Three cheers for CMU, bringing the world productivity through fun!

The google tech talk in which Luis von Ahn outlines how he and his colleagues at Carnegie-Mellon are openly enticing gamers to do the laborious work of image labeling by creating a fun environment is nothing short of fascinating. I must say that the CMU computer science department is high on my list of the coolest programs in the US. I discovered Alice
a few years ago, a CMU creation, and have used it as a primer to programming for 5th grade students. Storytelling Alice is an improvement upon the original design. These are great “teaching games” that encourage creativity, create enthusiasm, and foster a desire to learn by having fun. von Ahn is extending this tradition of creative education and productivity through gaming from CMU. I must say, the 9 billion hours of solitaire is a real disappointing, but not so shocking number.

Games like Free Rice are big hits with elementary and middle school aged students, and just plain fun. My 3rd grader will play free rice for hours, just to make a high score, capitalizing on our human drive to do better than before. I also teach 8th graders who love the game, and have more altruistic goals. Many of my students have asked recently if they can play free rice for Haiti, so fun and altruism can work together. I can think of countless instances in my school where teachers have made kids "work for free" by making it into a game or reward. You would be surprised at the competition among kids to “earn” the right to clean computers at the end of the day.
Are things different with adults? I don’t think so, especially when you look at some of the classic crowdsourcing examples from wikipedia. Adults recognize where self interest and community interest intersect, and are happy to live in the middle of that Venn diagram. Business and corporate interests will undoubtedly try to overuse this basic human desire to improve things for the common good, and might turn people off at some point. However, I think that in the growing culture of “free is good” people understand that value is built by common interest and collaboration. The economy of cooperation can work to maximize the potential of the human mind and the human spirit.