social learning and ideas smörgåsbord

Here is a really neat article, that doesn't talk much about technology and education, but is suggesting that

-> social cues are very important in human learning (hence the global facebook addiction?)

Can we use this principle?.... by:

- making our cell characters more anthropomorphic?

- tap into human empathy with altruistic/social-do-gooder rewards.. (like the classic super mario motivator of saving the princess) ...

- eventually involving social elements, with multiplayer or team cooperation?

- making the game an 'intelligent tutor' with feedback, hints, interactive and non-linear learning paths (this is kind of built in to the game already, if we are doing an exploratory RPG in a lymph node, with some interactive encyclopedia components..)

Some quotes from the article:

"Elementary and secondary school educators are attempting to harness the intellectual curiosity and avid learning that occurs during natural social interaction. The emerging field of informal learning (83) is based on the idea that informal settings are venues for a significant amount of childhood learning. Children spend nearly 80% of their waking hours outside of school. They learn at home; in community centers; in clubs; through the Internet; at museums, zoos, and aquariums; and through digital media andgaming. Informal learning venues are often highly social and offer a form of mentoring, apprenticeship, and participation that maximizes motivation and engages the learner’s sense of identity; learners come to think of themselves as good in technology or as budding scientists, and such self-concepts influence children’s interests, goals, and future choices (84, 85). A recent National Research Council study on science education (83) cataloged factors that enliven learning in informal learning venues with the long-term goal of using them to enhance learning in school.

In formal school settings, research shows that individual face-to-face tutoring is the most effective form of instruction. Students taught by professional tutors one on one show achievement levels that are two standard deviations higher than those of students in conventional instruction (86). New learning technologies are being developed that embody key elements of individual human tutoring while avoiding its extraordinary financial cost. For example, learning researchers have developed intelligent tutoringsystems based on cognitive psychology that provide an interactive environment with step-by-step feedback, feedforward instructional hints to the user, and dynamic problem selection (19). Theseautomatic tutors have been shown to approximate the benefits of human tutoring by adapting to the needs of individual students, as good teachers do. Classrooms are becoming living laboratories as researchers and educators use technology to track and collect data from individual children and use this information to test theories and design curricula."