zoran Lv 1
Over the course of developing foldit, it has become increasingly apparent that the game environment although always imperfect and evolving, is not only a vehicle for scientific discovery, but also for learning about proteins, and biochemistry in general.
In order to fully develop this alternate, but perhaps just as important outcome, we are writing an NIH grant to, over the next 2 years, develop an educational version of foldit to be deployed in high schools, or perhaps even middle schools worldwide. Together with learning scientists who are joining our effort, our plan is to quantitatively and qualitatively evaluate the effect of such a game on both the comprehensive understanding of biochemical underpinnings of life, but also to gauge the effect of a game like foldit on the perception that science is a cool and worth pursuing.
The grant is due this Wednesday (ugh), and we would love strengthen the proposal by including the personal stories from you about how foldit community enabled learning. So please send them in response to this blog, or email them directly to me (zoran@cs.washington.edu).
Thank you.