[squeakland] the reasons for ranking

[Timothy Falconer]

On Sep 29, 2009, at 9:08 PM, Yoshiki Ohshima wrote:

> At Tue, 29 Sep 2009 20:24:39 -0400,
> Timothy Falconer wrote:
>>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> Let's talk more directly about the reasons for ranking . . . early
>> today I wrote:
>>
>>>> It also gives us more colored dots.
>>
>> And Yoshiki wrote:
>>
>>> And the explanation of why this is a good thing is not described
>>> yet.  Kathleen wasn't happy with it and I think your response wasn't
>>> answering her concern.
>>
>> I'll try to be clearer.
>
>  There were more in the discussion...
>
>> As I see things, there are three related issues that are getting
>> combined in the same conversation:
>>
>> 1. showing individual rankings (which is what I think she's most
>> concerned about ... google "Punished by Rewards")
>>
>> 2. showing levels of ongoing community involvement (aka, "top ten
>> contributors")
>>
>> 3. sorting things so the good stuff stays on top and the lesser stuff
>> falls to the bottom
>>
>> The colored dots next to people's usernames are really about #2.    
>> You
>> can get points by voting, by commenting, by submitting projects, etc.
>> It is *not* merely a measure of your project vote points.  It's not  
>> an
>> average either.   One person who submits ten projects that gets 5
>> points each will earn 50 points, which is the same as another person
>> who submits two projects that get 25 points each.   There's no way to
>> tell which person got 25 points apiece and which got 5 points apiece.
>> In a normal grading situation, the 25 pointer would clearly "win out"
>> over the 5 pointer.   The Squeakland showcase measures *sustained
>> effort*, not specific performance.
>>
>> Displaying the colored dots is a motivational thing.  When someone
>> sees a comment by "yoshiki with the purple circle", they can see
>> you're an Etoys enthusiast with a history.   It's not "Yoshiki who
>> get's straight A's", it's "Yoshiki who's put in a lot of effort over
>> time and has earned that purple circle."   Seeing the purple circle  
>> is
>> a reward to you for effort, and a signal to others that your opinion
>> might matter more than "puppetAccount31252" with a white circle.    
>> The
>> colored circles are a measure of credibility.
>
>  But one of the concerns was that one can lose the colored dot
> visibly to everybody even when you are doing as much as you have been.
> When others are saying that "that is de-motivating", you just repeat
> yourself to say "it is a motivational thing".  As Kathleen repeated,
> coercing people onto a linear scale is not the way to motivate
> different kind of learners.

I think the piece that's missing here is that it will be pretty rare  
to actually change from one level to another, especially for younger  
children.

The way it is now will not be the way it is with 1000 users.   Color  
changes won't be a day-to-day goal.  My guess it might happen once or  
twice a year for  an individual.   Again, I doubt many young children  
will even make it to level 3.


>    The external "reward" for some effort in learning settings should
> be other people's honest and insightful feedback and getting more
> ideas (and internally "learn" something), but not a dot.
>
>  Your #2 above is not separated from #1, and the 5-6 levels of dots
> have way more meaning than "top ten contributors".  #3 doesn't mean
> you need to have a visible dots for individual persons, but merely
> projects should be sorted.

This is the central issue .... #1 is completely different than #2.    
When someone can get just as many points by adding comments as getting  
"grades", it's entirely about #2.

It's a measure of effort, not excellence.  High ranks merely get  
someone more points more quickly, and rightly so.


>> Which leads to the most important reason for them .... people with
>> higher levels get asked to rank other projects.   They get asked
>> because they've earned the right to have a say in what's valuable.
>
>  But that doesn't mean that person's dot should be visible to  
> everybody.

Yes, we could take the colored circles off the website.   I think that  
people are finding them fun, at least the people I'm talking to, and I  
think there's genuine value in knowing that a commenter is a regular  
and not a puppet account.

I talked about the whole "Punished by Rewards" thing with a few dozen  
teachers a year ago when Kathleen first brought up her objections to  
the Waveplace Awards.   She honestly was the only that I talked to  
that voiced any concern over that event.  Quite the opposite, most saw  
it as a transforming moment for their kids.   From what we could tell,  
the kids who didn't place took it in stride and were proud of their  
friends.   Watch the end of the video to see me address this topic  
directly, particularly why we thought the awards were a good thing.

I agree that competition goes too far in this society.  I agree that  
there are different kinds of learners that thrive with different types  
of motivation.

But I humbly disagree with yours and Kathleen's opinion that we should  
take the colored dots off the website.  To me, the benefits outweigh  
the potential downside.   They're useful and fun, with a real purpose.

Tim