Want to Design a Fun Educational Experience about Economics?

Are you a good storyteller? Do you like the idea of creating a fun educational experience so compelling that people can’t help but learn new things about the economy and in turn share the experience with their friends?

If so, let’s talk about collaboration possibilities! Think of the technologies within EconViz’s tutorials as a sort of “palette” that can be reused in new contexts, mixed in with new content and functionality. The palette includes components such as a dynamic circular flow diagram (or any flow animation), programmable balance sheets, and potentially much more.

The existing tutorials do include a little bit of clip art intended to make the content slightly more interesting by way of some concrete examples. But while I’ve had ideas for building upon this to create an unfolding story interleaved with the full length of the educational content, I still haven’t actually done it. And I suspect there are people who would do a much better job of building a compelling (intriguing and/or entertaining) experience than I would. As an example, the How the Economy Works tutorial could have the farmer’s and baker’s appearances extended to span much more of the length of the tutorial, adding in a governor and other characters from a local village and building some fun interactions between them… But those roles are a bit cliched in economic examples and I suspect there are some great alternatives waiting to be conceived of!

Read the rest at EconViz.org Blog
Want to Design a Fun Educational Experience about Economics?
by hbl