On-line gaming is fun, sure, but it can also help develop skills that end up being useful for distance learning. Former corporate consultant Riccardo Zacconi, businessperson and creator of the highly popular videogame “Candy Crush”, analyzes the challenges and opportunities offered by technology during the coronavirus epidemic.
On-line schooling: are students ready for it?
Thanks in no small way to their experience with video games, many students are familiar with technology and have developed skills that are turning out to be useful in distance learning. A current trend in the on-line gaming world is, for example, to interact and cooperate with other players; another aspect of gaming that can be applied to distance learning is the need to adapt to levels of difficulty and alternate between lower and higher levels, which stimulates attention and avoids boredom. In other words, I am convinced that the educational system would do well to borrow strategies and technologies from the world of gaming, starting with interactive, cooperative problem solving.
How are schools dealing with this change?
Digital technology offers a range of tools for learning: giving everyone access to high quality content and at the same time offering personalized feedback to individual students. However, schools have to get ready for this revolution. Our current educational system is based on the needs of an industrialized economy that needed trained workers to follow rules and apply well-defined processes. Those predefined needs no longer exist, thus we have to ask people to come up with innovative solutions and adapt quickly to a changing job market.
If it is true that 65% of future jobs don’t exist yet, we are going to have to change the paradigm and use technology to create an educational system in which students are not passive receptors but rather proactive and able to think critically, work in groups and resolve problems – and many of them are becoming familiar with such strategies just playing their favorite video games.
What of “smart working” will remain after the emergency?
There are sectors, such as technology, where teleworking and teleconferencing have been the norm for some time now, but in many countries, and in almost all sectors, physical presence in the office is still indispensable. We must note that the need to work from home in recent weeks has raised not only organizational problems; some issues have still not been properly addressed, such as those regarding the security of company systems. In a world that has not yet invested much in smart working, there is great potential for growth, but that also comes at some risk. I do believe, however, that since this emergency has forced the hand of businesses and employees, it may have brought about a paradigm shift that will have lasting consequences in the future.
What sectors are going to emerge stronger from this crisis?
There is an interesting trend in the ability of shops and small businesses to offer very high quality in both physical locations and on-line delivery. The success of on-line restaurants shows that technology can be an important factor when it goes hand in hand with quality and proximity. Understanding the impact of the current situation is going to take some very detailed analysis that is still premature for now. In general, we are seeing sectors like tourism that are suffering a lot and others like e-commerce that are getting a real boost and growing. We mustn’t forget however, that this is a serious and far-reaching crisis that is leaving no one untouched, and to get over it we are going to have to stick together.
Co-founder of King.com, Riccardo Zacconi became the firm’s Chairman in 2019 after being Chief Executive Officer since 2003. After completing an economics degree at Rome’s LUISS University Riccardo went on to amass 25 years of experience in strategic planning, consulting and e-commerce.
