My speed run talk from the closing keynote at GLS 2014

1. Ten
Years.
Three
Truths.
One
Lie.
(And
a
gratuitous
lolcat.)
Liz
Lawley
Rochester
Institute
of
Technology
lawley.rit.edu
•
slideshare.net/mamamusings

2. Ten
years
ago,
at
the
first
GLS,
Kurt
and
Constance
were
untenured
assistant
professors.
It
wasn’t
just
them;
we
were
all
new
at
this
“games
and
learning
stuff.”
(I
didn’t
actually
make
it
to
the
first
one,
my
first
GLS
was
3.0)

3. When
I
went
looking
for
a
recent
photo
of
them
on
the
website
for
their
(not
so
new
now)
GLS
Center,
this
is
what
showed
up
on
the
main
page.
They’re
both
senior
faculty
now.
As
are
many
of
the
rest
of
us
who
were
at
those
first
GLS
meetings.
Who
would
have
thought,
ten
years
ago,
that
they’d
be
running
a
major
research
center
and
acting
as
advisors
to
both
industry
and
government?

4. 1
We’re
the
grownups
now.
The
first
truth:
We’re
the
grownups
now.
We’re
the
ones
with
tenure.
Even
the
kids
we
taught—whether
they
were
middle-­‐schoolers
or
doctoral
candidates—are
grownups
now,
or
damn
close
to
it.

5. My
son
Lane
was
was
13
when
he
gave
his
first
invited
conference
talk
(thanks,
Barry!)
based
on
his
accomplishments
in
Teen
Second
Life.
We
wondered
if
the
amount
of
game
playing
we
allowed
(hell,
encouraged)
was
the
right
choice.

6. Apparently
it
was,
because
he’s
in
his
final
year
as
an
honors
CS
student
at
RIT,
and
is
spending
the
summer
working
as
an
intern
at
Google
NY.
(He’s
pretty
much
my
retirement
plan.)
It’s
not
just
him,
though.
The
kids
we
were
teaching
ten
years
ago
are
professionals
now.
They’re
building
systems,
teaching
their
own
classrooms,
changing
the
contours
of
the
field.

7. 2
We’re
grownup
enough
to
challenge
our
own
assumptions.
The
second
truth.
We’ve
had
enough
time
now
to
think
about
this
field,
and
it
has
changed
enough
that
we
need
to
be
open
to
rethinking
some
of
our
closely-­‐held
beliefs.

8. Here’s one we’re particularly fond of: the idea that adding game components to unpleasant material constitutes “chocolate covered broccoli.” (How many
times have you heard this over the past three days? A lot, I bet.) This particular image comes from a recent Edutopia article by Matthew Farber on the
subject. But it turns out this may not mean what we think it means.

9. This is Gillian, and I took this photo of her at my house on Memorial Day. She heard some of us talking about “chocolate covered broccoli,” and decided
to take advantage of the fondue dish to sample it. Turns out she loved it. Some kids really like broccoli. And some of those, in turn, like it even better
when it’s dipped in chocolate.

10. What
else
should
we
be
challenging?
It
also
turns
out
that
a
lot
of
foundational
work
in
many
fields
is
based
remarkably
small
(or
out
of
date)
data
sets.
Miller’s
“Magical
Number
Seven,”
for
instance,
is
often
cited
as
gospel
in
interface
(and,
worse,
Powerpoint
slide)
design.
But
it’s
based
on
(a)
a
tiny
data
set,
and
(b)
an
incorrect
interpretation
of
the
original
research.

11. What
else
should
we
be
challenging?
What else are we accepting on faith that we should be challenging, retesting, exploring now that the landscape has changed?

12. 3
Failure
is
both
inevitable
and
necessary…
The
third
truth:
We
need
to
fail.
More
often.
And
you’re
all
thinking,
“Yes,
of
course,
duh.
We
know
this!
That’s
what
we
keep
preaching
about
the
value
of
games
for
learning!”

13. And
we
do
know
this
about
games.
We
talk
about
it
all
the
time,
especially
in
the
context
of
games
and
learning.
!
Unfortunately,
we
FORGET
it
when
it
comes
to
our
own
scholarship,
our
own
post-­‐school
learning.

14. 3
Failure
is
both
inevitable
and
necessary…
Even
in
scholarship.
The
third
truth,
revised.
We
need
to
fail
ourselves,
in
our
work.
We
need
to
make
mistakes,
and
learn
from
them.
But
when
we
get
to
be
grownups,
the
reward
structure
around
us
doesn’t
reward
failure—especially
in
academia.

15. It’s
really,
really
hard
to
talk
about
failed
scholarly
work.
It’s
not
just
that
we
don’t
want
other
people
to
look
at
our
failures,
we
don’t
want
to
look
at
our
failures.
And
yes,
if
you’re
not
yet
tenured,
the
fear
is
probably
justified.
Which
is
why
it
matters
that
so
many
of
us
are
“grownups”
now.

16. But last year I wrote a Hall of Failure paper about Just Press Play, and writing it was one of the best things I’ve done in a long time from a professional
growth standpoint. The bad news is that this year nobody submitted to that track. We all seem to be letting our fear of admitting failure control our public
presence.

17. The
Lie
Success
means
never
having
to
say
you’re
sorry
wrong.
So,
these
truths
lead
us
to
the
lie…the
lie
that
success
means
that
you
don’t
make
(or
at
least
don’t
admit
to)
mistakes.
Think
how
reassuring
it
was,
back
before
you
were
a
grownup,
when
you
found
out
your
heroes
had
feet
of
clay.
It’s
important
for
us
to
let
the
people
coming
up
behind
us
know
the
same
thing
is
true
of
us.

18. “For
the
first
couple
years
you’re
making
stuff,
what
you’re
making
isn’t
so
good,
OK?
It’s
not
that
great.
It’s
trying
to
be
good,
it
has
ambition
to
be
good,
but
it’s
not
quite
that
good.
But
your
taste,
the
thing
that
got
you
into
the
game,
is
still
killer.
And
your
taste
is
good
enough
that
you
can
tell
that
what
you’re
making
is
kind
of
a
disapointment
to
you.
A
lot
of
people
never
get
past
that
phase,
a
lot
of
people
at
that
point
they
quit.”
!
—Ira
Glass
Ira Glass did an extraordinary interview on the creative process, and the fact that we all start out making stuff that’s just not good, and need to push
through that in order to succeed. I can’t reasonably summarize it in 15 seconds. Google it. Listen to it. Then listen to it again, and again. It’s that good.

19. Here’s the promised gratuitous lolcat. Complete with old skool scifi reference! We need to let go of our fear of admitting and sharing our mistakes. The
fact that there were no submissions to the Hall of Failure track at this year’s conference says that most of us haven’t done that. We’re keeping ourselves
from learning from our own mistakes, and we’re failing to model for new students and scholars the reality that progress isn’t a straight line, that not only
do we all make mistakes but that those mistakes are valuable to think about and share.

20. It’s not just conferences where we can do this, though. We can use blogs. We can organize informal gatherings at our institutions and in our communities
and at conferences. We can be real grownups, and use our power for good. Let’s do that.