Abstract
Gaining and maintaining student attention has been a long sought-after goal of education professionals across all levels of instruction—from pre-school to graduate school—keeping students (and educators) engaged throughout the learning process can be a challenge. Noted educational theorist John Dewey stressed the importance of student initiative and excitement in the learning process. Dewey believed the ideal educational model was one that promoted creativity and the development of problem-solving skills (Dewey 1938). Thanks in large part to Dewey educators in the U.S. began to incorporate experiential methods into their classrooms. Problem-based learning was shifted from traditional teacher-centered instruction to a more student-interactive process. And along came the on-rush of technology. In today’s era of ubiquitous communication, social media and the “app,” students not only want to be engaged, but they also want to be stimulated by technology. This need for constant stimulation can cause educators to question their role in the teaching process. When does education become “edutainment” and when does the use of technology overshadow content? At Penn State’s College of Information Sciences and Technology we are exploring various innovative teaching and learning methods to address this issue. This essay explores the use of one such method, the Analytic Decision Game.
Edutainment is a neologism (new term coinage), similar to in-fotainment, that expresses the marriage of education and entertainment in a work or presentation such as a televi-sion program or a Web site.
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Notes
- 1.
Transactional distance is typically applied to on-line distance education. However, I draw my use of the term from Dewy who said, “I have said that educational plans and projects, seeing education in terms of life-experience, are thereby committed to framing and adopting and intelligent theory or, if you please, philosophy of experience. Otherwise they are at the mercy of eerie intellectual breeze that happens to blow. I have tried to illustrate the need for such a theory by calling attention to two principles which are fundamental in the constitution of experience: the principles of interaction and of continuity” (1938, p. 51).
- 2.
The Command Post Exercise (CPX) is a computer-driven simulation that simulates Field Training Exercises (FTX) Instituted as an economical and convenient means of training, early CPX simulations were planning and execution intensive affairs. The facilitation process relied heavily on the capabilities of the control staff that were required to generate exercise messages while filling the roles as key personnel across all echelons of command. Much work has gone into automating the process, thus reducing facilitator workload.
- 3.
The term Red Team has evolved over the years. Early red teams tested the physical security and procedures of military and government facilities. Red Teams also poke holes in military plans and tactics and are integral to the military planning process. More recently the term and practice has expanded to include civilian circles where teams (penetration testers) attempt malicious entry into cyber systems.
- 4.
Coronal Mass Ejections (CME) represent massive bursts of solar wind that release large quantities of electromagnetic radiation into space. CMEs originate from active regions of the sun’s surface and are sometimes associated with solar flares; however, no causal relationship between the two has been established (Atkinson 2012).
- 5.
We gratefully acknowledge that this research activity has been supported in part by a Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) grant (Number W911NF-09-1-0392) for “Unified Research on Network-based Hard/Soft Information Fusion”, issued by the US Army Research Office (ARO) under the program management of Dr. John Lavery.
- 6.
Priority Intelligence Requirements (PIRs) are “those intelligence requirements for which a commander has an anticipated and stated priority in his task of planning and decision making” (U.S. Army 2004, I-32)
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Graham, J. (2014). The Analytic Decision Game. In: Carroll, J. (eds) Innovative Practices in Teaching Information Sciences and Technology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-03656-4_10
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