Rant in e-Minor
I'm at the Adobe Max Conference, which hosts some of the best and brightest minds in the content sector, had a few opportunities to talk with a few people in the educational space. Partly before but partly after, there have been a few opportuniteswhich I was hoping to see some shining inspiring examples to guide my path, instead I came away rather disgusted.
I'm sure many know, the educational system is largely broken...at least for newer generations and sadly that's not going to change until people die off and are replaced and/or automated. Bleh, Blech, Grrr!
Kids minds (and my own) are being warped by high budget high creativity interactive media, and academics and engineers and those unfortunate few underneath them, who can't engage are left in this unworkable situations, are kinda whiny...about why they have to be engaging. I'd like to think that the warped is somewhat a good thing, we are constantly looking for high signal to noise ratios, but right or wrong that is the reality and it's not going to change.
a) most of what they develop, isn't working as well as they like, yet they lack the motivation or resources to make it better. Even when the resources are on Amazon, and with some creative negotiation could be gotten for low cost or free. Books...albeit non-academic ones. I thought academics liked those?
b) for the most part they can't sell the sofware they develop, because that's hard, require supporting end users and takes effort, primarily because it's non-competitive to any commercial venture, I'm sure they get many calls.
c) The way that these games are developed inside the institution are at the whim of one instructor, while this isn't intrinsically bad. They have no interactive, game, design and potentially any curriculum design skills....so it can't possibly work well against mainstream user expectations or competition. Yet it's not the developers fault, if they don't follow what the teacher wants they will pull funding. Understandable, but this is why people hire creative agencies to fill in the gaps, and supply them with vision they can't supply on their own, or learn sales.
d) they can't collaborate with other schools as that requires some consensus about what is being taught. This part really pisses me off. Where the fuck is the scientific method in teaching curriculum?, after 100 years teaching the basics of 101,201 etc can't at least 10-20 different ways be thought of an then approached as variations in a curriculum? After seeing earlier in the day techniques being used for medical exam tests, it *is* happening there..is that because there is more money in it?
e) some don't want to create software that replaces teachers. This seems lame and short sighted. Every good teacher should strive to create students whose knowledge surpass their own, and would I hope rather spend time helping students with problems and those excel rather than lecturing and giving/grading papers. Software until it reaches the level of human AI will not be competitive to a tutor or a teacher until it can really adapt to the unique needs of the user, and until take the budgets they are using for games and movies to education, it's unlikely to provoke a response.
At the end of seeing about 5 examples, I would rather watch Disney.com intro than have to sit through the sims if being paid to do so. While most likely solid academic, they lack the basics of what I consider game or educational simulation: clear definable goals. What's sad to me is the group there is look to Flex/Flash to pretty it up, completely missing that even pong with minimal graphics can be fun.
As an engineer I would add all the variables up and then say like there isn't a winning position, and if change isn't an option to achieve that, I don't want to play. Yet that's their relatively secure job, they don't really have to produce anything competitive so they seem they are happy enough to limp along and hold conference sections instead.
In other parts of the day, despite being a decent introvert, I met a few others who have largely jumped to commercial sectors from education to achieve the change they desire after facing similar frustrations. I know there are other out there who 'get it' and are doing great work, just didn't meet any still in the space today, which leaves somewhat an abandoned ship I fear for the students in and coming >:(
I'm sure many know, the educational system is largely broken...at least for newer generations and sadly that's not going to change until people die off and are replaced and/or automated. Bleh, Blech, Grrr!
Kids minds (and my own) are being warped by high budget high creativity interactive media, and academics and engineers and those unfortunate few underneath them, who can't engage are left in this unworkable situations, are kinda whiny...about why they have to be engaging. I'd like to think that the warped is somewhat a good thing, we are constantly looking for high signal to noise ratios, but right or wrong that is the reality and it's not going to change.
a) most of what they develop, isn't working as well as they like, yet they lack the motivation or resources to make it better. Even when the resources are on Amazon, and with some creative negotiation could be gotten for low cost or free. Books...albeit non-academic ones. I thought academics liked those?
b) for the most part they can't sell the sofware they develop, because that's hard, require supporting end users and takes effort, primarily because it's non-competitive to any commercial venture, I'm sure they get many calls.
c) The way that these games are developed inside the institution are at the whim of one instructor, while this isn't intrinsically bad. They have no interactive, game, design and potentially any curriculum design skills....so it can't possibly work well against mainstream user expectations or competition. Yet it's not the developers fault, if they don't follow what the teacher wants they will pull funding. Understandable, but this is why people hire creative agencies to fill in the gaps, and supply them with vision they can't supply on their own, or learn sales.
d) they can't collaborate with other schools as that requires some consensus about what is being taught. This part really pisses me off. Where the fuck is the scientific method in teaching curriculum?, after 100 years teaching the basics of 101,201 etc can't at least 10-20 different ways be thought of an then approached as variations in a curriculum? After seeing earlier in the day techniques being used for medical exam tests, it *is* happening there..is that because there is more money in it?
e) some don't want to create software that replaces teachers. This seems lame and short sighted. Every good teacher should strive to create students whose knowledge surpass their own, and would I hope rather spend time helping students with problems and those excel rather than lecturing and giving/grading papers. Software until it reaches the level of human AI will not be competitive to a tutor or a teacher until it can really adapt to the unique needs of the user, and until take the budgets they are using for games and movies to education, it's unlikely to provoke a response.
At the end of seeing about 5 examples, I would rather watch Disney.com intro than have to sit through the sims if being paid to do so. While most likely solid academic, they lack the basics of what I consider game or educational simulation: clear definable goals. What's sad to me is the group there is look to Flex/Flash to pretty it up, completely missing that even pong with minimal graphics can be fun.
As an engineer I would add all the variables up and then say like there isn't a winning position, and if change isn't an option to achieve that, I don't want to play. Yet that's their relatively secure job, they don't really have to produce anything competitive so they seem they are happy enough to limp along and hold conference sections instead.
In other parts of the day, despite being a decent introvert, I met a few others who have largely jumped to commercial sectors from education to achieve the change they desire after facing similar frustrations. I know there are other out there who 'get it' and are doing great work, just didn't meet any still in the space today, which leaves somewhat an abandoned ship I fear for the students in and coming >:(