"Have you played your video games today?"
polycounter lvl 18
http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/fun.games/05/24/video
"His ultimate goal is to clamp down on medical errors that are estimated to contribute to 100,000 deaths each year in the United States by giving surgeons training tools akin to flight simulators used by pilots."
Nice. Take that, Liebermann!
Replies
helps to post the full link.
[edit] Haha, damnit, asherr beat me to it.[/edit]
amount of hours playin video games = quality of surgical skills........ now where did i put my hamster, fancy a new face Hammy.....how about a swop
I feel you could put the technical knowledge actually gained in a 12 year school cycle in a two year class, if the students saw the learning process as a fun game. Goes back to the age old question, do you actually use anything from highschool. I certainly only use about 10% of it. The rest is job experiance and self training. I actually had a contract to create a simulation of this type of learning game for a museum exhibit on the subject. The grant was revoked for some reason.
Involved visual, auditory, and physical game teaching methods. Parents would see which station most interested the child and how much information was retained. The games goal was to hide the learning aspect, and simply let the child put together the education from teh experience.
Goes back to the age old question, do you actually use anything from highschool. I certainly only use about 10% of it.
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Absolutly. Most importantly, you learn how to learn. That's what most of primary and secondary school is about. Also, you learn the social aspects of working with other people. Despite your fiance as well as some others out there, most people who are home schooled tend to lack social skills in a major way. (Atleast the ones I've known.) It's not so much that they are anti-social, it's that they just don't understand being social. (Not to mention that there isn't anything wrong with learning for the sake of learning. Though the classes moved much too slow for my liking, I did still enjoy the knowlege gained. Sure, knowing about the history of Europe had no real impact on me, as a Canadian, but I'm damn glad I got to learn it. Even if I don't remember it all anymore :P)
At the same time, modern schools do need some reworking (atleast in Canada). I know that myself and many other people I know have complained that we really don't learn enough. Mostly this was true in high school, once the ability to learn was already gained. Most of the courses I went through could've been taught in a maximum of a quarter of the time they took.
The most socially ruined people I have ever known have come out of public school. It is the natural result of having teachers that are more stupid than the students, and grouping people based on age.
I would put my non-education up against any normal highschooler's "education" from any part of the planet.
This whole thread stinks of "We don't need no education".
Anyone remember that South Park home school episode, and the sister turning into a total slut when she got into normal school?
You act like I have never heard of Japan. I studied Japanese for years. I was going to double major in Asian area studies focusing on Japan. I had a Japanese roommate for a year. I wasn't impressed. Their education seems even less broad than in the US, which I think is pathetic.
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I find it especially ironic that people on this forum, which are almost all completely self taught, think that schools have some magic power to educate that an individual doesn't have.
Go to as many art schools as you can find. Good luck finding the one that will give you the skills of Hawkprey or Rockstar. In the meantime I'll be teaching myself.
Go to as many art schools as you can find. Good luck finding the one that will give you the skills of Hawkprey or Rockstar. In the meantime I'll be teaching myself.
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I can promise you with utter certainty that without the education you recieved you would not find teaching yourself so easy. This is a bit of information I've garnered from living around teachers (two of my neighbors(who I was very close to) were teachers. I made the same complaints I am hearing on these forums to them, and they explained to me that it isn't the actual subject that is important often times, but the ability to learn it.
It's a given that the schooling system is not optimal, but it is very good.
And of course many of the worst people you know come from the public school system, almost everyone does. At the same time, some of the smartest and most successful people in history came from the very same. (Bill Gates, Albert Einstein, etc...).
I agree with Oxy, this thread does very much stink of that ridiculous uninformed opinion voiced mostly by uneducated anarchists "We don't need no education".
I have no education? I have a BA in economics. I graduated with a GPA of 3.4. What are your educational achievements?
It is so painfully obvious that children are born with the abillity to learn that for me to point it out is just sad. Of course all of the published psychological data says that children learn massive amounts. I guess you'll explain how they are all wrong and you are right with your awesome education.
Gates: "My parents are very successful, and I went to the nicest private school in the Seattle area."
Doesn't sound much like a public school to me. I guess since you're so smart and well educated you'll tell me how "private school" actually means "public school".
You know why home schooled people are asocial towards public schooled kids? Maybe it's because public educated kids are so fucking stupid that they wouldn't even understand what a person with a real education is talking about.
But that is besides the point. What I am talking about is that games will evolve into a teaching tool that provides expert information on the player's interests, and provides simple simulations of real life equipment/situations so that the player can experience things first hand without fear of failure. It will do this without ever being lame or boring. Like Civ, or Sim City
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I suppose while I'm at it I may as well point out that the MAJORITY of the worlds great thinkers were self taught or went to private schools. Benjamin Franklin, Abe Lincoln, Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, etc etc etc.
I've yet to meet a homeschooled person who was asocial towards public schooled people. I have met homeschooled people who did not know how to deal with other people. (Of any intellectual level. If you can't tell with the whole spectrum you have a problem, and if you are homeschooled and feel better than private schooled people, you have an even bigger problem).
And yea, games are already starting to do that, the US military is doing it, there's several medical "games" out I believe, the Canadian military is *starting*. (When I was last working out at the base they just had a bunch of xbox's and rainbow six I believe. They were planning to hire some people to edit the game and get some dev kits though). It's deffinatly happening. I just hope they don't evolve in the same way educational videos did. :S
Anyways, I hope there are no hard feelings. You seemed to have taken that in a different way than I meant. Sorry.
I think that a game using modern technology could be made that is a combination of a game like Spore (itself probably pretty educational), and an MMORPG. That could teach people fairly well.
I would really love for CHolden to say more about how the educational aspects were included into the game he recently helped release.
I feel sorry for teachers in the States. The prevailing attitude among parents, administrators, and legislators is that the teacher is (somehow) to blame for the masses of lacsidasical students. It's almost become a witch-hunt.
if schooling were not enforced could you imagine what it would be like.
being self/home taught only works if you have the right resources etc at home, if parents are illiterate, how do think their kids going to fare, they need outside inlfuence to learn new things, cultures etc.
i have been home schooled for a portion of my life, and although it put me ahead of all the kidsmy age when i went back to school, it didnt teach me the wide array of stuff going to school with 500 other kids did. lord of the flies it may be at times, but inteatcing with 499 other human beings on a daily basis teaches you thing s that home schooling wont. school isnt just about learning for your career.
having said all that the only skill that i learnt at skool that i still really use is slagging people off :-)
http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html
Scott
I think the concept of schools is obsolete. Most people just don't know it yet.
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i agree, pretty much what i do now in my senior year of high school is go for an hour and a half and sit there. i've never studied anything at all, make sure i am absent 9 times per semester (thats the limit) and i'm still salutatorian. education is swell, but current education isnt doing anything except wasting students time.
One thing that inst being addressed is motivation itself is a taught skill. We don't live in vacuums of ego. We People around us that help boost and re-vitalize us. There truly is no self made man in a society. The only real self made man would be a mountineer or something where they depend solely on themself without interaction with other humans. What I mean is schools arent the problem, its the attitude of the society itself.
Kids are given a very conflicting POV. The general society of commercialism that goes on about how fuck everything, they will be happy with a product versus having a goal. That they wont be accepted socially without such items (or thought and ideas). Then they get a different message like Ninjas about being self sufficient, but thats a more "smoke and mirrors" arguement that a kid is just going to scratch his head at.
Maybe.. maybe at school they might find a teacher that believes in them and tries to boost their self confidence. This is what I mean by motivation must be taught. If all kids were given the time and attention, then we wouldnt be having this arguement. But the short is home or private schooling do not guarantee this happening.
Short example: I had a really shitty math teacher who plunked us in front of computers for most of the class in freshman high school. I flunked because I needed help. I got a private tutor who got me passing, but didnt make me any more motivated. It was only later on at another public high school that I had a teacher that taought in a method where things actually started making sense, and math just became a process (too bad I had to leave that school).
I completetly agreee with you Oxy. Society and school create a "chicken and the egg" type problem. Society is a product of people's upbringing, but their upbringing is the public school system.
Obviuosly we are different, so I think the exact things that are wrong with society and the school system are different too. While I think schools teach the wrong subjects and have a very poor setup for teaching what they do, I think the problem is a more fundimental one of values.
The concept of self-esteem is one of my pet peeves. The egalitarian logic goes that everyone can have self-esteem if we interact with them the right way, no matter how stupid or lazy that person is. I'm not even going to point out what the problems are with this but instead offer the alternative; self-respect. Self respect comes not from people telling you how awesome you are for every trvial "accomplishment", but from the internal realization that you couldn't have done any better, or that you did something of genuine quality.
About teaching myself. It's true that my parents were good role models, and in a media-less cube my brain would have shrivled and died. It's also true that the idea of being self-sufficient won't work for everybody, but it will work very well for those few that have the fire in them.
Take any subject and tell me how you can learn it and explore it in a complete and organic way in the public school system. Lets take math, for example. The basis of math is logic, so what do they teach you first in school? Arithmatic, of course. Already they have taught you that math is about numbers, when math is actually about ideas. No wonder everybody hates math and finds it boring.
The idea of teaching youself isn't about learning without the help of other people. It is about being proactive about picking the people you learn from. I see that education is kind of like making cheese. You pick the microorganisms you want, and you put in the milk curds, but after that you have to wait for those things to ferment. Real education needs time for reflection.
People say that they don't use any of the stuff they learned in highschool. I use what I have learned every day. I know that math is about ideas, and I use those types of ideas all the time. Have you ever used the concept of a variable outside of using a math text book? Have you ever said something was integral to something else? That is how I use my math education. I inderstand those concepts in a way words could never explain.
I have given up trying to tell people from public school that I recieved a better deeper and more complete education by sitting at home. There isn't any point. After college they'll all agree with me anyway.
So why would I suggest a way of being that is only really going to work for a handful of people? It is because the people it works for will be bold men (and women) that try new things without fear, and bend a lifetime of interest to solving a particular problem. They will be real geniuses. Not the kind that play the violin at 8 years old, but the kind that advance humanity forward. Am I one of those people? I don't know. The only way I'll know for sure is if I do something truly remarkable before I die. I'll let you know how it turns out.
It's also true that the idea of being self-sufficient won't work for everybody, but it will work very well for those few that have the fire in them.
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Again, this doesn't exist in society. No matter what Rand or other objective like philosophies think. We are all interdependent on one another. You can't be self sufficient in this society without relying on someone else for something.
Not only this, your trying to make an adult interpretation to kids who are still developing. Kids also are unique and grow at different rates of maturity and understanding.
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I have given up trying to tell people from public school that I received a better deeper and more complete education by sitting at home. There isn't any point. After college they'll all agree with me anyway.
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I don't agree, and I have that college education you deem to be that determining factor. Let me make it more apparent. You may or may not learn more fundamental skills in a home environment. But your missing half the point of education. That of learning intercommunication outside your borders of safety. Again, I call my personal experience and though it was a bitch, I know I got to see a much greater selection of the variety of humanity by moving from one school to another versus sticking in one environment. Doing so whether from public school being the most least extreme to a home environment being the most, limits your ability (initially) to think and interact with others from a different perspective and culture. To walk in another mans shoes.
A kid can leave home knowing all the facts and figures he needs. But have they been prepared to live in the outside world? Where different POV and ideas or more than just a note in a book there are actual people out there who exist. What in such a persons background has prepared them for this interaction? How will they make a personal connection with these other people? I guess to help drive home my point, will a home schooled child make a good writer or reporter who had to understand the innate ability to communicate with an audience in a broader spectrum.
You criticize public schools for sometimes not pushing the facts and figures of being a good worker enough on students. Which really depends on the school, circumstances, and individual. So I must throw back at the other end, such a "protected" background limits the capability of a person (at least initially) to not only interact with groups outside ones norm, but even more to think outside the box as they are missing a greater variety of backgrounds to draw from.
Remember the goal of college isn't necessarily just a education in what the student is after, its to give a broader sense of the understanding of the world. a better, broader person. Not just someone fit to do a particular job.
There is also something about self taught that is overlooked. How happy are they? Really. I mean Bill Gates earlier.. did you know he mentioned recently that being such a rich man did not make him happy? I would argue its because going into the above, he wasn't given a broader background. So he had to stick to his guns in his business ventures where others would have choices to go elsewhere. So I would say, yes, self taught are good at what they do in our society.. they have to be as their choices otherwise are more limited. This is what getting a broader education allows, more choices which helps again make a better human, not just this idealized "self-made" which never mentions how satisfied and happy such people are. Many times they are not. In fact probably more fucked up than most of us. Remember the old quote, about how its the insane that drive society forward.
The egalitarian logic goes that everyone can have self-esteem if we interact with them the right way, no matter how stupid or lazy that person is
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First, I'm going to say that you are EXTREMELY elitist, which is actually showing a complete lack of self respect. (To respect the self you have to respect the other). How intelligent a person is has nothing to do with how well they can respect themselves or their work. One of the best people, and hardest workers, I've ever met you would call straight out stupid. Academically, he is. However I'd argue that he is far, far more intelligent than you (or me) in some manners as well. He is able to interact with people great, makes all those around him feel good, he's always willing to help out someone, etc... So please try to think through what you say before you say it. Also, your definition of self respect was also a definition of self esteem.
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Take any subject and tell me how you can learn it and explore it in a complete and organic way in the public school system. Lets take math, for example. The basis of math is logic, so what do they teach you first in school?
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I would also like to point out what oxy has tried to say before, this can matter hugely on the teacher. One of the best experienced Ive ever had was in a math class, with a teacher who was not only a far better mathematician than you, me or likely anyone youll ever meet will be, but he was also able to teach the subject to perfection. People who were outright morons in every other math class theyd have could go into his, pass with good marks, and come out understanding exactly what it was all about. Its a given that his type is a rarity, however obviously the teaching method depends on the teacher.
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People say that they don't use any of the stuff they learned in highschool
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The only people who say that are the ones in high school. I said those things. Now that Im out I use what I learned in high school all the time. Yes I have used the concept of a variable outside of the math text book, in fact, I do it fairly regularly, as do I with most concepts I learned in high school, and math. However that really means dick all. All humans think in different ways. You and me apparently have a similar thinking style based in logic and logistics. Other people think more abstractly. Neither is better or worse, merely different.
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So why would I suggest a way of being that is only really going to work for a handful of people? It is because the people it works for will be bold men (and women) that try new things without fear, and bend a lifetime of interest to solving a particular problem.
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Those people you are talking about, will be like that no matter what stretch of life they come from, and have done so in the past. Also, you dont have to change the world to have lived a great and fulfilling life. Otherwise almost no one alive would be happy.
Also, Id just like to say that I agree with what Oxy has been saying in full.
[edit]Oh, and for the record, those genius's your talking about, I've met some and know some. The largest military research base in north America/Europe (I'm fairly certain it's the largest atleast) was right outside of my home town (I worked there for one summer). It has some of the top minds in the world working at it. The kind of guys who are THE go to for their field. The one I know personally has briefed presidents, gone to war zones to search for WMD's, all that fun stuff. He comes from a public school system and his kids are currently enrolled in them. [/edit]
You talk about facts and figures. I just watched TV, played video games, read books for fun, and rarely was made to use a math text book! I did all my socialization after school got out. I played soccer, did Boy Scouts. Cruised around with my "friends".
I know that different people learn at different rates. I didn't bother to learn how to read until I was 8. If I had been in public school I probably would have been stigmatized, and put into the retard class.
I don't know what to give as an example. I'm the only homeschooled person I know very well. When I was 18 I went to Europe by myself. I had no problem at all dealing with my fellow students or getting around in cities, alone, without knowing the local language. Maybe I should tell you about how I got a crew of over 50 people to work for free on a film project I wrote and directed. I could go on. Pick whatever measure you want Oxy. I'm more than happy to talk about how completely awesome I am compared to other people. How about doing all the visuals for an award winning CG short film by myself, or writing my own game engine? Is that impressive enough? Everyone here can see my art and can judge it for themselves. Is being a small business owner broad enough for you? I've done that too.
I haven't even read a whole Ayn Rand book. I think she's a crappy writer. Of course I understand that I need other humans to survive. You think I don't know where my cheeseburger comes from? You think I don't know that I need emotional support? I'm married after all.
I'm pretty damned happy Oxy. I have a wife that I love that is crazy about me. She has her shit together. She's an awesome cook and she's better at science and math than I am. I'm self employed pursuing my passions. I think the problem isn't how happy I am Oxy, but rather how desprately you want to believe that happiness isn't possible. I'm like the Loche Ness monster in your view of reality. Some hokey thing that you will never accept as real. You'll always imagine that I'm lying about what I can do, and how awesome my life is.
You can't fit me into your reality because I don't fit your stereotypes. I am not a product of objectivism, or liberalism, or any other 'ism. I'm not a product of a collection of text books. I don't know fucking Jack London from Jack Frost. My personality comes from a recursive process of my thoughts acting on my thoughts.
So believe what you want. I don't care.
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Tulkamir: I'm not even going to bother arguing with you. It's obvious to me you have no clue why you believe what you believe. Instead, feel free to go hang out with braindamaged chlid molesters to prove your solidarity with the common man. My life is running out and there is so much stuff I want to get done that I only have time for people with the skills to get shit done.
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Back on topic:
I think that the best way to replace the school system is to come up with something that is obviously better.
For starters I think that this teaching game needs at least these things:
Handheld hardware to run on
GPS
WIFI
An NPC mentor character that reflects the demostrated hopes and dreams of the player
A system to track if the player is playing the recommended minimum amount.
A database of assets to represent different things found in the real world. Maybe a wiki like system for adults to help build and organize assets for this purpose.
I think video games in general have changed the way our generation handles problems, when challenged with something new and unkown we poke around and experiment to figure out how things work and use deductive reasoning.
I don't know who you think you're talking to Oxy, but who do you think has a broader education. You or me?
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What? Huh? I don't know your full background so how am I supposed to judge that? You don't need my acceptance, just your own.
I was making generalizations about home schooling in general AND public. Where they both hit and miss. I never made any judgments on you the individual (at least I wasn't trying to).
Frankly I don't understand what your accomplishments do disprove my point. I could toot my own whistle, but why? You do understand self satisfaction inst through what we have accomplished alone? Thats one of my main points.
Being accomplished does not equal to being satisfied. For its like a never ending quest. Once you reach one goal, there is always another you have to get to reach a plateau. Its actually somewhat very similar to what our commercial society feeds into us, that initial euphoria of getting that items we have saved for only to once again then find something else to increase it. That full satisfaction is always one step ahead of you. So going back to pink Floyd blurbs "When you run and you run to catch up with the sun, but it's sinking."
You can't rely on accomplishments as the judgment of ones character or education worthiness Ninja. We both know this.
I used Bill gates simply because you brought him up, and he makes a great example of what I'm am implying. He has it all, and he isn't satisfied.
Why are you so defensive? Your life sounds fine.
(Side note, I did boy scouts also, and got out after realizing just how limited a viewpoint I was getting. If I ever got my kids into something like that, it would be bluebirds or something more gender and background broad. [Ok, given that being trying to being forced to suck a punk ass cub scouts dick didn't help my viewpoint])
this argument is going to go on forever, how about we get back on topic: education via video games
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Agreed, it's going nowhere and I'm thinking that people will just end up embarassing themselves if it goes on. (Myself included).
And yea, even the mindless video games can be educational in their own way. It would be great to see some schools actually starting to make decent use of interactive technologies, and it's only a matter of time with some universities and the military beggining to set examples.
I was actually kicked out of Boy Scouts. They didn't like that I didn't accept orders from dumbshits. That's fucked up about your experience.
I'm working on an adventure game. King's Quest 4 was one of the first PC games I ever played, and I think they are great for exercizing creative problem solving. I think the ultimate adventure game gameplay hasn't been found. The game should be pretty awesome if I ever get it done!
Anyhow, back on subject yea, I want to do the same thing Elysium.
I get very tired of facing a stereotype that couldn't fit me worse.
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I hope you realize that you were turning around and stereotyping people with a public school education (I'm not using an accusatorial tone here, mind you).
Everyone faces some sort of stereotyping, some more than others, and the frustration it causes can make you explode some times (I know I have in the past). So lets all have a round of beers and put all this stuff behind us, eh?