Cognitive Surplus

Cutting out the cognitive surplus. Lots of time out there. How to get people to collaborate, participate and be motivated to work on something. Give people the opportunity to produce and to share, they will take it. Media that
Targets you but doesn't include you isn't worth sitting still for.

I find the idea behind cognitive surplus to be fascinating. As a society we have an incredibly large amount of free time, but very little idea of what to use it on. Ideally we would want to use this time to better society, to further advancements such as medicine or science, or to solve problems. Instead, almost since the moment we started having this much time, we have used it on mere distractions.

It might seem like common sense that time spent on distractions is only a waste. In one sense, if we were all thinking about science, then perhaps we would be more advanced in science. Really, though, thinking like that ignores the human condition. There is a reason we spend time on the things we tend to spend time on.

In fact, the distractions we enjoy the most might shed light on how we could best utilize the time that we have.

Jane McGonigal, the Director of Game Research & Development at Institute for the Future has done a lot of research on online gaming and the effect it could have on real world problems. She gave a TED talk about how gamers, now, spend 3 billion hours a week playing video games, solving problems, and creating online worlds and works. Gamers who play World of Warcraft, for example, have put together the largest college of information and knowledge on any one single topic in the entire world.

Check the TED talk out here:

Jane McGonigal: Gaming can make a better world

In January, 2011 she wrote an op-ed piece for the Wall Street Journal. In there she states:

"When we play, we ... have a sense of urgent optimism. We believe whole-heartedly that we are up to any challenge, and we become remarkably resilient in the face of failure. Research shows that gamers spend on average 80% of their time failing in game worlds, but instead of giving up, they stick with the difficult challenge and use the feedback of the game to get better. With some effort, we can learn to apply this resilience to the real-world challenges we face."

The article is very interesting. Check it out here:

Be a Gamer, Save the World

In the TED talk she continues on about how gamers currently spend 3 billion hours a week playing games, but that for them to start solving real world problems, they would need to spend more like 21 billion hours a week. With that kind of brain power, cognitive surplus could be harvested and hopefully used for something that isn't a waste of time.

Unfortunately, for me, I can't bring myself to spend that much time playing video games. I'll just spend my time studying instructional design like a good student instead.

A lot of what I'm going to be writing about in this blog will be centered around my studies and a very formalized discussion about education. I'm in an Instructional Design and Educational Technology (IDET) program at the University of Utah. While this sounds very technical, it relates very easily to general good teaching practices and considerations.

For example, the term Instructional Design refers to the concept of breaking down the instructional process into its most basic and functional form and creating an organized system to represent all of the different processes involved in good instruction. Everything from analysis and design to implementation and revision is a part of this system.

If you have ever taught, you would realize that these are things that a teacher does every day.

The reason to study this is fairly obvious, I think. A teacher does these things every day, but there is interesting evidence to suggest that good teachers take the time to do these things better. There is definite value in studying the system and attempting to master the various aspects of Instructional Design.

On the topic of Educational Technology, it is interesting to note how we are using the two words. To many people, including educators, the word technology can only ever be used in one context: computers. When people discuss spending money on technology, it is always to upgrade computers, or purchase ultra-compact PCs, or to put a disc player of various types in every classroom. There is nothing wrong with any of those things, if done correctly, they can streamline a lot of the educational process. However, the word "technology" encompasses so much more.

Technology is nothing but the usage of tools of varying types to serve varying purposes. These tools can be anything from advanced smartphones to the discovery of the wheel. I think it could easily be argued that something like existentialism or communism could be considered technologies. If this is the case, then certainly critical thinking is one of the most important technologies ever developed.

Educational technology is, then, tools of varying types to implement education-specific goals. This could be anything from a pencil or a pencil sharpener to applications like Microsoft Word or cloud based online storage for easy document retrieval. New ideas about education, such as evidence and methodologies that suggest collaborative work in school is one of the better ways to teach, or any development in educational psychology, could also be considered educational technology.

My focus with educational technology is going to be smart, informed use and development. As with any development of technology, there are always unintended consequences with its use. The unintended consequences are what make many teachers afraid to embrace new ideas and many new ideas themselves fail.

I'm sure it will be an interesting journey.

I'm going back to school now. This is an exciting time. It is a time where I can commit myself to improving my habits as an educator. One of these things is a healthy dedication to reflective teaching.

When I was going through school to become an educator I was taught the importance of reflecting on my own teaching practice. To illustrate, and force, the point, my instructors made me write a page of reflection five days a week and send it in to them for review. I spent that time making up experiences I never really had and expanding upon thoughts that never really existed in my head. Occasionally I had something I needed to write and for which this venue was a perfect opportunity to expand and examine my thoughts. Mostly, though, I had nothing to reflect on.

Despite not being enthusiastic about writing five pages of reflection a week, I have always felt like I was a reflective practitioner. I spend plenty of time every single day after class trying to examine what went right and what went wrong in my classroom. There are always days where I meditate for five minutes and come out of my thoughts to declare to myself that pretty much everything I did that day was a disaster.

But, like I said, I'm going back to school now. I also said this is an exciting time and that I can dedicate, or rather, rededicate myself to being a reflective practitioner in a much more formalized way.

That is what this blog is for.

*Note: It is important to realize that I will never write about anybody specific, nor about my students, my coworkers, or anybody that is actually real. In fact, none of this is real. Question everything, disbelieve regularly and read at your own peril.