Dov Jacobson - Hands On Learning

1. Did you miss my talk? No problem. I added these yellow speech bubbles for you! HANDS ON LEARNING DOV JACOBSON

2. Studio History and personal First employer: Carl Sagan Made 7 COSMOS animations. Art serving Science. Then a ton of games for the entertainment industry. Science serving Art. Now a dozen years making applied (“serious”) games. Art and Science Fused.

3. Our Experience Our clients and supporters. Become one! Field Museum: I See Sue Smithsonian Institute: Red, Hot and Blue National Science Foundation: Mouseprint Blue Heat: Nintendo DS - ATV Super Tour Random House: Lost Symbol [Passion Project]: Gas Hogs Simon & Schuster: Pie Jackers Starlight Six: Drive-In Vasion TBS: Know The Show: Seinfeld, Friends, etc. Microsoft Studios: Hands on Atoms [IR&D]: Reign of Ronin Coca-Cola: Vanilla Coke Mystery Game Coca-Cola: Pop Quiz ASPCA: Fetch National Institute of Health: Brush Up NYU Medical Center: Pete Armstrong Intelligence Adv’d Research Project Act: Enemy of Reason Acton Entrepreneurship Institute: Lemonade Standoff Acton Entrepreneurship Institute: Price Point DARPA: Tee Zero Air Force Research Lab: Avant Guard Air Force Research Lab: Battlefield Airman Office of Naval Research: People Kit US Navy: Swarmada Army Center for Leadership: Influence Trainer Vivendi: Meba

4. How do I win a price competition… without starting a price war? How do I solve chemistry problems… when atoms are so darn small? algebra… when I am not smart enough? How do I notice evidence How do I keep track of my How do I make important decisions… How do I perform crops… when there are so many factors? despite all this uncertainty? How do I make people do what I want… when I cannot command or coerce them? How do I do brush my teeth? How do I call in an Air Strike right here… without the bombs hitting me? of evolution… when I do not believe in it? The clients address very tough questions.

5. We don’t know the answers. We just know how to make games.

6. We get an answer from an expert and put that idea into the game. But that ain’t enough.

7. We don’t just put the idea into a game. We must put the idea into a player.

8. Programming a game is easy.

9. ding!

10. See?

11. It isn’t so easy to put an idea into a human being.

12. donk.

13. oops.

14. Here’s your problem. The human brain. Like all living tissue, it rejects foreign matter.

15. It rejects even a little idea, if the idea does not match the existing pattern. Anyway, you don’t use a game for a little idea.

16. Use games to promote big Ideas that color all the player’s thinking. big ideas.

17. Brain hates this. It defends itself against such alien ideas.

18. It defends itself with the big thick skull. Your job is to find a hole in the skull to push your ideas through.

19. Eyes are an obvious choice.

20. Look at the pathway the ideas take! Starting with retinal images... ..crossing through the brain, emerging as patterns of recognition and relationship

22. The ear provides a hole straight into the brain. It works for ephemeral ideas Ideas that can go in one ear and out the other.

23. The nose is another hole leading to the brain. Ideas that fit through this hole: “Dinner Time” “The House is On Fire” or “It Wasn’t Me!”

24. It’s easy to overlook the biggest hole in the skull, where the biggest bundle of nerves enters the brain - from the rest of the body.

25. Nerves carry signals from all over the body. But all parts are not equally represented.

26. Look at how the hands are disproportionately endowed with neurons. They have their own intelligence. Unlike the eye’s analytic intelligence, the hand has an intelligence of action.

27. It’s in our language. I can see the problem.

28. I can handle the problem.

29. Maria Montessori ...first in play and then through work, the hands are the instruments of man's intelligence...

30. Maria Montessori ...first in play and then through work, the hands are the instruments of man's intelligence... play

31. Seymour Papert ...most effective when the learner experiences constructing a meaningful product.

32. Seymour Papert ...most effective when the learner experiences constructing a meaningful product. build

33. Thinking with hands: William Kentridge It is not that you know something in advance that you carry out...

34. Thinking with hands: William Kentridge ...but rather that you recognize something when it appears.

35. Thinking with hands: William Kentridge ...but rather that you recognize something when it appears. aha!

36. Visualize Manipulate

37. Next: I demonstrate seven recent games, to show how they use these principles to promote manipulative learning. Visualize Play Build Aha! Manipulate

38. Brush Up the toothbrush training game

39. Brush Up the toothbrush training game No surprise here. Kids learn a manual skill with a hands-on game.

40. Brush Up the toothbrush training game And the skill persists.

41. playable Hands-on Math

42. video Hands On Atoms

47. THINK Machine ANALYSIS OF COMPETING HYPOTHESES

48. Finally, I conclude with exercises for everyone in the room. If we have time. Visualize Play Build Aha! Manipulate

49. How do four people choose Pizza Toppings?

50. How do I resolve conflict involving the Tragedy of the Commons?