Perhaps of interest: the dragon speech, delivered by chris crawford at the first video game developers conference in 1992 - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBrj4S24074">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBrj4S24074</a>
The greatest video Jonathan Blow has ever done on Video Games and the Future of education is 0:10:36 long and is just him going over the first part of his video game "The Witness".<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDSrYiheVow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDSrYiheVow</a><p>We have him demonstrating:<p>* Starting off any new concept with trivial examples that nonetheless convey important information about the problem space and how to interact with it.<p>* Making the progression to the next problem or related problems obvious and intuitive.<p>* Adding in 'curve balls' that help to jog the player into thinking critically.<p>* Whilst showing clear progression to alternative ideas, also allowing freedom to approach different problems<p>* Showing how video games can give immediate feedback to 'show not tell' nuanced ideas<p>* Showing how understanding of concepts grows over time<p>* Showing how decomposition of ideas can make them easy to understand individually and then composition of them is intuitive and immediate<p>The Witness is a thesis on learning/pedagogy, motivation/reward, truth seeking and self fulfilment. To that end, I would recommend playing it to anyone who has an interest in video games and how they relate to the future of education.
Watched the whole talk and find Jonathan's insights very good.<p>But he kinda "lost" me at 02:09:40 <a href="https://youtu.be/qWFScmtiC44?t=7780" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/qWFScmtiC44?t=7780</a> when he says:<p>"I'm not sure to what extent destructive game addiction is a thing" ...<p>Video Game Addiction very much a thing. And someone in the Video Game Industry is turning a blind eye to it.
We have a 24 year old cousin in our family who is so hooked on video games he cannot <i>function</i> as an adult.
Lives at home with retired parents. Never leaves his room. Plays games obsessively. No (IRL) friends.
"gaming disorder" is recognised by the World Health Organisation:
<a href="https://www.who.int/standards/classifications/frequently-asked-questions/gaming-disorder" rel="nofollow">https://www.who.int/standards/classifications/frequently-ask...</a> and _many_ people suffer from it. =(<p>This is a classic case of:<p>“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” ~ Upton Sinclair<p>Otherwise good insights.
Very insightful talk. I went in thinking I'd more or less not get anything new, but I found myself saying "Huh, he's right" and nodding along and piecing together novel ways to think about the topic most of the way.