Back from Boston
Once again, a long time between posts. I am expecting a rough September but, after that, posts should become more frequent (every other week, I hope). Last post came from Boston, while I was working at the Laboratory of Computer Science (Mass General Hospital / Harvard Medical School).
My research stay was a great experience. It was refreshing to be immersed in a different work culture, which by the way I found much more challenging and interesting than the rather stale model we have in the Spanish academic field. Our paper-publication model, with all its flaws, cheats and bad effects in the quality of our science is substituted with a model based on actual products that work. Mind you, I’m not stating I prefer that model, for I haven’t been working in that context for long enough so as to detect its own flaws.
In any case, it was surprising to meet there, in that product-oriented research facility, a far more open-minded approach to innovation and different things. A token of that was the reaction to my ideas regarding game-based learning. In the “open” and “free” environment of my univeristy those ideas are at least tolerated and, at best, seen as amusing. On the other hand, at the lab the idea was taken as new ideas should be understood in science: “Hey, it might be worthless but it might be a bomb… let’s follow that line and see where it goes”. That’s the best that a plan for introducing things with a bad reputation (that is, games) in a serious process could hope for. And the LCS really had that spirit. I mentioned it during a meal and 48 hours later the Lab had devoted some money to purchasing a promising game. Getting my univeristy to pay for a videogame… well, I don’t even want to think about that.
So, kudos to the LCS for their attitude, thanks for having me there, thanks for listening, thanks for teaching me and, most of all, thanks for involving me. From a professional perspective, those have been the most interesting months in my career so far.
