Hello, my name is Mr. Anderson
and my classroom is a video game
I can't think of a better way to start
a story better than Alice falling down the rabbit hole
and she comes upon a bottle
and the bottle says simply "Drink me"
and so I am a teacher, so I wanna try to recreate that
so what I did is I left my computer in my class
and I had angry birds on it and then I had a card next to it
and it simply said the word "play"
and then I walked away
but I want to see what happened
so I left the webcam on
so I got a little video that kids come into class
so... Would you like to see that?
(Audience: Yeah!) Yeah... As if you have an option
Ha... Yeah...
I love how they take turns
And I love Jackson's eyes
if you watch him
Yes! Success!
So that look in his eyes, that look of learning
try something new and failing and try it again
is something we inspired to see in the eyes of our kids
we don't do that, a lot of the time it's glazed over look
and so I want to try to apply some of these dynamics into my classroom
so I grew up in 1980s
playing video games, and these video games taught me lessons
that I think we could apply to schools today
the first thing I learned, is the video games are fun
and school should be fun as well
unfortunately, most kids wouldn't say their school day is fun
however there are elements of school that all students love
they love seeing their friends, and they love learning
unfortunately they spend most of the day, just passively sitting down in front
Sitting, listening to a teacher lecture¶
so I think school should be fun
second thing I learned, is that failure is OK
If it takes you 8 times to clear the third elevator stage in donkey kong, that's OK
failure is simply part of a learning process
however, in schools, we tend to stigmatized failure
you don't take a quiz over and over and over agian
until you finally pass it
in fact, failure individuals
right now, failure in schools is highly stigmatized.
so I think we need to send a message that failure is OK!
The third thing I learned is the importance of leveling
This could be applied in schools in two ways
When a teacher decides to move in a specific pace
that's ok for some of the students in their class
but some of the students are automatically to be bored
some of the students are quickly gonna be confused
so I think students should be able to move on their own pace through mastery system
where they master a level and they can move on to the next one
they also should be able to level up
becoming more powerful as they learn new material in the class
I also think that, we give the wrong lecture at the beginning of the year
as I said the lecture at the beginning of the year, I would say,
You all have an A, from this point forward, you will fall precipitously , until eventually you land your final grade
no game will ever be designed this way
so one of the great thing to be a great teacher
is you have a summer break
Summer break is great because you get a break from school, but you also can reinvent your class
make it something that's never been before
if you try to do that during the year, if you try to make a radical changes, kids will just simply be confused
but if you change it during the summer, you make huge, swiping changes in your class
the kids will never know what hit them
So, this was my dream. I wanted to reinvent my class as a video game
but i didn't want kids just sit in front
and watch the video game like Oregon Trail
where the world in common Sandiego
I want to take them in most compelling elements
of gaming, then applied in the classroom
this took a lot of work, and so I had created a class, it's called "Biohazard 5"
It's got narrator, got the narrative, all the kids come together there
I've created about 150 podcast that take them through the lecture
and so when they get that point, they get kind of learned
I have all the special activities in class
that kids can applied the material that we're learning in the real world
I have a bunch of inquiry labs, this one right here, is a photo of synphetheis lab
you can see my students very riveted
they're studying photo synthesis using little chop we cut from a leaf
I've developed hundreds of questions that I have a mastery where the system
students can take quizzes over and over and over again
until they finally get it
I have a leveling system
so they start with zero experience point at the beginning of the year
I borrowed this from Lee Sheldon in the University of Indiana
so basically they coming on day 1
I invented the button level as the primordial soup cause I teach Biology
So they gain their experience point, and they can move their way up like dumble octpus,
and mountain gorilla, and maybe grand master at the end
I also have a leader board, so they play with the avatar
and they can see how they're doing in the class
how they're doing to against everybody else
this is the most popular resource in the class
kids are constantly logged in and see how they're stacked up
I also got a piloting set that of a iPad
so kids got an internet connected devices at all times
Finally, the summer was over
and I stood in front of the class
Like this, apparently
[laugh] and I said
Hello, my name is Mr. Anderson
and my class is a video game, so what I want you to do
is grab an iPad
I want you to logging into Biohazard 5
I want you to watch a video, I want you to do some reading
I want you to take a quiz, and head off the class
now if I have done this with my students' parents
that would be the most frustrating day of my life
but the kids grew up with the technology
and the technology today simply works
so they were headed off on their own
So my class, is a learning classroom
if you come in, you'll find the kids are reading, watching videos, applying,
doing special activities, trying to solve challenges, working together or working alone
so it's really need at the teacher come
we were just talking in the half way through the class
he said " well you created is like a shop class" cause he was a shop teacher once
he said
the shop teacher, you teach them some skills and the kids can apply that
so it's like that
I would love to keep telling you how great it is
how the test score seem to be going up
and how the kids learning how to learn independently
but I am a science teacher
and that's not what get us excited
in science, what gets us excited
is discovering something new
so I wanna talk about 3 ways that I failed
Number 1
a conventional classroom is like a school bus
where all the students were all logged in they just get on
and the teacher is like the bus driver
and it drives from point A to point B
you can make sure that all the students get there
so what I have done is like I get each of them
a brand new car, keys, and I said "Drive"
so some of them stalled out
and some of them raced ahead
and some of them drove right into a wall
so I need to get them more scaffolding next year
next thing I learned is the importance of reading
kids struggled with reading when you make your class independant
and I should've seen this coming because this is the biggest indicator of success
and I think the reason I didn't see it coming is that
I never stopped talking, because that's what good teachers do
we read the book, and then we come out with really good examples
then we present it in a really dynamic way
and the kids can just sit there
and then they can learn it
why would they want to read the book? we read it for them
so when I forced them to read the book
a lot of them struggled and we have to work with that
the last thing I learned, is that we're not Vulcans
In the most recent star trek movie
young Spock sits in a little module and he surrounded by computer screens
and the computer keeps throwing questions at him, and philosophy, and relativity
and that's his school day, just sits in a module like that
so a lot of people think they can change education by somehow use videos
or automating the learning process
that sucks, who would want to be at a school like that?
kids are coming to school to be social
so I add elements of social learning at the class to make it more compelling
This is a TED talk, all the good TED talks always end with a call to action
so what can you do?
I think schools need to move from a passive teacher-centered learning environment
to an active student centered environment
that's what I did
I was off to the side now, there's a mentor in the class
so how do we do that?
If you are a student, you get feedback to your teachers, everything I do in my class all I got
is a result of feedback I got from my students
what you do if you are a parent? Your write an email if you want your schools to change
the only emails I get from parents are complaining about their students grades
I never get "My students had an A in your class,
but I have a problem with the philosophy in your class"
that doesn't happen, so message you are sending to teachers
is that the grade is the only thing that's important
but maybe you're not a parent, and maybe you're not a student
but you are human
so what's the lesson? what's in the bottle?
what's in there it's your passion, it's the one thing you wanna do
can you figure out what my passion is? I love my family and I love teaching
and if you can drink that bottle, also remembering to fail, learn
and repeat the process over again, then I think you'll have a life worth living