The Gameboy instead of the Metaverse of Education

We are at risk of just moving our brick and mortar classrooms to the “metaverse”. To create truly transformative experiences we must go much deeper - with old or new technology.

First released in April 1989, Nintendo’s Gameboy took the gaming world by storm. By the time it was decommissioned, the Gameboy (and Gameboy color) had sold more than 118 million consoles around the world - making it the most successful console of the 20th century, and the third most successful console in history. In an age obsessed with the “cutting edge”, what is most remarkable about the Gameboy as an innovation was that it leveraged existing (“withered”) technologies to create new ways of play for users at scale. It allowed, new and better ways of play without the need for better technology. It did more with less. This was a particular coup for Nintendo which had significantly less funding than its competitors who were too busy chasing the next big tech breakthrough with their resources. A lack of funding can sometimes force us to go back to what matters and drive true innovation.

While more attention and funding has poured into education and edtech recently, we are at serious risk of continuing the trend of “Old Pedagogies, New Technologies''. We need to go back to first principles, and try to invent new ways of learning that can build on existing (and new technologies). The crux of the innovation must start with the pedagogy. 

In a fast paced world where the priority should be “learning how to learn”, one approach stands out as more powerful than the rest: pedagogies that are predicated on “productive uncertainty”. The notion of productive uncertainty is a student-centred approach to learning that structures learning as a quest around a problem or challenge that needs to be solved. Learners are encouraged to struggle with the naturally occurring uncertainty around a topic with appropriate, but minimal guidance from the environment or teacher.

Pedagogies that promote productive uncertainty allow learners to assume the thinking moves and activities that experts in the field would take - including the unstructured nature of real problems. Instead of asking learners to find the perimeter of a rectangle, we ask them to help us find out how much wood we need to construct the needed fences. If we want to move beyond the “factory model” of education, we need to support products and approaches to learning that place productive uncertainty front and center. 

Approaches to learning that promote productive uncertainty in learning are not new, but most people do not often experience productive uncertainty in a classroom - even if we rearrange the chairs and sprinkle a few devices. They experience it with a Gameboy (or other console) in their hands.  

One of the most in-depth treatments of games and learning comes from retired American linguist James Paul Gee. Gee believes that modern teachers will eventually be akin to game designers that construct learning systems (or worlds) with moving parts. In this framework, games bring forward three important facets of learning:

1. They empower learners by giving them a sense of self-efficacy

2. They utilize that sense of self-efficacy to deploy problem-based learning effectively

3. The problem-based learning environment they create supports deep understanding in learners (players) as they struggle productively towards their goal.

In games, the experience of learning is pleasantly frustrating and nurtures the desirable difficulty needed for learning. 

This blueprint provides a clear contrast to how most classrooms are structured at present. It also contradicts the assumptions underlying several, if not most, of the educational technology products on the market today which tend to add bells and whistles to the same process of instructionist learning.

The design of educational products should be centered around creating and supporting productive uncertainty. It should optimize for the creation of empowered learners in problem-based environments aiming for deep understanding. For example, instead of defining the entry point of an educational product as an instructional prompt where a student is asked to “learn” a certain fact or concept, we should begin with a clear prompt or question that makes any future learning relevant to the learner.

There are multiple examples of efforts and companies that are already doing this. The team at EcoXPT have created a relatively low-tech environment that allows grade-school students to experience what it truly means to be a scientist. By attempting to find out why a certain species of fish has become extinct, children go through “iterative cycles of experimentation, reflection, and revision”. Similarly, the team at Synthesis uses weekly simulations to nurture problem solving skills in young children asking them to work together to find the “best networks in a constellation”.  

None of these implemtantions are tech-driven or use breakthrough technologies. They certainly could take place in the “metaverse” but that is not the game changer. The crux of their power lies in how they modify the learning process. The biggest risk for us today is that we continue to focus on new applications of technology without actually changing what is happening in the classroom. We are at risk of just moving our brick and mortar classrooms to the “metaverse”. To create truly transformative experiences we must go much deeper - with old or new technology.