I can tell you how to better engage a significant number of students like the ones found in this group:  Tracing Business Acumen to Dyslexia 

There is an amazing opportunity to build an educational model from the bottom-up using interactive technology in STEM education. This model allows teachers to focus on teaching – explaining complex concepts – while technology is used to model the environment and allow real-time, hands-on experience. Computers are not good teachers; computers are good at crunching numbers. Modern PCs are able to crunch enough numbers to display the results in a human friendly fashion – real-time, interactive graphics.

 

For example:

Suppose you are a high school student in your math/physics/science class. You are given a mission – rescue the [princess|prince|stolen gems|whatever] from the castle. You are allocated $40 of virtual currency and your assignment is to design and build a (virtual) catapult that can pierce the castle wall from a specific distance. The $40 is a constraint, in order to accomplish the task you need to understand the properties of the materials you are working with. How far can a certain type of wood bend before it will break? How much force is necessary to launch the projectile? What is the composition of the castle wall? What kind of projectile can break through but is still light enough to be projected? Et Cetera. The teacher’s job is to explain complex subjects like how to analyze the force distribution along a piece of wood as it is bent. Students and teacher can iterate back and forth between the virtual laboratory and the chalkboard as needed.

 

This is a hands-on interdisciplinary approach to teaching STEM. There is an objective, not an assignment. It is not solving the problems in the back of the chapter; it is taking what you’ve learned from your instructor and applying it. Give a kid a legitimate way to understand and watch how fast it can be mastered. Mastery results from continuous trial and error. It’s a hands-on merger of theory and practice. Or as I like to say, education the ADD way.

 

In this model, learning math is not the goal; playing the game is the goal. However, in order to be good at the game you need to understand the math and physics involved. This point is central to engaging an important group of students presently alienated/bored by endlessly solving equations. I will go out on a limb and make a prediction. I predict that a well implemented version of this approach will not only improve STEM education but it will also reduce the amount of time required to learn it. Moreover, when typical 17 year olds are designing sophisticated virtual aircraft (as homework) to compete against their friends in complex virtual encounters, it will change everything.

 

In April the Defrag Ohio conference was held at the Lorain County Community College. LCCC provided the Spitzer Conference Center at no cost and the conference was free, open to the public and lunch was provided. The event focus was on the use of interactive digital media for education. I personally emailed individuals at Jumpstart, Nortech, FOEF, PD, and Crain’s to let them know about the event and to ask certain individuals to participate on panels. Though it was a three day event, not one person from any of these organizations (to my knowledge) participated or even attended. Keith Krach the founder of Ariba (NASDAQ: ARBA) flew in from California to give the keynote. Keith has not only done very well in his career but he is also a Cleveland native. His sister (local) introduced him and his mother brought her bridge club to the event. There were maybe ten non-Krach family/friends in attendance. Several people invested a lot of time and effort to put that conference together.

 

The Civic Innovation Lab provided a $15k grant to the NEO Video Game Initiative. Some of those funds were put towards the first Defrag Ohio event which took place in Dec. ’06 at CIA.

 

One bright kid with $25,000 in capital could get the industry started here. He/she could develop something like the catapult system described above and license it to schools (internationally) and also have a version for the general public. I am not saying it is easy, it is rarely easy, but, at the moment, there is a low barrier to entry and terrific opportunities. It does, however, require talented and motivated people. We could launch fifty of these $25,000 digital media companies in 2008 – there is still a wealth of opportunity in cyberspace.

 

In the next few years as virtual worlds, like Second Life, get through some complex technical growing pains, there will be the capability for mass, real-time collaboration. These worlds are doing nothing less than scaling the human mind and I expect the results will be orders of magnitude beyond impressive. If you are so inclined, you can start a business in Second Life today, as I posted on my blog, for $20. (Assuming that you are already connected to the pervasive digital infrastructure - a fast PC with broadband). For one million dollars, 20-40 serious little companies can be launched.

 

If you are an academic the MacArthur Foundation has a five year, $50 million grant program to study digital media and learning. http://digitallearning.macfound.org/site/c.enJLKQNlFiG/b.2029199/k.BFC9/Home.htm

 

Authors:

Rick Pollack