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What do you think will be the WAAAAAY OF THE FUUUUTUUURREEE: educational games or creating lesson plans around mainstream games (the better question may be, how these things will manifest)?

Schooling is already a game. Point systems, frequent feedback, rewards. The first step is to recognize that. Second step is to use technology to implement on smaller scales, by which I mean minute to minute instead of week to week or semester to semester(which we see here). Honestly it is done already in kindergarden with the stars on the board acting as a leaderboard. I am confused as to why that is abandoned after graduating to 3rd or 4th grade(we "grow out" of one of the best forms of motivation?!). Gamifying schools is a matter of refinement not overhaul. The question to me is what should be rewarded.

subtitle: "Interactive educational games that are collaborative and focus on 'social good' can boost girls' participation, experts say"

This is a good follow-up to our discussion last night regarding how schools are trying to incorporate gaming to make them more relevant/engaging... subtitle of article is "Interactive educational games that are collaborative and focus on 'social good' can boost girls' participation, experts say."

I just read about this recently, really fascinating. It turns out the same group Foldit, is working in a similar format to develop better methods of teaching math and science in schools. And because these digital solutions are available in a virtual world, they are able to use tools like the internet to bring together gamers all over the world and really "hive mind" solutions to these scientific problems. In the article I read, the scientists talk about the flexibility the gamers have in working with 3D puzzles, and how it doesn't take long at all to solve these visual puzzles because it's just a game, and with a little bit of guidance it doesn't take long at all to catch the gamers up to speed with how proteins and enzymes 'should' fit together. Obviously there are some flexible rules, otherwise the computer would have figured it out earlier. So I just thought this application was really fantastic, especially when networked to include potentially more of the public sphere. Makes me scientifically endlessly optimistic!