Game Based Learning: Aspen Trail

Prompt:

Around a curve in the Aspen Trail, you see a beautiful, stately old tree -- an Alder Tree. A small creature, elf or leprechaun (?), quickly darted out quickly to tack a small sign to the base of this tree at a rather low height. Who wouldn't be curious? With getting down on one's hands and knees, one can see the message on the sign "Engineer apply here." You get up, brushing off your knees, while walking around the old tree and into the magic of an alder tree woods...

Alder Tree

Rise of the Happiness of Engineers from Reality is Broken by Jane McGonigal

Interesting Insights

1. The science of happiness was invented only 35 years ago (in 2011) by an American psychologist named Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi after his study on the effects of a satisfying exhilarating feeling of creative accomplishment.  
• Thirty-five years ago, Csikszentmihalyi's flow-inducing activities included chess, basketball, partner dancing, and rock climbing.  Each of these activities are 
• challenging
• have clear goals
• established rules and 
• potential for increased difficulty. 
2. Csikszentmihalyi noted that the highest form of happiness is, "Intensive, optimistic engagement with the world around us." 
• The highest form of happiness makes people feel fully alive to their fullest potential. 
3. Flow is reliably and effectively produced through: 
• self-chosen goals
• personally optimized obstacles 
• continuous feedback
4. Csikszentmihalyi and McGonigal believe that our most pressing problems
• depression
• helplessness
• social alienation 
• could be addressed by integrating a gameful workplace into our everyday lives. 
• Csikszentmihalyi noted that the people that need the stimulation of gaming most are children in the suburbs and bored housewives. 
• This stuck out to me because I have noticed many Facebook status' from my cousin where she, a stay at home mom, posts about wishing she could play World of Warcraft but she can't because of the looming housework.  In the past, I have dismissed her notions as laziness, but this article has given me a new perspective on her feelings.  People, in general, and bored housewives, need more to work toward than keeping up with their house... and the Jones'.
5. At first, the deepest experiences of flow-induced activities were product of years or practice and mastery. 
• Flow required learning the structure of an activity then strengthening of the required skills and abilities. 
• Flow was not indented to come easy, but video games have made achieving flow almost immediate. 
6. Human flourishing, however, cannot be all flow. 
• In reality, humans require a continuous approach to well-being; we need to find ways to relish in life even when we are not performing at our peak potential. 
7. Positive psychology believes that we cannot find happiness, we have to make our own happiness. 
• Happiness cannot be found by obtaining extrinsic rewards such as money, grades, promotions, popularity/attention, or material things. 
• Happiness can be obtained through intrinsic rewards such as positive emotions, personal strengths, and social connections.
8. Intrinsic rewards can be achieved through: 
• satisfying work
• experience of success
• social connection
• meaning
• The above intrinsic reward are the most powerful motivations we have (aside from survival basics) and they are ways of engaging deeply with the world around us (e.g. environment, people). 
9. We have been "conditioned" to believe that the wrong things will make us lastingly happy. 
• We live in a fallen world.  When Adam chose to eat the fruit his wife presented to him from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, he chose to subject himself and his family to our extrinsic needs. 
• As a result, we are "conditioned" (as the article stated) to desire the extrinsic needs.
10. Good games produce a higher quality of life. 
• McGonigal believes that reorientation toward intrinsic reward is the backing of the 3 billion hours of game play, weekly, around the world. 
• This exodus to the gaming world is producing people who are: 
• self-motivated
• self-rewarded
• happier

Review: 

     I have come to love articles/books/videos by Jane McGonigal.  She has really done her research regarding the effects of gaming.  My mind is spinning with ways on how to incorporate this in my classroom.  This article, in particular, has helped me understand the how organizing real life like the gaming world can be extraordinarily beneficial.  Using the principals developed in the gaming world we can teach children, young adults, and adults how to channel their energy toward intrinsic rewards.