Video Games as Museum Exhibit

(Credit: CBS)

On Sunday, March 18, 2012, CBS Sunday Morning reported on a new travelling exhibit from the Smithsonian Institution "The Art of Video Games."

According to reporter Rita Braver the games are important as art --
"how they look" --  and "how they engage the imagination."

The "interactive nature" of video games is what fascinates me.  

As I explained in an earlier entry about "Learning and the Brain," the nature of gaming creates powerful learning conditions.  Conditions that could be used in a classroom or a museum exhibit.  How can we take what we know about the brain and learning and combine it with what works in games?

Also of interest: Braver reports that women comprise 40% of gamers.  How do these games more successfully differentiate instruction than many classroom curricula?

Technology's historical development also is displayed.  What does the change of technology over time tell us about the changing nature of material culture?  About how humans interact with digital technology?  What is shaping whom?

I'll hope to see the exhibit when it's at the Brooks Art Museum in Memphis in the summer of 2015.  Until then check out the video coverage below!

"The Inner Chimp"

Serendipity is the harmonic convergence of unexpected events or objects at an expected time (or place) to the benefit of those witnessing the event.

Serendipity happens.

Like yesterday (March 10, 2012). I was driving back from the fencing club -- a usual occurence for a Saturday afternoon -- and tuned into the local public radio station (WGBH) into the middle of an RadioLab episode, something I occasionally do. The episode was one I had never heard before: "Morality."

In particular, it was the segment "Chimp Fights and Trolley Rides," an interview with neuroscientist/philosopher Josh Greene about whether or now morality is biologically and evolutionarily based.

Greene argues "yes."

It seems that there are some basic, emotional decisions which correspond to activity parts of the brain corresponding to the instinctual, primate parts that have helped us as a species survive.

This emotional part, in the words of host/commentator Bob Krulwich, is the "inner chimp."

Based on his brain scans of people making moral decisions of varying degrees of complexity, Greene has found that different centers of the brain "light up" in response to different types of questions. For really complex questions that involve a "moral calculus" -- such as deciding to sacrifice one for the good of the many -- brain activity is fast, furious, and wide-spread. As Greene and Krulwich described it, the brain is "at war with itself." The frontal lobe, the area that develops later in a person's life, registers more activity when the decision-maker is counting how many others would be affected by the choice. It's "the thinker" vs. the "the inner chimp."

I love the term "inner chimp." It seems so right.

Later in the episode, the RadioLab team discusses actual primates -- with an interview with primatologist Frans de Waal at the Yerkes Center -- and their consistent moral behavior. Chimps and other primates are social animals with moral systems, as de Waal's examples show. (Click here for a 2005 article, too.) Empathy is a significant part of being a primate -- and it seems to be the moral core of the "inner chimp."

The research into what works in the brain when also is fascinating. And the issue of how people make decisions based on their emotionally-held beliefs is one of current importance.

Now, the serendipity:

1) See above. Although I have been a fan of Robert Krulwich since about 1990, I don't catch RadioLab often and this episode I had not heard before.

2) Although this episode was broadcast in 2007, on the day that would have been my mother's birthday had she not passed away earlier in the year, this episode coincides with a my current inner discourse about education and how to help adolescents grow up. More on that in a future post.

3) Joshua Greene is now a professor at Harvard, the site of my own cognitive science training. You can read much more in depth about the moral dilemmas Greene poses for research at his homepage.

4) Today's newspaper published a piece that connects to this RadioLab episode. More on that next post....

Fascinating stuff, serendipity!

Below is an embed for the podcast of the RadioLab episode "Morality":




image credit: Chimpanzees at Gombe Stream National Park, 2010, by ikiwaner, at Wikimedia Commons.

Get Outside!

The recent issue of ASCD Edge has an article "It's Time to Learn Outside," excerpts from Will Sterrett's Insights into Action: Successful School Leaders Share What Works.

The piece makes arguments for the benefits of getting outside the classroom and combatting "Nature-Deficit Disorder." This term comes from Richard Louv, who argues "growing gap between human beings and nature, with implications for health and well-being" (Last Child in the Woods, 2008. p. 26).

It also contains a helpful list of "Action Items." My favorite is this: "Get Outdoors, Anytime, for Any Reason- You don't have to have a specific nature-based unit in place to benefit from the outdoors. The bottom line is, students benefit individually and the classroom climate benefits as a whole from time spent in nature."

Point: getting outside helps learning and teaching.

Check it out here.