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How I Make Explorable Explanations
🕑 Added 2017-09-20 16:27:19 +0000 UTC Finally, I spill my secrets! (note: not actually secret)6 minute read: http://blog.ncase.me/how-i-make-an-explorable-explanation/
Really, it's a three-step guide for teaching anything through any medium, not just teaching systems through games. Also, at the end of the blag post, I throw out a list of things I may want to try making during my "personal game jam" the next two months!
Speaking of which, here's the "theme" for my personal jam:
"CREATION."
All this time, I've felt a little bit like Willy Wonka (the Gene Wilder version, not Johnny Depp version), showing off a bunch of weird cool stuff here and there – but I don't want to be a Willy Wonka; I want to help you be a Willy Wonka. I want to pay it forward: other people created powerful ideas & tools that helped enable me, and now I want to share powerful ideas & tools to enable you. (P.S: that's why I want to spill my secrets on how I make things!)
And that's one big gap in my work: even though you can play with simulations, you can't really make your own simulations. The only two exceptions are LOOPY & Sim The World In Emoji, but for both of those, you hit the ceiling of complexity pretty quickly.
So, for the next two months, I'll be making a bunch of prototypes around that theme: "CREATION". These will be little prototypes for things that let you create something, together or alone.
I've already started coding up one prototype (hint: it involves more stick figures with hats), and I've sketched out & gotten feedback on four more! I'm really excited to sharing these with you, and eventually, fleshing some of them out into real powerful tools – enabling you to become the Willy Wonka.
<3,
~Nicky Case
Comments
Nicky Case
Thank you! I've seen Granovetter's article on weak ties, but I didn't know about this paper of his. I'm halfway through reading it and it's really fascinating so far, thank you for sending it my way! (on a related note, I'm releasing my new prototype in a few days... and there is a sort-of-threshold/tipping model in there!)
Meth Od
I am simply tooo impressed by almost all your exlorable explanations...please keep up this fascinating work! And maybe have a look at Mark Granovetter's essay on so-called threshold models of collective behavior...inspired by Schelling-type models, but providing a somewhat different - well :) - explanation why people participate in riots, strike adopt birth control devices, strike, vote or leave social occasions...have a look: <a href="http://snap.stanford.edu/class/cs224w-readings/granovetter78threshold.pdf" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">http://snap.stanford.edu/class/cs224w-readings/granovetter78threshold.pdf</a>
Meth Od
Hey Nicky,
Nicky Case
<3
Sean Riley
As a librarian who does a lot of work trying to help academics teach digital literacy, you're the gift that keeps on giving, Nicky. <3
