After watching McGonigal's TED talk about transferring gaming strengths onto reality-based activities, we took a survey and analyzed its makeup, including what types of questions were asked, in what order, and what purposes they would serve in evaluation and revising of a program or session. I recalled SI 500 last year, when we had to gather information and were challenged to write questions that would get us the truest information, but I found that this exercise, both taking the sample survey and then analyzing the example questions, did give me a better idea of how to write an effective survey. The discussion included structure for keeping participants engaged and questions for gauging approach and attitude of the answerer, things I hadn't thought about before.
The TED talk itself was interesting, too. I took the Videogames and Learning course as an undergraduate a few years ago and it was interesting to see the traits that McGonigal highlighted for transfer to real world situations. Where the education course covered the abilities that can be learned and strengthened through videogames, whether through purposeful design or by virtue of the medium itself, McGonigal drew out traits developed by "gamers," those who have devoted a significant amount of time to videogames, that can be applied to problems on a grander (epic) scale. I pointed out in class that I had recently read a line somewhere about a "trend of gamification," although at the time I saw a sort of difference between the gamification of, say, customer loyalty versus development of "green" habits. Now, though, I see that McGonigal's speech merely approached the situation from an academic and socio-structural angle instead of a marketing one. It was good, though, to see examples of successful transfer of gaming tendencies onto the grand, constructive projects she has launched.
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