Keynote for Games for Change 2013 The world of educational games is changing, and we cannot understand it without understanding the psychology of education.

1. Sheep, Goats,
and the
Future of Education
Jesse Schell
Games for Change 2013

2. Can Games Educate?

3. How Do Games Fit Into Education?

4. Everything is changing!
• Standards
• Technology
• Delivery Systems
• Economic Models
• Students
• Parents
• The World

7. + =
PsychologyTechnology Destiny

8. Do what they’re told Do what they want
Two Types of Learners

12. A society of sheep means…
• a society easily
manipulated by advertising
• a society willing to accept
what is provided
• fewer entrepreneurs

15. 1. Anyone Can Design a Great Game
2. All of us Together are Better Designers than
any of us Alone
3. The More we all Share, the Smarter we all
Become

16. Goat Paradise!

17. I have no special
talents, I am only
passionately
curious.
–Albert Einstein

19. Fear Apathy
Curiosity

20. Curiosity
InsightWonder
The cure for
boredom is
curiosity…
There is no
cure for
curiosity.

23. Some Thoughts On Education (1692)
Johnathan Locke
“I have always had a fancy
that learning might be made
a play and recreation to
children…”

24. “It’s not that American schools do anything special to
teach creativity – it’s just that they are less efficient at
stamping it out.”

31. Who wants your goatware?
Parents? Kids? Administrators?

32. Who wants your goatware?
Teachers!

35. Thanks!
Slides: slideshare.net/jesseschell
Twitter: @jesseschell
Email: jesse@schellgames.com

36. Psychology Notes and Stuff
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-efficacy
• http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/gl20/GeorgeLoewenstein/Paper
s_files/pdf/PsychofCuriosity.pdf
• http://www.educationoasis.com/resources/Articles/fosteringcuriosi
ty.htm
• http://www.academia.edu/290259/An_Applied_Social_Psychology_
Perspective_on_Immigrants_and_Immigration
• http://www.midus.wisc.edu/findings/pdfs/724.pdf
• http://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1957/386
11/McClellandMeganPublicHealthGenderDifferences.pdf?sequence
=1