In the mid-20th century, Linus Pauling was one of the world’s most celebrated scientists. His discovery of the structure of hemoglobin and other biological molecules created an entirely new field of science and, when he focused his ample talents on deciphering the structure of DNA, no one doubted that he would be the one to do it.
But he wasn’t. In fact, it was two relatively unknown researchers, James Watson and Francis Crick who would win that particular prize. Yet what was really astounding was the way they did it. While other scientists spent their time in the lab, Watson and Crick played with models and talked about them.
What seemed like child’s play to most academics was actually the best way to imagine possibilities and see how their ideas reflected diverse—and often confusing—empirical clues. Today, a growing contingent of academics believes that games can have the same effect on how children learn and a company called Kidaptive is determined to prove them right.
The Case For Informal Learning
Everyone knows that school is a chore. Students sit at desks, get lectured to and then are tested to see whether they have absorbed the required knowledge. Anytime the teacher goes off script, kids are bound to ask, “is this going to be on the test?” Learning, all too often, is seen as a means to an end rather than an end in itself, even by parents and teachers.
At the same time, it has been reported that more than three quarters of American children have a video game console at home and 40% play video games every day. Many of these games are mind numbingly complex, requiring players to absorb and internalize extensive knowledge and consult outside resources, yet kids attack those tasks with gusto.
James Paul Gee, one of the growing cadre of academics that advocates learning in informal environments, calls games like these passionate affinity spaces and argues that they also extend to other leisure activities like fan fiction and advocacy groups. Unlike traditional types of games, the focus in these activities is not so much competition, but mastery.
What’s more, as I argued in an earlier post, today’s digital games can be amazingly effective at simulating real world skills. The US Army, for example, uses a video game to train soldiers. Other games, such as World of Warcraft, encourage players to collaborate to solve problems and complete projects. These types of skills are devilishly hard to teach in a classroom, but ideally suited to games.
Entertainment Meets Education
As a student, P.J. Gunsagar felt poorly served by his education. It’s not that he didn’t do well, he did, earning a dual degree from UCLA and a law degree at Stanford, it was just that he didn’t feel that the system gave him a good idea of what his real skills were. So he ended up taking a series of jobs that, while prestigious, left him unfulfilled.
Then, while working with Intel Capital in Mumbai, he came across an animation company in the portfolio and almost immediately knew what he wanted to do. After spending a year diving into the space, he co-founded Prana Studios, a computer animation company that has helped create kid favorites like Disney’s “Tinkerbell” series and Pixar’s hit film, Planes.
When P.J. had kids of his own, he began to think that the type of work that Prana was doing could do more than just entertain. It seemed that if he could take the kind of immersive storytelling that made the company such a huge success and applied it to education, he could make an enormous impact.
That idea led him to the education school at Stanford where he met Dylan Arena, a researcher who focused on the nexus between games, learning and assessment. The two hit it off and decided that they could build a different kind of game company, one that not only made learning fun, but that helped guide the education process. Kidaptive was born.
Dylan Arena, PhD'12, is a graduate of Stanford Graduate School of Education and an alumnus of the AAA Lab.
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