Hidden in the User Types Hexad

User types hexad mystery Hidden in the User Types Hexad

For the first time that I can remember, someone has asked a question about a little “hidden” feature of the User Types Hexad. Two secrets actually.

Take a look at it now, what is odd?

I love symmetry – it is a quirk of mine. I hate how my kids build with LEGO, they always put the wrong colours together and use odd numbers of bricks and the like! Drives the little picky part of my brain insane. That’s part of why I have the hexagon shape, it is perfectly symmetrical – except for the circle in the middle. Read More ...

Getting rewards right. Recognise, don’t Bribe.

Rewards recognise dont bribe Getting rewards right Recognise don 8217 t Bribe

One of the things that my daughters school like to do is give certificates to students for various achievements. Below are two that she has had over the last few months. Which one do you think she was happiest to get?

If you guessed the Gold award for reading 25 times or more in a term – you were wrong. She has half a dozen of them on the wall. The Bronze award for a “brilliant and inspiring” science experiment had her far more excited than all of the Gold awards put together.

I have mentioned our struggles to get my eldest to bond with reading and to be honest, even though she now does it quite happily, it really is not something she enjoys much. The thing is, she knows that it is something good to do and for the most part is OK with reading every night. That makes the Gold award pretty much guaranteed without having to put any abnormal effort in. Read More ...

Self Preservation – Advice I give my daughters

Self preservation 2 Self Preservation 8211 Advice I give my daughters

Many years ago I was looking at starting up a self defence class (I was teaching JuJitsu at the time). This document was based on conversations with people who had been attacked and reading up on the topic at the time. I never did anything with it, but now that I have daughters, it is central to how I talk to them about self defence – or more accurately – self preservation. After years of tweaking and a few days of conversation on facebook recently, I felt I could publish it. My hope is that the advice here, the advice I give my own daughters, can be of help to others should they need it. Read More ...

How do you deal with being wrong?

Error 1432641088 How do you deal with being wrong

Not really a gamification related post today, though it could pertain to the gamification community!

It happens to us all at some point. Someone says something, you see something, read something, hear something – whatever – but it shakes the foundations of something you knew in your hear was correct. Until you discovered this new information, you would have staked the life of your entire family line on what you knew to be correct. Now, you find out that you had been wrong all along – how do you deal with it? Read More ...

Learning about playfulness from Toca Boca

Photo 06 03 2015 10 27 52 Learning about playfulness from Toca Boca

Continuing my investigations into play, I wanted to talk about a few things my kids have been teaching me about just letting go and giving in to the fantasy and the lack of imaginative boundaries that real play demands. It is not as easy as it would first seem either.

There are lots of views of play out there. I offered some of my thoughts in a recent post, that play is a free form activity that is undertaken almost just because it can be and it brings fun and joy. In this sort of description, play is an activity – it follows a similar line of thought to  that proposed by Johan Huizinga in Homo Ludens. It was also Huizinga who gave us the concept of the Magic Circle – the boundary between reality and play. Read More ...