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"Activity oriented toward intrinsic goals, almost by definition, is play." - Peter Gray I was struck by this quote because I've thinking a lot about motivation and engagement in terms of games, but haven't really been thinking about EMF in terms of play.

By now, we're used to letting Facebook and Twitter capture our social lives on the web -- building a "social layer" on top of the real world. In his talk, Seth Priebatsch looks at the next layer in progress: the "game layer," a pervasive net of behavior-steering game dynamics that will reshape education and commerce.

Yes, indeed. The ideal is to intrinsically integrate. That's a good idea. Why not? In fact, maybe the alternate reality games qualify as "real world" layer over games because in such games, whatever happens in games impact the reality in certain ways. We could also design games to work the other way around, e.g. a diet game, where only when you do exercise in a gym in the real world, can you advance levels in the game.

Haha yes!! I recall a rowing machine which actually had a game in front of users so that they could compete with 'other rowers'. It was great and definitely made the workout more fun. I stopped though after a friend slipped his disc on the machine...

this is a great resource. thanks!!

"Every young person will continue to need basic knowledge, of course," he said. "But they will need skills and motivation even more. Of these three education goals, motivation is the most critical. Young people who are intrinsically motivated - curious, persistent, and willing to take risks - will learn new knowledge and skills continuously. They will be able to find new opportunities or create their own - a disposition that will be increasingly important as many traditional careers disappear."

Education Week PD Webinars (yes, there is a fee to register). > Developing Intrinsic Motivation in Students with Chris Wejr and Larry Ferlazzo March 5, 2013 at 4pm ET > Intentional Teaching: Infusing Instruction With Purpose with Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey March 20, 2013 at 2pm ET >Daniel Pink on How Teachers Can 'Sell' More to Students April 9, 2013 at 2pm ET

An interesting article about how games like WoW increase intrinsic motivation by allowing modifications to the game (or mods). The participatory culture also promotes a sense of collaboration and service to other players, hence increasing the sense of value-addedness to the activity.

Interesting idea: engaging parents to help motivate their kids in school. It includes several of sources of "intrinsic motivation": curiosity, challenge, context, and motivation. I would be interested in seeing a more independent assessment on how successful this system is.

An article about what we can learn from the Finish education reform - we need to raise the standards for entry into the teaching profession, and future teachers should have intensive professional and academic preparation. Finnish teachers are driven by a sense of intrinsic motivation, not by the hope of a bonus or the fear of being fired. Intrinsic motivation is also what they seek to instill in their students.

This longer gamasutra article talks about Macro Flow and Micro Flow, complete with Csikszentmihalyi's flow diagrams. "Macro flow is the constant rise in difficulty to compete with the player's increasing skill level, maintaining the balance between boredom and anxiety. Macro flow refers to the entire gameplay experience from the beginning of the game until the end, and having a good macro flow will likely result in constant interest and intrinsic motivation on the part of the player throughout the course of the game." "Micro flow is short intense periods of flow that happen frequently, as well as the constant adaptation of the game's challenges to the player's increase in skill level. It is perpetuated by repeated successes in rapid succession, which provides positive emotional and tangible feedback encouraging the player to continue in the micro flow; this is known as a virtuous cycle."

Thanks for posting, Stephanie. I wonder if these instances of "micro flow' interfere with a gamer's chances of experiencing macro flow. I'm imagining instances of micro flow to be like interesting pit stops along a road trip, while macro flow would be equivalent to the exhilaration of cruising down an open road without any interruption. Not sure if that's the right way to think about it though...

This data base from the edWeb site (Games for learning) that Stephanie shared is a crowd sourced collection of learning games. Has the learning been intrinsically integrated into these games ?. How wise has the crowd been in collating this learning resource ?

I'm still not sure if I agree with David Foster Wallace, but his quote did made me wonder: Does the idea of being "smart" tap into some essential human need? Might we add "smartness" to Ryan & Deci's list of intrinsic needs?

This article discusses play in virtual worlds (focusing on World of Warcraft) with an emphasis both on the learning that takes place and the engagement. You'll have to log in with your Harvard ID to get the article, FYI. "Our observation showed that players are motivated by the game's scope, rules, and scenario to create and participate in virtual communities, and share their knowledge with others, while newcomers are encouraged to engage in collective actions, and develop their skill base. We also found that although current MMORPGs have not been designed as instructional tools, they provide an excellent fantasy environment for intrinsically motivating learning, where players can experience the elements of challenge, curiosity, and control [30]." "People engage in pervasive games that use the best of two worlds, the virtual and the physical, in order to offer to its players the sense of maximum enjoyment."

Extrinsice versus intrinsic motivators ... a mismatch between what science knows and what business does!

Hits on a lot of our topics-

If you haven't come across lure of the labyrinth, do visit the site. An example of intrinsic integration of learning content with game mechanics.

Pradeep, I ran across this article that references two digital math competitions (Lure of Labrynth, Dimension U) and notes a distrubing US statistic: "In New York City, for instance, just 10 percent of the high schools with the highest black and Latino enrollments offer Algebra II, according to a report by the U.S. Department of Education." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/11/feature-numbers-game-ame_n_1418589.html

This is a few years old, but it's interesting. I wonder how the coach/athlete relationship might relate to student/teacher relationships in the classroom.

Check out this edtech start-up: I spoke to the founder today, and their philosophy sounds like it's right out of T-545. It's all about promoting intrinsic motivation for positive classroom behaviors and increasing kids' engagement through technology and immediate feedback.

David Rose featured this in a 560 lecture and I spoke a little about how I use it at homeschool. I don't use the negative behavior options and D. Rose said Skinner did not think negative reinforcement was useful. I use it as a way of facilitating conversation around positive actions that promote a pleasant social environment.

As we students become graduates, Christensen's article is interesting both for perspective on career advice as well as it's broad references to extrinsic and intrinsic motivation in the workplace. As an HBS professor, he takes a very Business School approach to motivation.

Is the content intrinsically integrated ? How do they use rewards ? Do share your thoughts if you watch this webinar.