Ed Webb | My Amplog

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11 Comments   2 Recommends  

1. 

   celestialdancer October 10, 2009 11:59 pm

   Recommended this clip

   
   
2. 

   AnneMarie Cunningham October 11, 2009 12:27 pm

   Re: http://bit.ly/2Ci1xL @edwebb I’m not anti-fun… but isn’t this clip a bit manipulative? It looks like no-one uses the stairs at the start and then many people, but we are told that the increase in numbers was only 66%. So it isn’t that no-one was using the stairs before and then 1000 per day, more that 600 were before and then 1000. Yes, that is still a rise. Of course! But was that just on the first day? What about subsequent days? Did the novelty wear off?
   I think if this is to support a pedagogy of fun then we should know the answers!

   
   
3. 

   Ed Webb October 11, 2009 12:38 pm

   Re: http://bit.ly/2Ci1xL @amcunningham Oh, very much so, AnneMarie - it is an advertisement, after all, so we should be prepared to be manipulated. And arguably this experiment is itself a manipulation. What I hope we can do with this is get a discussion going among people involved in education (in whatever roles) about the power and limitations of fun.

   I think one could make a case that in the experiment shown in the ad people were manipulated rather than educated. If the numbers remained high after the novelty wore off, then we could speak about them being trained or conditioned. If, as a result of their exposure to this experiment, people self-consciously made changes in how they approached choices about whether to burn carbohydrates or hydrocarbons, then we are entering the domain of education.

   
   
4. 

   AnneMarie Cunningham October 11, 2009 12:42 pm

   Thanks Ed. I look forward to learning more:)

   
   
5. 

   Pat Parslow October 11, 2009 12:42 pm

   Ah thanks Ed, I was just going to say that my main problem with this was that it is pedagogically-poor, in my view - all the people appear to be learning is that the stairs make noises, and that it is quite fun
   The pedagogy of fun, surely, is about the way it raises energy levels, dismisses fears, provides a motivation to continue and even forms a type of formative assessment (if others are enjoying your contribution, you must be doing something right…)

   
   
6. 

   Ed Webb October 11, 2009 12:44 pm

   That sounds like an excellent place to start, Pat. Do you want to help me write the manifesto?

   
   
7. 

   Pat Parslow October 11, 2009 12:53 pm

   On reflection, I was a little harsh. There is learning taking place here, and it is related to the fun - just not in the way I was expecting. The people doing the experiment have, presumably, learned that by incorporating a fun, novel, piece of technology, people can be persuaded to behave in a different way to the way they would normally. Hopefully, the team behind it also had some fun - so perhaps there is an element of pedagogy there too (perhaps).
   Certainly I have always learned best from people who are having fun teaching.

   
   
8. 

   AnneMarie Cunningham October 11, 2009 3:42 pm

   Sorry, Pat, I don’t agree. When you say the people doing the experiment, do you mean the people walking up the stairs? We have no idea what they have learnt just from this. This is marketing by Volkswagen and don’t forget it. Volkswagen has a pretty staid, sensible image… apart from the Beetle, so they are setting out to prove that they are fun.

   This maybe fun to look at, and the introduction of a few statistics might make it look like ’science’ but it is marketing.

   I think Ed has pointed out how this is not really related to pedagogy at all quite well. I’m not in anyway against discussing the place of fun in learning. But I don’t see where this fits in.

   
   
9. 

   Ed Webb October 11, 2009 4:34 pm

   AnneMarie, I took Pat’s second comment to mean that the marketing/engineering folk learned, rather than the general public.

   I don’t think this is ‘not really related to pedagogy at all’ - if I did, I would have given it a different title. I think it has possible applications in pedagogy, can be a stimulus to thought and discussion about pedagogy. The video itself is a learning object, potentially, even if what it depicts is not necessarily learning.

   
   
10. 

    AnneMarie Cunningham October 11, 2009 7:41 pm

    OK, well, I think I need to read more about what you have said on this before. This clip sets out to suggest that having fun can direct behaviour change. As you said, there is no suggestion that there is learning involved. That was what I meant by it telling us little about pedagogy. But I feel I am going round in circles!
    And I think that most people think that learning is about a lot more than behaviour change.

    
    
11. 

    Mark Oehlert October 11, 2009 9:53 pm

    RT @edwebb The Pedagogy of Fun http://bit.ly/2Ci1xL Re: http://bit.ly/2Ci1xL @edwebb So I think the book Theory of Fun for Game Design might be good reading for this crowd (http://www.theoryoffun.com/). I’d also recommend Roger Caillois’ “Man, Play, Games” - because I think we need to understand the difference between ‘fun’ and ‘play’ - especially when we are talking about pedagogical models. I think the video is interesting and a nice conversation starter but agree with many of the concerns stated here - there are other, deeper models - but this is undeniably fun.

    
    
12. 

    ljsdesign October 12, 2009 9:00 pm

    Recommended this clip

    
    
13. 

    Jim Gates November 6, 2009 9:09 pm

    What would be interesting is to see how many are still taking the stairs a month from now when the novelty has worn off. Certainly the tourists and newbies to the stiars would still take them, but I wonder if the rest would.

    Wouldn’t it be a fun project for middle school students to try to solve a school problem using the fun theory? Of course, some schools wouldn’t be permitted to do that, since it’s “not on the test.” Still, it would be a fun project.