I recently
was able to see a demonstration of a fantastic online algebra game, for
example, that not only challenges learning, but where every problem is a test,
in the sense that, if you don't solve the problem, the system generates a new
problem that goes a little backward to some more basic principles, and then,
when you succeed, it generates a more advanced problem and so forth. The results are amazing, because the test
isn't at the end of the year, it is in everything you do, as you do it, getting
not just harder and harder but more and more interesting. We know that
boredom -- for the most gifted students and also for the lowest academic
achievers -- is the biggest inhibitor of learning there is.