The Education Endowment Foundation has produced a very readable evidence-based list of the best ways to improve teaching and learning.
The top two methods? Useful feedback and metacognition and self-regulation, aka. ‘learning how to learn’. Both are cheap, effective, and are backed up by solid evidence.
Update: It was a joke, haha
The creators of Westworld are asking Reddit whether they should release the entire plot of Season 2 in advance, to prevent fan theories from spoiling the plot:
Many thanks for your great questions and thoughts. As I’ve said before, I’ve been a member of the reddit community for years (no I’m not going to share my original username…). And I greatly enjoyed watching the friendly folks at this subreddit guess the twists and turns of the season.
It creates a larger problem for us, though, in terms of the way your guesswork is reported online. ‘Theories’ can actually be spoilers, and the line between the two is confusing. It’s something we’ve been thinking about since last season. The fans of Game of Thrones, for instance, rallied around and protected the secrets of the narrative in part because they already knew those secrets (through season 5).
We thought about this long and hard, and came to a difficult (and potentially highly controversial) decision. If [the Reddit community] agrees, we’re going to post a video that lays out the plot (and twists and turns) of season 2. Everything. The whole sordid thing. Up front. That way the members of the community here who want the season spoiled for them can watch ahead, and then protect the rest of the community, and help to distinguish between what’s ‘theory’ and what’s spoiler.
It’s a new age, and a new world in terms of the relationship between the folks making shows and the community watching them. And trust is a big part of that. We’ve made our cast part of this decision, and they’re fully supportive. We’re so excited to be in this with you guys together. So if this post reaches a 1000 upvotes we’ll deliver the goods.
At the time of writing, the post had 181 upvotes.
We will also require people who manage large pages to be verified as well. This will make it much harder for people to run pages using fake accounts, or to grow virally and spread misinformation or divisive content that way.
In Ep 242 of The Cultures, we talked about how the “MMR vaccine causes autism” lie was spread not just by tabloids, but also by influential bloggers, YouTubers, and others with large social media followings. I doubt Facebook’s new policies would change much – after all, plenty of those spreading the lie were happy to use their real names – but I wonder whether they plan even more regulation.
Listen to episode 243 of my weekly podcast with Andrea Phillips and Naomi Alderman:
I hadn’t anticipated becoming Chief Reporter for the Global News Network after signing up to play the Watch The Skies Megagame last week. Maybe I’d be the Chief Scientist for France, or perhaps the Chinese Premier, helping directing essential climate change research with the world’s leading scientists, or high-stakes diplomacy with India and America.
Instead, I was dashing around a hall frantically writing quotes into Google Docs on my iPhone before a deadline that came every 40 minutes. It was like that first episode of Battlestar Galactica, but with an even shakier camera.
Excuse me, Foreign Minister, I’m Adrian Hon from GNN Press – can I get a comment on the outbreak in Belize? I’m sure our readers would like to know what kind of assistance the Chinese government will be providing. Yes, I’m aware this isn’t the kind of information you give out to anyone, but between you and me, I’ve got 11 million in commitments from three different countries. If you give me a hint… well, you could have a head-start in the next UN negotiations.
If you put a Model United Nations conference into a blender with War of the Worlds, you’d get Watch The Skies, a six hour megagame in which 40 people take control of eight nations, one news organisation, and one mysterious alien race. In our ‘Lite’ version of the game, each nation had four players: the Head of State, Chief of Defence, Chief Scientist, and Foreign Minister, each with their own unique abilities and responsibilities.
While there’s a map with tanks and fighter jets, and there’s money and counters and cards, Watch The Skies really is more like Model UN than Risk: to achieve your objectives, you need effective diplomacy, not battle tactics and dice rolls.
There are plenty of other megagames. One is set in feudal Japan; another sees you battling a zombie outbreak. There’s even The World Turned Upside Down, about the American Revolution. There are genuine differences between megagames, but they all have the same delicate balance of roleplay, diplomacy, and utter panic.
Panic, because there’s literally no way for any individual player or even team to fully comprehend what’s really going on in the game. Sure, you’re in secret talks with the aliens and you’re plotting with Brazil and the UK to vote down France’s bid to chair the next scientific conference – but there’s no way you could know that America and China are about to move their fleets across the Pacific to capture a downed alien ship in Australia, or that Brazil is badmouthing you to all and sundry in the hopes of toppling your government.
Not unless you read the fearless, globe-trotting in-game news service, GNN, of course.
lol, jk – we didn’t know about any of it either! Continue reading “Playing Press at Watch The Skies Megagame”
Longform, my favourite journalism podcast, gets into videogames with Tom Bissell. Along with his magazine and non-fiction writing, there’s some honest insights into the business and reality of writing for triple-A videogames.
Fascinating yet depressing piece about The Rise in Self-Proclaimed Time Travellers. I can’t help but think this could make for a truly excellent ARG or videogame.
Listen to episode 242 of my weekly podcast with Andrea Phillips and Naomi Alderman:
Stylish with fantastic acting and an incredible setting. The plot falls apart under the lightest of inspections, and the trope of murdered women rather tiring, and yet it was approximately a million times better than The Night Manager.
I’m planning a longish blog post about playing as the Press team in the Watch The Skies megagame – if you have any questions, hit me up!
