Presenter: Dov Jacobson, Managing Director, GamesThatWork Brains are defended by formidable skulls. You try to introduce your ideas through holes in that skull. The eyes and ears give you access to the brain’s analytic mechanisms. But to reach the problem-solving brain, you must engage the human hand. Learn to design manipulatives to exercise hands-on creative practice.

1. DOV JACOBSON
HANDS ON LEARNING
Did you miss my talk? No problem.
I added these yellow speech bubbles for you!

2. Studio History
and personal
First employer: Carl Sagan
Made 7 COSMOS animations.
Art serving Science.
Then a ton of games for the
entertainment industry.
Science serving Art.
Now a dozen years making
applied (“serious”) games.
Art and Science Fused.

3. ASPCA: Fetch
National Institute of Health: Brush Up
NYU Medical Center: Pete Armstrong
Intelligence Adv’d Research Project Act: Enemy of Reason
Acton Entrepreneurship Institute: Lemonade Standoff
Acton Entrepreneurship Institute: Price Point
DARPA: Tee Zero
Air Force Research Lab: Avant Guard
Air Force Research Lab: Battlefield Airman
Office of Naval Research: People Kit
US Navy: Swarmada
Army Center for Leadership: Influence Trainer
Vivendi: Meba
Our Experience
Field Museum: I See Sue
Smithsonian Institute: Red, Hot and Blue
National Science Foundation: Mouseprint
Blue Heat: Nintendo DS - ATV Super Tour
Random House: Lost Symbol
[Passion Project]: Gas Hogs
Simon & Schuster: Pie Jackers
Starlight Six: Drive-In Vasion
TBS: Know The Show: Seinfeld, Friends, etc.
Microsoft Studios: Hands on Atoms
[IR&D]: Reign of Ronin
Coca-Cola: Vanilla Coke Mystery Game
Coca-Cola: Pop Quiz
Our clients and supporters.
Become one!

4. How do I call in an Air Strike right here…
without the bombs hitting me?
How do I make people do what I want…
when I cannot command or coerce them?
How do I win a price competition…
without starting a price war?
How do I solve chemistry problems…
when atoms are so darn small?
How do I do brush my teeth?
How do I perform
algebra…
when I am not smart enough?
How do I keep track of my
crops…
when there are so many factors?How do I notice evidence
of evolution…
when I do not believe in it?
How do I make
important decisions…
despite all this uncertainty?
The clients address very
tough questions.

5. We don’t know the answers.
We just know how to make games.

6. We get an answer from an expert
and put that idea into the game.
But that ain’t enough.

7. We don’t just put the idea into a game.
We must put the idea into a player.

8. Programming a game is easy.

9. ding!

10. See?

11. It isn’t so easy to put an idea into
a human being.

12. donk.

13. oops.

14. Here’s your problem. The human brain.
Like all living tissue, it rejects foreign matter.

15. Anyway, you don’t use a game
for a little idea.
It rejects even a little idea, if the idea
does not match the existing pattern.

16. Use games to promote big ideas.
Ideas that color all the player’s thinking.

17. Brain hates this.
It defends itself against such alien ideas.

18. It defends itself with the big thick skull.
Your job is to find a hole in the skull
to push your ideas through.

19. Eyes are an obvious choice.

20. Look at the pathway the ideas take!
Starting with retinal images...
..crossing through the brain, emerging as
patterns of recognition and relationship

22. The ear provides a hole straight into the brain.
It works for ephemeral ideas
Ideas that can go in one ear and out the other.

23. The nose is another hole leading to the brain.
Ideas that fit through this hole: “Dinner Time”
“The House is On Fire” or “It Wasn’t Me!”

24. It’s easy to overlook the biggest hole in the skull,
where the biggest bundle of nerves
enters the brain - from the rest of the body.

25. Nerves carry signals from all over the body.
But all parts are not equally represented.

26. Look at how the hands are
disproportionately endowed with neurons.
They have their own
intelligence.
Unlike the eye’s analytic intelligence,
the hand has an intelligence of action.

27. I can see the problem.
It’s in our
language.

28. I can handle the problem.

29. Maria Montessori
...first in play and then through
work, the hands are the
instruments of man's
intelligence...

30. Maria Montessori
...first in play and then through
work, the hands are the
instruments of man's
intelligence...
play

31. Seymour Papert
...most effective
when the learner
experiences
constructing a
meaningful
product.

32. Seymour Papert
...most effective
when the learner
experiences
constructing a
meaningful
product.build

33. Thinking with hands: William Kentridge
It is not that you know something in advance
that you carry out...

34. Thinking with hands: William Kentridge
...but rather that you recognize something
when it appears.

35. Thinking with hands: William Kentridge
...but rather that you recognize something
when it appears.
aha!

36. Visualize
Manipulate

37. Visualize
Manipulate
Play
Build
Aha!
Next: I demonstrate seven recent games,
to show how they use these principles
to promote manipulative learning.

38. Brush Up the toothbrush training game

39. Brush Up the toothbrush training game
No surprise here. Kids learn a manual skill with a hands-on game.

40. Brush Up the toothbrush training game
And the skill persists.

41. playableHands-on Math

42. video
Hands On Atoms

47. THINK Machine
ANALYSIS OF COMPETING HYPOTHESES

48. Visualize
Manipulate
Play
Build
Aha!
Finally, I conclude with exercises
for everyone in the room.
If we have time.

49. How do four people choose
Pizza Toppings?

50. How do I resolve conflict involving the
Tragedy of the Commons?

51. Why should I believe that
variable speed limits
will make my commute quicker?

52. How do I resolve conflict involving the
Tragedy of the Commons?
How do four people choose
Pizza Toppings?
Why should I believe that
variable speed limits
will make my commute quicker?

53. DOV JACOBSON
HANDS ON LEARNING
Dov@ GamesThatWork.com
Questions? Comments? Quarrels?
Please write!