Jonathan Blow
2 HN recommenders · recommended in 4 months, 2020–2023
2:44:28 · 130K views · Jul 20, 2020
Jonathan Blow gives a roughly 90-minute talk, followed by Q&A, on how video games could actually improve education, in contrast to what is currently being tried.
HN commenters find his insights good, especially the idea that games work for learning by doing and for teaching problem-solving, in contrast to gamification.
4 comments from Hacker News
Jonathan Blow recently streamed a talk called 'Video Games and the Future of Education'[0] that makes similar arguments. He discusses various tools we have to transmit knowledge from teacher to student and argues that games really shine as away to trick people into 'learning by doing'. He's sharply critical of existing educational games and really lays into 'gamification' as a concept. The talk certainly left me hearing that echo that the author alludes to. Books are great. [0] this video
Relevant Jblow video on video games and education: this video Spoiler: He thinks Zachtronics games (Spacechem, Shenzio IO, Opus Magnum etc) do this very well. The point is they're not explicitly educational games about specific topics, but they teach problem-solving skills in an engaging way.
Watched the whole talk and find Jonathan's insights very good. But he kinda "lost" me at 02:09:40 this video when he says: "I'm not sure to what extent destructive game addiction is a thing" ... Video Game Addiction very much a thing. And someone in the Video Game Industry is turning a blind eye to it. We have a 24 year old cousin in our family who is so hooked on video games he cannot function as an adult. Lives at home with retired parents. Never leaves his room. Plays games obsessively. No (IRL) friends. "gaming disorder" is recognised by the World Health Organisation: [LINK] and _many_ people suffer from it. =( This is a classic case of: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” ~ Upton Sinclair Otherwise good insights.
Incidentally I was struck recently by how rarely in this talk[1] Jon Blow says 'children' or 'kids' when he's clearly talking about young humans. Instead it's just 'people'. :) [1] Video Games and the Future of Education: this video