Make it a GAME of learning!

Udacity-forums:
We are looking for feedback about next run of these courses - CS373:
Here is my answer:

Make it a GAME of learning!

The key for learning, and for everything else, is MOTIVATION (I think). Self-paced may work well for self-motivated.

There are 3 types of motivation:

1) FEAR is a good motivation for industrial work and old-style learning. Pay $8000 for a course, for many people that is enough to work enough to pass. Or fear to be worse that others. That is a "peer pressure" of the group, when everybody is on the same schedule.

2) GREED also works: to tell the world that you have a Stanford diploma, many people will do what it takes... AI-class had elements of that. It turned out to be a great class, but great reputation of teachers did help, in particular to get so many people to sign up. A group on same schedule could also motivate greed, to be better than others.

3) DRIVE or PASSION is an ultimate motivator, and hardest to get right. When you are good in something, you want to become even better. This is well described in book "Drive" by Daniel Pink (video)

(Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose)

Have to know the basics ("pass suck threshold"), and after this need to feel comfortable to quickly improve! That will very well understood and used by O'Reilly "Head First" books, and "Create Passionate Users" blog by Kathy Sierra. Highly recommended! Here is a summary on my blog

Programmers forums site StackOverflow.com is a hugely successful example of a self-motivated community, based on elements of GAME. I did closely follow their evolution (by podcast), and struggle. It is pure passion of Jeff Atwood (blog Coding Horror) that made the details make the diffidence. And imitation didn't work! They have attempted to make many more similar sites, didn't come not even close.

So, here are some of my suggestions:

• create BADGES, make effort count, make speed count, make results count.
• create LEVELS, make the learner/player "earn" the next level.
• make PUZZLES, program generated, and different for everybody (no cheating)
• make it a COMPETITION: you can compete with others on self-pace marathon.
• where applicable, make teamwork count in solving challenges

Obviously nothing of this is easy, and it is not completely new. There are education/forum sites that work well. edu20.org is a great example for K12 level, created by Graham Glass, another passionate programmer I had a privilege to meet. He made learning a game that works well for kids and schools.

Sebastian and his team are great, and udacity classes are so far really good. That could be an excellent base for another "quantum leap" in the game of learning.

Dragan Sretenovic