously consider trying to figure out how to drop out of the world of work to go to Carnegie and study in the ETC (Entertainment Technology Center) program.
The thing that keeps rolling over and over in mind is not the gameifying-everything, life=as-levelling, ambient-grinding future but the bit that all of us in the Learning (with a capital L) should be wearing as a tattoo.
The thing that makes a social game ‘social’ is that IT finds YOU.
Social Learning is about IT finding YOU.
Simon, the comment about social learning finding you is a very interesting one. Over in the ASTD LinkedIn discussion group, there’s a really long discussion about informal learning and how, in order for it to work, it needs to be formalized. This formalization, it has been posited, is headed up by a new L&D position, “the learning architect”. What a load of poop.
Successful social learning and its larger informal learning relation don’t need formalization, they need different thinking. Entirely different thinking. What can Farmville teach us about how the learning can or should find you?
Instead we need more motivating things like this really cool plant growing thing that Julie (or was it you) tweeted:
http://natronbaxter.com/garden-sneak-peek-notifications
Dan, The Natron Baxter thing was me and I’m doing an interview with them in the next week or so which I’ll blog.
I’m in the middle of a blog post for the ‘Can we formalise informal learning?’ blog carnival for #ecollab where one of the things I say is exactly what you say above – as soon as you ‘formalise the informal’ you’ve effectively ‘informalised the enterprise’, no small mnatter that.
I’m not so sure about the whole learning architect thing as poop. I quite like the metaphor of somebody not quite KMer, not quite ISD who helps design a structure for learning, borrowing eclectically form ludology, service design, information architecture and all that caper . . . who knows, riding off into the sunset. 🙂
My big problem with the architect metaphor, I suppose, is the static nature of buildings – I’d prefer ‘dungeonmaster’ or, more client-friendly, ‘learnscape gardener’.
I can just picture your face now.
By the way, Dan – are you Dan Roddy? And, if so, when will we get a chance to meet face to face/
No, I’m not Dan Roddy, but I think you figured that out after following me on twitter. I think the idea of someone being at the helm of social learning makes complete sense. It’s the idea that this someone’s role would essentially be the formalization of the social/informal learning experience that has me labeling with poop. Its the idea that no learner will ever just naturally want to know something unless there is someone there telling them – even coercing them to experience it.
An architect is all about straight lines and not coloring outside…now a dungeonmaster – that’s a job title that 🙂