Musicmonk84's List: PYP

• 1. Play is self-chosen and self-directed; players are always free to quit
• 2. Play is activity in which means are more valued than ends.
• 3. Play is guided by mental rules
• Among the most complex forms of play, in terms of rules, is what play researchers call sociodramatic play—the playful acting out of roles or scenes, as when children are playing “house,” or acting out a marriage, or pretending to be superheroes
• two actual sisters—ages seven and five—who sometimes played that they were sisters
• The category of play with the most explicit rules is that called formal games
• The student of play who most strongly emphasized play’s rule-based nature was Lev Vygotsky
• the child's desire to play is so strong that it becomes a motivating force for learning self-control
• To be required to act like Wonder Woman in real life would be terrifying, but to act like that in play––a realm you are always free to leave––is great fun
• Along with Vygotsky, I would contend that the greatest of play’s many values for our species lies in the learning of self-control
• 4. Play is non-literal, imaginative, marked off in some way from reality
• An amazing fact of human nature is that even 2-year-olds know the difference between real and pretend. A 2-year-old who turns a cup filled with imaginary water over a doll and says, “Oh oh, dolly all wet,” knows that the doll isn’t really wet. It would be impossible to teach such young children such a subtle concept as pretense, yet they understand it. Apparently, the fictional mode of thinking, and the ability to keep that mode distinct from the literal mode, are innate to the human mind. That innate capacity is part of the inborn capacity for play
• It is reasonable to say that the architect builds a pretend house, in her mind and on paper, before it becomes a real one
• The fact that parts of my fantasy could possibly turn into reality does not negate its status as fantasy
• 5. Play involves an active, alert, but non-stressed frame of mind
• What the experiments show is that strong pressure to perform well (which induces a non-playful state) improves performance on tasks that are mentally easy or habitual for the person, but worsens performance on tasks that require creativity, or conscious decision making, or the learning of new skills

  • 1. Play is self-chosen and self-directed; players are always free to quit
    
    2. Play is activity in which means are more valued than ends.
    
    3. Play is guided by mental rules
    
    4. Play is non-literal, imaginative, marked off in some way from reality
    
    5. Play involves an active, alert, but non-stressed frame of mind

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• • ne·ot·e·ny (n-tn-)
    
    n.
    
    1. Retention of juvenile characteristics in the adults of a species, as among certain amphibians.

• Steve Keil

  • Depression is the opposite of play.
    
    Play does not equal frivolity.
    
    Play is universal.
    
    Play increases productivity.
    
    

• 10 Expectations

  • relationships
    
    relevance
    
    time
    
    timing
    
    play
    
    practice
    
    choice
    
    authenticity
    
    challenge
    
    application

• • Unoccupied play: the child is relatively stationary and appears to be performing random movements with no apparent purpose. A relatively infrequent style of play.
   
  • Solitary play: the child is are completely engrossed in playing and does not seem to notice other children. Most often seen in children between 2 and 3 years-old.
   
  • Onlooker play: child takes an interest in other children’s play but does not join in. May ask questions or just talk to other children, but the main activity is simply to watch.
   
  • Parallel play: the child mimics other children’s play but doesn’t actively engage with them. For example they may use the same toy.
   
  • Associative play: now more interested in each other than the toys they are using. This is the first category that involves strong social interaction between the children while they play.
   
  • Cooperative play: some organisation enters children’s play, for example the playing has some goal and children often adopt roles and act as a group.

• 1. The Joker -- makes people laugh, plays practical jokes.

  2. The Kinesthete -- loves to move, dance, swim, play sports.

  3. The Explorer -- goes to new places, meets new people, seeks out new experiences (physically or mentally).

  4. The Competitor -- loves all forms of competition, has fun keeping score.

  5. The Director -- enjoys planning and executing events and experiences, like throwing parties, organizing outings, and leading.

  6. The Collector -- loves the thrill of collecting, whether objects or experiences.

  7. The Artist/Creator -- finds joy in making things, fixing things, decorating, working with his or her hands.

  8. The Storyteller -- loves to use imagination to create and absorb stories, in novels, movies, plays, performances.

• play is just as pivotal for adults as it is for kids
• Play brings joy. And it’s vital for problem solving, creativity and relationships
• Stuart Brown
• “…it’s all around us, yet goes mostly unnoticed or unappreciated until it is missing.”
• As Brown says in his book, “Play is the purest expression of love

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• “The best moments in our lives are not the passive, receptive, relaxing times… The best moments usually occur if a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile.” ~ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1990, p. 3)
• Flow. In this state they are completely absorbed in an activity, especially an activity which involves their creative abilities
• reminiscent of Zhuangzi’s description of “great skill
• and he quotes Marcus Aurelius approvingly when the Stoic philosopher writes, “If you are pained by external things it is not they that disturb you, but your own judgment of them. And it is in your power to wipe out that power now
• When we focus our attention on a consciously chosen goal, our psychic energy literally “flows” in the direction of that goal, resulting in a re-ordering and harmony within consciousness

• He identifies a number of different elements involved in achieving flow:

   
   
  • There are clear goals every step of the way.
   
  • There is immediate feedback to one’s actions.
   
  • There is a balance between challenges and skills.
   
  • Action and awareness are merged.
   
  • Distractions are excluded from consciousness.
   
  • There is no worry of failure.
   
  • Self-consciousness disappears.
   
  • The sense of time becomes distorted.
   
  • The activity becomes an end in itself.
• there are people who have developed their flow to such an extent that they are able to translate every potential threat into an enjoyable challenge, and thereby maintain an inner tranquility as a continuous state of mind. He calls such a person an “autotelic self,” someone who “is never bored, seldom anxious, involved with what goes on and in flow most of the time.”

• Csikszentmihalyi points to five ways through which one is able to cultivate one’s self into an autotelic person:

   
   
  1. Setting goals that have clear and immediate feedback
   
  2. Becoming immersed in the particular activity
   
  3. Paying attention to what is happening in the moment
   
  4. Learning to enjoy immediate experience
   
  5. Proportioning one’s skills to the challenge at hand
• have clear and immediate feedback (one knows whether one is doing the activity properly or not
• flow is a dynamic rather than static state, since a properly constructed flow activity leads to increased skill, challenge, and complexity over time
• another popular activity that appears to meet these criteria (and thus explains its wide appeal) is the playing of video games. The only problem, Csikszentmihalyi writes, is that these kind of flow activities can easily become addictive, which ultimately results in a loss of the control of consciousness and thus further unhappiness
• The similarities between Yoga and flow are extremely strong; in fact it makes sense to think of Yoga as a very thoroughly planned flow activity. Both try to achieve a joyous, self-forgetful involvement through concentration, which in turn is made possible by a discipline of the body. (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990, p.1o5)
• According to Freud, the self is composed of three different parts: 1) the “Id” which represents instinctual drives or our “nature;” 2) the “Superego” which represents values or expectations imposed on us by society, our “nurture,” and 3) the “Ego,” which is the part of consciousness we are aware of and which can take control over the other parts (see Figure 2).
• Contrary to what we tend to assume, the normal state of the mind is chaos … when we are left alone, with no demands on attention, the basic order of the mind reveals itself … Entropy is the normal state of consciousness — a condition that is neither useful nor enjoyable. (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990, p.119)
• Csikszentmihalyi expresses a particular dislike for television, since he believes it is primarily a way of distracting the brain from psychic entropy without creating a challenge and feedback loop that could lead to flow. Reading is a much better flow activity, since it often requires complex skills of imagination and interpretation
• “the way to happiness lies not in mindless hedonism, but in mindful challenge” (Tavris, 1990).
• Eating a sirloin steak, for example, can produce a highly pleasurable state, but it is doomed to be temporary, as proven by the fact that eating two such steaks would produce pain. Pleasure reaches its limit surprisingly fast, and this is where flow should enter in, as a way to obtain gratifications that are less volatile and longer lasting than subjective feelings (Seligman, 2002, p. 119).

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• Neural plasticity can best be thought of as the subtle but orchestrated dance that occurs between the brain and the environment; specifically, it is the ability of the brain to be shaped by experience and, in turn, for this newly remolded brain to facilitate the embrace of new experiences, which leads to further neural changes, ad infinitum.
• three mechanisms by which experience induces changes in the brain
• An anatomical change might be the ability of existing synapses (i.e., connections between nerve cells) to modify their activity by sprouting new axons or by expanding the dendritic surface.
• A neurochemical change might be reflected in the ability of an existing synapse to modify its activity by increasing synthesis and release of chemicals that transmit nerve impulses (i.e., neurotransmitters).
• Finally, an example of a metabolic change might be the fluctuations in metabolic activity (e.g., use of glucose or oxygen) in the brain in response to experience.
• Alas, this malleability is a two-edged sword, in that such changes can be both adaptive and maladaptive for the organism
• there is clear evidence that early or late exposure to stress can deleteriously affect a range of brain systems, and thus a range of behaviors
• ADAPTIVE CHANGES
• Collectively, this work suggests that the adult human cortex can be reorganized based on experiences that occur relatively late in life
• This is not to say, however, that experience-induced changes are possible in all domains of behavior at all points in time
• IMPLICATIONS OF WORK ON NEURAL PLASTICITY FOR BEHAVIORAL DEVELOPMENT
• The foregoing observations suggest that the “innate”-versus-”learned” debate is fallacious.
• By understanding precisely how the brain is modified by experience, we can better identify the experiences needed to bring children back on a normal developmental trajectory, or prevent them from moving off this trajectory
• using the tools of the neuroscientist, we may be able to examine the brain before and after an intervention, and in so doing better determine where in the nervous system change occurred
• As work by Masten and Garmezy (Masten et al., in press) has shown, not all children reared in suboptimal conditions (including those at significant risk for psychopathology) move off a normal trajectory. Similarly, not all children who suffer frank brain damage experience disastrous outcomes
• Thus, it may serve us well to rethink how the brain develops and changes across the life span by considering the important role of experience in sculpting neural systems.

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• “there’s some evidence that great physical space enhances creativity,”
• In over 30 years of research, I’ve found that people do their most creative work when they’re motivated by the work itself.”

• Ben Waber
• And the data are clear that the biggest driver of performance in complex industries like software is serendipitous interaction.
• If you’re surrounded by friends, you’re happier, you’re more loyal, you’re more productive.

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• This "gamification" of the workplace, or "enterprise gamification" in tech-industry parlance, is a fast-growing business
• With some 400,000 employees, roughly 40% of whom work from home or on the road, gaming is a way to help colleagues connect and stay engaged, explains Mr. Hamilton
• "Adding gamification to the workplace drives performance but it doesn't make up for bad management. If you are a bad manager, gamification won't help you," says                                             Kris Duggan,                                        chief executive of game-maker Badgeville.

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• TIME reports that today's students are less tolerant of ambiguity and have an aversion to complexity. And The Futurist suggests that the biggest challenge facing our children is their inability to think realistically, creatively, and optimistically about the future.
• Eighty-five percent of today's companies searching for creative talent can't find it.
• For example, the Chinese government recently launched a five-year initiative on fostering creativity and innovation in China, and they are tapping design firms like frog design to play a part.
• These advanced forms of play can be more aptly described as superpowers of play.
• the greatest play pioneers of our time, such as Stuart Brown, Howard Chudacoff, Will Wright, Edward De Bono, Katie Salen, Jane McGonigal, Beau Lotto, Sir Ken Robinson, Henry Jenkins, and Daniel Pink,
• manipulate (deconstruct and hack), morph (think flexibly and be tolerant of change), and move (think "with their hands" and play productively).
• to see (observe and imagine), sense (have empathy and intrinsic motivation), and stretch (think abstractly and systemically).
• To reap the rewards of these abilities, we must set aside the myth that play and work are two separate things.
• Play should be our greatest work, as it is the biggest driver of innovation.
• instead, they want to know if you can brainstorm all the possible uses of bubble wrap. This falls under what I would call a MacGyver Manifesto.
• The future favors the flexible.

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• 5 Reasons You Need to Play More
• 1. It Boosts Our Creativity
• Having fun, perhaps by easing tension, may be facilitating neuronal connections
• 2. It Helps Us Think Outside the Box
• positive emotions increase our cognitive resources by expanding our visual attention as well as our social resources by improving our ability to connect with others.
• 3. It Improves Our Health
• laughter can also improve physical health. It has been linked to decreased stress and inflammation in the body and may improve vascular health.
• 4. It Makes Us Present 
• Flow occurs when we are completely immersed in an activity
• About 50% of the time, we aren't in the present moment,
• we are happiest when our mind is in the present moment.
• When our mind is in the past, it usually dwells on negative emotions such as anger or regret. When it is in the future, anxiety and fear arise. Play makes you present, and both research and ancient wisdom say that's the only place you can be truly happy.
• 5. It Connects Us
• play – the ability to laugh and let go, to inhabit the present, and to be immersed in mirth and lightness of being – can be an ultimate act of love and belongingness. When we can laugh and joke, we are remembering our joint humanity, our mutual desire for happiness and love, and our fundamental interconnectedness.

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• Gabe Zichermann,
• Make Game-Based Marketing Work for You
• You don’t need a giant jackpot.
• “What they really care about are things like status, access and power. In this model, status trumps stuff. That’s a core tenet of gamification.”
• Points are good.
• Badges, too. And ribbons. And gold stars. All are subtle ways of motivating people.
• Don’t insist on making it a competition.
• Sometimes they want to socialize and sometimes they just want to understand your brand better.”
• You don’t need a big budget.
• Target the takeaway.
• A little bit of surprise and delight goes a long way.”
• Don’t forget the fun part.

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• #1: Achievers (Bartle’s Types)
• “Are driven by in-game goals, usually some form of points gathering—whether experience points, levels or money.”
• #2: Badges as a Reward
• people naturally enjoy being praised for their actions and collecting proof of their invested time and energy to show off to their friends.”
• #3: Challenges
• The challenge setup must be tailor-made depending on the context and the target audience and should involve diverse challenges.
• #4: Demographics
• know the demographics of gamers.
• “50% of gamers are reported as being female, 30% are over 45, and in the U.S. there are 40 million active social gamers (who play at least 1 hour a week), and there are over 200 million gamers on Facebook.”
• #5: Explorers (Bartle’s Type)
• “Driven to find out as much as they can about the virtual construct—including mapping its geography and understanding the game mechanics.”
• #6: Flow Theory
• • Clear goals
  • A high degree of concentration
  • A loss of the feeling of self-consciousness
  • Distorted sense of time, one’s subjective experience of time is altered
  • Direct and immediate feedback
  • Balance between ability level and challenge
  • A sense of personal control over the situation or activity
  • The activity is intrinsically rewarding
  • A lack of awareness of bodily needs
  • Absorption into the activity
• #7: Gifts (Game Mechanics)
• While some games may utilize real-world gifts in the form of money, gift cards, etc., many games motivate players with virtual gifts; e.g., flowers, badges.
• #8: Having Fun Is Okay
• #9: Incentivizing Online Activities
• #11: Killers (Bartle’s Type)
• “Killers use the virtual construct to cause distress on other players, and gain satisfaction from inflicting anxiety and pain on others.”
• “A means by which users can track their performance subjective to others.
• drives players to earn more achievements, in turn fueling deep engagement.”
• #13: Motivational Design
• #14: Not the Opposite of Work
• #15: Organizational Goals
• games should contribute to an organization’s goals; e.g., getting foot traffic into a brick-and-mortar store, demonstrating the personality of your brand and demonstrating your core values.
• #16: Progress Bar (Game Mechanics)
• many people will be driven to take steps to 100% completion
• #17: Quantifiable Outcomes
• track things such as user participation, daily activities and users by achievement and levels.
• ultimately, you’ll want to know if you have impacted the consumer’s relationship to your business in a positive way.
• #18: Rewards
• Make your community a valuable user experience where users will be proud to participate and as a result will be more inclined to value your rewards.
• #19: Socialites (Bartle’s Type)
• “Use the virtual construct to converse and role-play with their fellow gamers.”
• #20: Tactics and Gamification
• not a game for the sake of playing a game but making sure you’re always cognizant of the reasons you’ve employed games
• #21: Users’ Needs and Goals

• Decide if your users are motivated by:

  • Achievement of goals or enjoyment of experience
  • Structure and guidance or freedom to explore
  • Control of others or connecting with others
  • Self-interest in actions or social interest in actions
• #22: Virtual Environments and Engagement
• Whatever the reasons are, it’s clear that game designers and businesses are using the virtual environment to their advantage and capitalizing on users’ engagement.
• #23: Website Invigoration
• Now traditional companies are building loyalty for their websites using so-called gamification techniques. Tactics such as leaderboards, which encourage users to compete against one another for points, are becoming common across the Web.”
• #24: (E)xamples
• • Xbox Live—achievements, leaderboards
  • Foursquare—badges, rewards
  • Gowalla—badges, pins
  • GetGlue—rewards
  • LinkedIn—progress bar
  • SalesForce—leaderboard, achievements, leveling
  • Mint—achievements, progress bar
  • CheckPoints—virtual currency, rewards
  • ShopKick—virtual currency, rewards, contests
  • Hallmark—Facebook credits, virtual goods, gifting, sharing
  • Starbucks—leveling, rewards
  • Nike—achievements, badges, challenges, rewards
  • Buffalo Wild Wings—trivia, challenges
  • Microsoft—achievements, contests
  • American Airlines—progress bar
• #25: (Wh)y Do You Want to Gamify?
• #26: Zeitgeist at the Appropriate Time

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• games are more realistic and bloodier than ever,
• Girls play at lower rates and are significantly less likely to play violent games.
• Playing the games can and does stir hostile urges and mildly aggressive behavior in the short term.

• youngsters who develop a gaming habit can become slightly more aggressive — as measured by clashes with peers, for instance — at least over a period of a year or two.

   Yet it is not at all clear whether, over longer periods, such a habit increases the likelihood that a person will commit a violent crime, like murder, rape, or assault, much less a Newtown-like massacre.
• (Such calculated rampages are too rare to study in any rigorous way, researchers agree.)
• The research falls into three categories: short-term laboratory experiments; longer-term studies, often based in schools; and correlation studies — between playing time and aggression, for instance, or between video game sales and trends in violent crime.
• playing games like “Call of Duty,” “Killzone 3” or “Battlefield 3” stirs the blood.
• A dose of violent gaming makes people act a little more rudely than they would otherwise, at least for a few minutes after playing.
• In a report published last summer, psychologists at Brock University in Ontario found that longer periods of violent video game playing among high school students predicted a slightly higher number of such incidents over time.
• Craig A. Anderson, a psychologist at Iowa State University. “But if you look at the literature, I think it’s clear that violent media is one factor; it’s not the largest factor, but it’s also not the smallest.”
• Most researchers in the field agree with Dr. Anderson, but not all of them.
• “This is a pool of research that, so far, has not been very well done,” said Christopher J. Ferguson,
• “I look at it and I can’t say what it means.”
• Neither Dr. Ferguson, nor others interviewed in this article, receive money from the gaming industry.

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• How do I balance client service with working on my own ideas?

    

  How do I avoid interruptions that mess with my creative flow?

    

  How do I stop putting off the stuff I hate but still have to do?
• How do I make sure I'm getting stuff done, taking care of myself, making time from for play, and actively pushing myself outside my comfort zone?
• 1. Set priorities on Sunday
• 2. Map out work, play, fit, and push.
• Work:
• I outline my "Top 3,"
• Play:
• Fit: Movement
• Push:
• I do something that scares me (almost) every day.
• 3. Batch your days.
• Batching actions into specific days and creating time for creativity has been a huge gamechanger for me.
• CREATE on Monday/Wednesday/Friday:
• CALLS and MEETINGS on Tuesday/Thursday:
• "Hate you but have to do you" is saved for Wednesday morning:
• SPONTANEOUS Saturday:
• INTENTIONAL Sunday: Plan for the week ahead.

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