Everything I know about gaming, I learned from Bandersnatch
In 2018, the Netflix series Black Mirror released a special interactive episode called Bandersnatch. The series posited some important and ultimately uncomfortable questions about our relationship with technology. Bandersnatch went a step further, bringing the viewer in on the action. A designer develops a new game that seems to take over his life - literally. Every choice he makes in the real world is reflected in his game, and vice versa. The viewer, too, can influence the direction of the story. At certain points during the movie, the on-screen action pauses and the viewer is presented with a binary choice - do you want to go this way or that? By making those selections, the viewer closes off certain outcomes and opens up others. It's all very meta.
Although I have an abject fear of mathematics, after watching Bandersnatch I found myself wondering just how elaborate the flow chart that mapped out the different storylines must have been. The writing and forethought required would have been akin, in my mind, to putting together a 3D puzzle.
Authors such as James Paul Gee and Dichev and Dicheva provide a thoughtful analysis of how to apply gamification to education. Largely, this revolves around offering students rewards - such as buttons, badges or digital ribbons - for certain accomplishments. And when they talk about accomplishments, they don't mean completion of a degree; they mean posting a certain number of comments on a discussion board or offering up an especially creative self-introduction video. These incentives are seen as following the principles of gamification, where players can move up a level by successfully navigating certain scenarios. They're thought to promote intrinsic motivation, which is desirable, especially among adult learners. While the idea is exciting and relatively new (having only appeared for the first time in 2010), the jury's still out on its effectiveness.
Here's the problem: gamification doesn't work for everyone. It doesn't work for me. I don't care about badges or points or anything else. As a mature learner, I care about engaging with the material, with my classmates and with my instructors and professors. I care about whether the courses I'm taking meet, or fail to meet, my intellectual curiosity. That's my motivation.
Yes, I'm happy when I level up in Angry Birds (and yes, I've started playing it again). That's different - it's a game. It's not my education.
Where I can see some value - stealing an idea from Bandersnatch - is if we were to gamify the whole of our education, like the show did. When I make a choice, I own that choice. It's not unchangeable - you can go back or even start again - but it does mean you've chosen a path. If you decide that path is no longer worth pursuing, especially as an adult, that's your prerogative. On the other hand, you may find unexpected joys and treasures by following a path different than what you might have imagined.
When I offer my graduate students career advice, I often tell them not to restrict their job options too narrowly. The value in keeping an open mind is huge, and I remind them that they're statistically likely to end up in a job that they haven't even contemplated before graduation. I've seen that pattern over and over again. When I started out in journalism school, everyone wanted to be a foreign correspondent. It was sexy and exotic. No one in my cohort did, although some have travelled abroad in pursuit of their work.
Does that mean gamification has a place, that it has some value for some people, maybe even many learners? Of course. Is it the holy grail of student engagement and successful educational attainment? Probably not. The real learning happens in education, as it does in Bandersnatch, when we explore our choices and see where the journey takes us.
Comments
Post a Comment