Re: [Edu-sig] re: Education Arcade
In a message of Sat, 13 Dec 2003 12:26:44 PST, "Kirby Urner" writes:
Imagine an arcade game wherein you're running for president of some country. You have money concerns, issue concerns, perception concerns. Donor X promises you big bucks, but not if you appear to side with Y in your statements. Different versions of a stump speech appear on screen. You have to decide which one you'll go with (advisors weigh in with pros and cons, perhaps audibly, using emotional language). Money sources appear or dry up as a result of your choices. In the meantime, your competition is doing likewise. Negative ads appear, about your accepting funds from Donor X.
Kirby, this is an example of the problem. When you teach children using a simulation, you teach them, in addition to everything else, to think within the system that the simulators were using. So here we have, as unchallenged assumption -- it costs big bucks to become president. The fix for that would be to pass campaign finance reform -- forbid spending beyond a certain amount. Every version of those stump speeches come with the biases of the people who authored them. Their results have the outcomes that somebody programmed in as well. You have now taught the children how to use emotional language to criticise people and get them to change their positions based on how well you can manipulate them. Your funding base, presumably, is either the White, Prosperous Middle class, or Big Business -- since you are campaign contribution based. Does your simulation reflect the fact that poor people do not vote in the USA? Negative ads are now a fact of life .... it goes on, and on. I don't want another generation of Americans conditioned to view the system as something that can not be changed, but can only be worked. I don't know what the best way to teach children how to question authority, recongnise opportunities, and strive to improve the society they are in, but I suspect that this is a step in precisely the wrong direction. Laura
Kirby, this is an example of the problem. When you teach children using a simulation, you teach them, in addition to everything else, to think within the system that the simulators were using.
Yes, I agree. So show them several simulations and discuss their differences. The thing is, I don't see any way to get away from bias, no matter how we do it. Kids have been brought up within confining belief systems since time immemorial. As adults, we pretty much take them for granted, or exchange one for another from time to time.
So here we have, as unchallenged assumption -- it costs big bucks to become president. The fix for that would be to pass campaign finance reform -- forbid spending beyond a certain amount. Every version of those stump speeches come with the biases of the people who authored them. Their results have the outcomes that somebody programmed in as well. You have now taught the children how to use emotional language to criticise people and get them to change their positions based on how well you can manipulate them. Your funding base, presumably, is either the White, Prosperous Middle class, or Big Business -- since you are campaign contribution based.
I'd like students to develop a critical eye w/r to educational games. Ideally, we play the games, then talk about what assumptions they embody. I don't necessarily want to cushion them either, by making the simulations too unreal. As a matter of fact, it does cost big bucks to become president in many countries, and emotional language is used manipulatively all the time. It's better to develop and awareness of this than to pretend it doesn't exist. My simulation is, in a way, a parody.
Does your simulation reflect the fact that poor people do not vote in the USA? Negative ads are now a fact of life .... it goes on, and on.
Yes. I worked in a voter outreach organization once, trying to get more poor people to vote. We'd show up at the post office in Washington DC at 2 AM and send out hundreds of dollars worth of get-out-the-vote flyers by express mail.
I don't want another generation of Americans conditioned to view the system as something that can not be changed, but can only be worked.
I think a first step towards creative change is simulating something accurately. A simulation that focused on the influence of big money in political affairs might well be an agent for exactly the kind of change you'd support.
I don't know what the best way to teach children how to question authority, recongnise opportunities, and strive to improve the society they are in, but I suspect that this is a step in precisely the wrong direction.
Laura
I think it might be in the right direction. Did you like 'Wag the Dog'? How about 'Senator Bullworth'? Kirby
Quote Kirby:
Kirby, this is an example of the problem. When you teach children using a simulation, you teach them, in addition to everything else, to think within the system that the simulators were using.
Yes, I agree. So show them several simulations and discuss their differences.
Or better yet, give them a similulation, and a configuration mechanism for it. Here, try to get elected with more-or-less the system we have now. OK, now turn on the "Campaign Spending Limits" option and try again. Try with multiple parties, proportional representation, voter registration by the BMV, etc. Use the presets for elections in different countries (or California!). A good simulation doesn't have to be limited to one set of assumptions, it can be flexible. And of course, you could let interested players get "behind the scenes" to script new scenarios and options directly. My kids (7 and 3) both enjoy playing "educational" games, like Reader Rabbit. They enjoy the puzzle-solving aspect, and my seven-year-old daughter really likes doing math puzzles on the computer. She is bored in school because the lessons often don't challenge her enough, and asks the teacher for harder work. Now, this isn't just because the programs are interesting, but because we work with her a lot. My wife stayed home with the kids to give them a head start. We've always presented reading and math as things that are fun to do, and as positive ways of getting attention (powerful motivation for kids!). And, as I've mentioned here before, we're working on a game together. So far it's pretty simplistic, just a sprite moving around on a background. But she drew both the background and the sprite (I just scanned them and animated with PyGame), which makes it more personal. As we move forward with it, I see her getting not only into the graphics and story, but also into directly manipulating the environment through code. So my view is that simulations are good, but much better if you have the whole toolkit at your disposal, both the simulation, the rules for the simulation (for tweaking) and the ability to extend the simulation in new ways. --Dethe "The law I sign today directs new funds and new focus to the task of collecting vital intelligence on terrorist threats and on weapons of mass production." -- George W. Bush
Laura writes -
Kirby, this is an example of the problem. When you teach children using a simulation, you teach them, in addition to everything else, to think within the system that the simulators were using.
This I see as a key point. Outside the simulation, what makes 2+2=4 interesting is that 2+2 might = anything, but *does* equal 4. Inside the environment, the only options are the provided options. We learn well enough that 2+2=4, within the environment. Without having learned, convincingly, that that is also true, outside the environment. For good reason. Because one thing we do understand - hopefully - without being taught, is the difference between virtual and real. And in the virtual world, anything might be made to be true, and from moment to moment. There is little to be learned, because the thing missing is the thing most important and the hardest to communicate - a map from the virtual to the real. Adults can use simulation effectively because they have the tools to make that mapping is some reasonable way. Kids don't. Art
On Sunday 14 December 2003 05:17 am, Arthur wrote:
Kirby, this is an example of the problem. When you teach children using a simulation, you teach them, in addition to everything else, to think within the system that the simulators were using.
Adults can use simulation effectively because they have the tools to make that mapping is some reasonable way. Kids don't.
Where simulations are interesting and even exciting teaching tools is in the other extreme -- where the mapping from real to virtual is uncontroversial, but the consequences of these known interactions are unclear. This is generally the case when we are simulating physics. An orbit-integrator is a prime example: there's no question about how gravity works, we can demonstrate that pretty trivially from real-world experiments and observations. On the other hand, the consequences of this are extraordinarily complex and unpredictable. A simulator can run that math at high speed and show you what you can expect. Furthermore, the actual experiment is basically impossible. Even if you had the multi-million dollar budget to launch a real object into space, the actual playing out of the orbital mechanics takes years. A simulation lets you run that fast-forward. Even electronics and engineering simulations are usually like this: the individual interactions are easy to model, and there's little Human bias to consider in applying them. But I understand your point -- this always irritated me about SimEarth: it was blantantly obvious what the authors' assumptions were. I felt they were wrong, and the result is wrong predictions (IMHO, but who knows what the reality is?). That's an example where the models are a relatively poor reflection of the real problem's complexity, and there's no empirical test to run to find out how right or wrong they are. Cheers, Terry -- Terry Hancock ( hancock at anansispaceworks.com ) Anansi Spaceworks http://www.anansispaceworks.com
participants (5)
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Arthur -
Dethe Elza -
Kirby Urner -
Laura Creighton -
Terry Hancock