Welcome to the first Captain’s Log: a new weekly newsletter covering current reading, research and thinking. My intention is to run this for four weeks, to see how we do, then decide whether to continue after that. We are running it as an old school email list – so if you have questions or responses, just hit ‘reply’ and we will incorporate them next week.
Game Dynamics vs Game Mechanics
I’m following a number of communities talking about Games in learning: my own stance is that much of the application of games misses the point, that we should focus on ‘game dynamics’ not ‘mechanics’
So it was good to see more nuanced writing about this in Training Journal:
Games will not be the answer to engagement, or to the effectiveness of learning, unless applied as part of a wider understanding of how people learn, and the opportunities that games give us to explore, to experiment, to play. Simply constructing games for the sake of interaction is a poor approach to learning design.
Beyond Organisations:
Harold Jarche raises an interesting discussion around ‘value’ in a network, using a case study from his own work:
http://jarche.com/2013/10/no-hourly-rate/
I link this to a piece I wrote, ‘Beyond Organisations‘, which explores where our ‘utility’ lies, and who owns it!
You can find Harold @hjarche on Twitter, always a source of great provocation and interest.
Open source fossils…
An interesting article on how ‘Lucy’ has been open sourced: as one of the world’s most famous fossils, there has been much interest, study and speculation on her life, but the thing I’m most interested in is how the research team has consistently taken an open approach to data, effectively inviting people to get involved.
http://arstechnica.com/science/2017/01/open-sourcing-lucy-the-worlds-most-famous-fossil/
This speaks to a wider change in the Social Age: broadly connected global communities of interest, wider access to raw data, space for multiple interpretations, and a community to help us figure out what we know.
Crowdfunding the next Social Leadership book
Finally, a call for help: I’m crowd funding ‘Social Leadership – my 1st 100 days‘, a book of 100 practical activities for developing Social Leaders. You can be part of the project here, or please do share if you can.
If you enjoy this, please share and signup here
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