I'd like your opinions about motivation, especially as regards Evoke. I've seen some posts about the gameplay aspect of this site, and some posts about teaching, but not seen the two groups talking very much.
I used to work in sales, now I'm a teacher, and I'm participating in Evoke after seeing
Jane's TED speech about using games to teach people. I use stuff like
Third World Farmer to stimulate conversation quite often. (Be careful, this one can be addictive.)
Sales is a science. It's a process of understanding your customer, helping them to understand their own problems more clearly, directing them to define a solution, then presenting them with something that solves the problem as they define it, and finally making it affordable/attainable. Sometimes, you have to mislead people in order to influence their understanding and decision-making, and I was never very good at it. But teaching is basically the same thing.
I just saw
a brilliant speech about math education in the USA, in which the speaker says:
I sell a product to a market that doesn't want it, but is forced by law to buy it.... it's just a losing proposition. (It's 11 minutes, and well worth the investment in time.)
Clearly he gets it, teaching is all about presenting information in a way that motivates people, which is where Jane comes in. Evoke is presented as a game, with points and runes to chase after. It's also time-limited, which in my case meant trying to do everything in just six weeks.
I'm trying to figure out:
- does the points system detract from the learning objectives?
- does the time limit motivate people or make them feel that the goal in unattainable?
- what else should I be considering that I haven't thought about this early in the morning?
Games are all about commitment.
The key thing in sales is to obtain a commitment at each step of the process. The customer should have said "yes, I believe in you and your reasons for talking to me, and I have defined my problem as X and I really do want to solve that problem because the benefits are Y, and my ideal solution will be Z. I would really love to have Z, and if you can show me something that can do that and it's affordable then I will buy it."
If they haven't 'bought' you then nothing that happens after that point means anything. If they haven't bought you then they won't buy your vision. Even if they bought you, if they didn't buy your vision then your solution isn't going to solve their problm, no matter how cheap it is. And so on.
Sometimes people will nod their heads and go along with you, just to make you happy, but they're not committed. They just comply with your wishes until it comes to closing the sale, and then they make objections. (I don't like the colour.) A poor salesperson responds to the objections, a good salesman rewinds the process until they find the point where they stopped getting commitment and started getting compliance.
As a teacher, my students will comply in order to get the grades that keep their parents happy. Or, if I do my job properly, they will become emotionally committed to doing what I want because they see some benefit to themselves in extracting knowledge from me that is useful for them. Teaching is all about motivation, not facts. But the facts have to made available in bite-sized packages so that the students can digest them. In other words, we make the learning attainable, affordable in terms of effort required. Jane talked in her speech about games presenting goals that are achievable at each level. Same same, but different1
Similarly, Evoke has tried to use the 'game' format with points and runes to motivate people, to get commitment. I'm very interested in this concept and would like to hear other people's insights as to the successfulness or otherwise. The final task, Imagine10, was accepted by 146 people out of 19,348. Learn1 was accepted by 4,399 people out of a smaller original group. What's going on? What can be learned?
NOTE: THIS IS A RESEARCH POST AHEAD OF MY EVOKATION, PLEASE BE CONSTRUCTIVE, IT'S NOT INTENDED TO BE A PLACE TO B**** ABOUT STUFF YOU JUST DON'T LKE. GIVE REASONS FOR YOUR OPINIONS.
Thanks
Chris
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I looked up some related topics, please add others that you know of.
http://www.urgentevoke.com/profiles/blogs/how-to-winhttp://www.urgentevoke.com/profiles/blogs/constraints-are-vital-and...http://www.urgentevoke.com/profiles/blogs/evoke-politics-pointshttp://www.urgentevoke.com/profiles/blogs/evoke-is-boring-and-garbagehttp://www.urgentevoke.com/profiles/blogs/this-is-an-excellently-cr...http://www.urgentevoke.com/profiles/blogs/how-to-actually-make-this-ahttp://www.urgentevoke.com/profiles/blogs/our-game-evoke-points-andAnd finally:
http://www.urgentevoke.com/profiles/blogs/the-wired-interview-with-...
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