https://coda.io/d/Writing-Hub_dYsYg7d1EIu/Review-Dock_su0ds#Posts-v2_tucaA/r35&view=full
- jess is sharing a todo-list with her friend
A core thesis behind my research into communal future of computing is that play is essential to any healthy learning, creation, and communal flourishing. In this future, play should be one of the most natural actions. It should feel as easy, as fundamental, as unconscious as breathing. Play as a word won’t even need to exist anymore because it will a part of the very nature of operating.
In digital spaces, we’ve seen playing develop more foreboding flavors. Playing has been co-opted to mean gamification. When companies talk about making their product more fun and playful, they often turn to the levers that addictive games have leveraged to promote competition or some sense of progress. High scores, badges, walkthroughs, leveling up, redeeming points are all the immediate tools that are applied, like a salve upon an unbroken wound. I won’t speak too much on my opinions on the effects of these (some of which can be implemented in ways with positive ends of adding personality and demonstrating how to do things interactively), but suffice it to say that most of these are not the kind of play I refer to. These are the shallow flavors that push towards competition, individual achievement, and endless progress rather than any form of communal play.
When I speak of play, I mean the magical moments where you are simply following your curiosity. Play happens when you are answering the questions that your nose, eyes, mind, and senses all ask of you. It’s something that the world and your inherent self compels you to do.
When I speak of parallel play, I refer to when you’re on the playground and you match your swing rhythm to the kid beside you. I refer to when you’re quiet, sitting in the same room, each tending to each others’ thoughts or tinkerings or tip-tapping away at keyboards in peace.
spectrums of collaboration
- co-creation / sharing the same space
- collaborating over-time. not in the same space while drafting/creating but your things show up after
- how ambiently you are creating / collaborating / showing presence
- real-time collaboration
ways to play
- co-creating, writing, programming
sites for play
- give people the opportunity to do it, the idea of even thinking about it
digital playgrounds How do you enable parallel play? in digital spaces?
- call for product designers to take inspo from games - “show don’t tell”
- “just make learning it fun” from 👋 Meet CoCo A Real-Time Co-Creative Learning Platform for Young People
- spectrum of collaboration
- you need both the individual safe space to create on your own and also the shared sapce to get inspiration and lightly collaborate
- play doesn’t stop at making things “fun” or making things juicy (from max krieger tweet) although those are very important for making a space feel alive and responsive and fun
- Play implies that you can create. that you can make space for yourself. that you can make things happen
Draftpad Learning is a function of developing your taste, becoming intimate with the shape of your mind in increasingly fine detail.