[squeakland] the reasons for ranking

[Yoshiki Ohshima]

At Tue, 29 Sep 2009 22:45:08 -0400,
Timothy Falconer wrote:
>
> 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.

  Is this based on the logic described at
http://tracker.squeakland.org/browse/SQ-361?  It would be a bit
surprizing to hear because "maxMojo" change alone affects everybody's
rank.  Since the owner of maxMojo probably will earn more points
quicker than others, and the ranks are linear scale of the point, I
would expect to see bigger disparity over time.

> 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.

  Well, people should actually look at the contents to judge the
quality of comments.  I've been writing fairly stupid comments.  They
should be treated so.

> 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.

  Of course, the question occured to me that how they knew how it is
going to work a year ago...

> 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.

  Okay.

-- Yoshiki