What If Learning Worked Like a Video Game With Dan Leeson

Welcome & Guest Introduction

Jackie Pelegrin 0:01

Hello, and welcome to the Designing with Love Podcast. I am your host, Jackie Pelegrin, where my goal is to bring you information, tips, and tricks as an instructional designer. Hello, instructional designers and educators. Welcome to episode 166 of the Designing with Love Podcast. I'm thrilled to have Dan Leeson with me today. Dan is the creator of, and I hope I say this correctly, Chessferatu. Oh, did I say it right, Dan? Chessferatu. Yes, I said it right. A gothic chess training game designed to make opening practice more engaging through play. He also brings experience in Las Vegas improv, immersive entertainment, podcast hosting, so we have that in common. I love it. And AI assisted creation. Well, we have two things in common, right? Dan helps listeners think differently about learning, creativity, game design, and using new tools to turn ideas into finished projects. Welcome to the show, Dan.

Speaker 1:00

Hello, Jackie. Thank you for having me on the show.

Jackie Pelegrin 1:03

Yes. I'm so glad we got to connect through PodMatch because you actually showed up a couple of times on my match list. And then I hit later, I think, a couple of times, or I actually might have pinned you. And then I was going to reach out to you. And then lo and behold, I got a message.

Speaker 1:19

So it was And then here we are.

Jackie Pelegrin 1:21

Meant to be. I love it.

Why Chessferatu Had to Exist

Jackie Pelegrin 1:23

Yes. So to start, Dan, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and share what inspired you to create Chess Roto and specifically to turn something as repetitive as chess opening practice into a game?

Speaker 1:37

Uh yeah, a little bit about myself. I'm a perpetual side quester of life. I've got a little bit of experience in everything from doing truck driving to stunts to managing hotels and doing podcasts. I've done I've done a lot of various stuff. And somewhere along the way, discovered I've got uh ADHD, which is, if I'm not taking my medicine, very distracting. So when a close friend of mine and I decided uh to let's both start playing chess and learning chess as adults, uh we hit a point in our in our natural development that every chess player does, where you need to learn chess, start learning chess openings. And uh he would share the different videos and apps he was finding, and they were all helping him. And a lot of them were like flashcard style learning, and I was not engaging at all, and I was really frustrated. And I know it was something I want to learn, but the method of putting that information into my brain was so tedious and boring, I couldn't stay focused, and I thought, you know what? There's gotta be a better way, right? Like, how many times has that happened with somebody develops something, right? It's it's for themselves. Uh I I read an article about generative AI and the classic uh 90s Minesweeper. I don't know if you remember that game.

Jackie Pelegrin 3:11

Yes, I do. Yeah. I played that.

Speaker 3:14

Yeah, there was an article, and they were like, we asked these three different chat generative chat coding agents to just program this. And then we didn't give them any other instruction other than like make a version of 90s Minesweeper. And they're like, and here you can try them all. And and so I was like, wait, oh my goodness, I have some game design background, I have some coding background. I've never been able to finish an app because I'm a one-man crew, I don't have a big company, it's just me. I wonder if I could use generative AI to make this chess app for myself. Uh and I did, and it worked really great. So I said, hey, how much more work was it really going to take to release this app? The answer is always more than you think.

Speaker 2 4:00

True.

Speaker 4:01

Always way more. Um but uh uh I I needed, because it's so repetitive and repetition tends to be really boring, I needed some additional gaming, gamified element to make this repetition entertaining for me. And that's where chess chessferatu came from. Uh it was okay. Immediately right away, uh I knew the vampires were gonna be a part of it. Because if you're making a video game, you have to have some cool thematic element with it. Uh so I was like, oh yeah, that makes sense. Dracula would be really good at chess because he's been around forever, right? Hundreds of years. Yeah, okay. Boom. I got a game. Done.

Jackie Pelegrin 4:47

Yeah. Next game. And it's it's really interesting because it draws you in, right? So uh you're immediately like, what? Oh, chess and vampires. How do those connect? And then you yeah, and I I when I was on your website, I was like, I get it. You know, it clicked with me, and I was like, Yeah, I see, I see where he's going with this. This is so cool. And it keeps you keeps you drawn in, right? So yeah, it's it's pretty neat. So it's unique because of that, right? It's not like any other chess game out there. So you really you found that uniqueness that I think a lot of a lot of people really like. So that's really great.

Speaker 5:22

Thank you.

Jackie Pelegrin 5:23

So yeah, I love it. Uh so Chessperatu, it was designed to make practice feel less like memorization and more like play, which I really like. So uh so Dan, what did creating a game teach you about how people learn? And what do you think educators and instructional designers like myself can learn from game design about making practice more meaningful and engaging?

Game Loops That Make Learning Stick

Speaker 5:45

So, I mean, that's really the the heart of what I was trying to do to almost trick myself into taking tedious information and making it fun enough to put into my brain, right? Um I remember there's an Indian philosopher named Krishnamurti, and I remember watching a film of him talking to a group of like fifth graders, and they they the kids themselves were talking about how bored they were at school. And Krishna Murti brings up the point in the film where he's like, Hey, what's what's something you love in your life? And we'll we'll use chess as the example because I don't remember what the kid said. Well, we'll say he says chess, and he's like, Does anybody have to force you to learn that? And the kid's like, No, I love it. Like, I seek it more knowledge about that myself. And he's like, Yeah, like what are we doing here in school? Like, for like you're all sitting here at these desks trying to learn stuff you don't want to learn, things you want to learn, nobody, nobody forces you.

Speaker 2 6:55

Right.

Speaker 6:56

Right? It's the it's the other way around. You go, like, where can I get this knowledge, guys? Where can I get this knowledge? Right? Yeah, and they're thirsty for it. Right? They're thirsty for it. And of course, if I could have gotten uh a tutor, I could have learned these chess openings because the tutor would be like, I'd be like, I want to learn the Queen's Gambit, play me, and we're gonna play the Queen's Gambit over and over and over again. Or I can develop a bot where I'm playing the Queen's Gambit in a in a slightly altered method. Like it's chess, but the goal of my game is not to get a checkmate, which is the goal of playing chess. The goal of my game is to survive. You've got a health container like like classic video games. And if you make the wrong move, you lose life. So if I make a move that's not in the Queen's Gambit, I lose life. I do that enough, I lose, right? So it creates this game loop, which is what games can teach us. That engagement, there's a natural engagement to uh action reward, right? That's the the core of any game loop is I control this, things happen, I either win or lose, I get my dopamine hit in my brain, that that reward. Um as long as people are engaged in some sort of loop, they're enjoying it and they're continuing, right? Like, like I didn't invent game design, like that's all out there, like for you to go out and discover yourselves. Um But when you when you add that, you're creating almost that artificial engagement of the kid already wants to learn it, right? That they're creating that engagement is inside them and it's self-generating. Great. It when we gamify things, we allow for almost hijacking that onto something you might not necessarily want to learn, but you're enjoying the game process and learn along the way. Like uh, where in the world is Carmen San Diego? Do you remember that game?

Jackie Pelegrin 9:03

Yes, yes, I do.

Speaker 9:05

Okay, I never had so much fun looking things up in an encyclopedia, right? Where in time is Carmen San Diego, right? They gamified learning geography and history, and all of a sudden you don't even have to like geography to have fun with the Carmen San Diego game because they put a game design loop on the information.

Jackie Pelegrin 9:28

On that, right? Exactly.

Speaker 9:30

It's yeah, very inspiring for me for the chess thing, by the way.

Story Context Beats Pure Memorization

Jackie Pelegrin 9:34

That's great. And as you yeah, I love that. And like you mentioned, Dan, you you found out that you have ADHD, and I think that's so important for kids that are on the spectrum, right? Whether it's ADHD, maybe even dyslexia, other types of conditions where they don't feel motivated, right, to do something. I don't want to write, I don't want to do this. And if um and I I've been working with someone, his name is Russell Van Brocklin, he lives in New York, and he's a dyslexic researcher, and he also has dyslexia himself. But what's interesting is uh this ties to the game design and the game element because he he asks them, what are your favorite things? What do you like? He puts together a like and a dislike list for them, and then he uses that as motivation for them to read and write. And before they know it, they're up in the percentile in several months. And the parents are like, Wow, but how did you do that? So he has this whole entire method of of doing that. So I think game gamified elements are yeah, I think it really helps kids stay motivated and wanting to to do it, right? And it doesn't feel like it's forced down their throats, but it's like, oh, that I yeah, I really want to do this and I want to learn more. So yeah, I love that. I love those examples because those help kind of bring it to life for people. They do, they do.

Speaker 10:52

They're they're really important. We we as humans need a story to be able to communicate things uh better. Like that's just who we are as social creatures. Everything needs a story context to be able to communicate and like really understand it. Uh otherwise, like, like even just data or numbers. If there's no like I remember sitting in math class and like the teacher's like, all right, here we're gonna learn how to calculate this size of this triangle, and it's like, why? Why, why? Give me, give me a why. Why am I ever gonna need this? And the the lessons where she was able to put it into some sort of context, like, well, one day you might be doing this thing, and you'll need to know this math if you want to do it properly. As soon as the story clicked in my head, I was like, okay, well, now I do want to know how to find that hop high pot noose of that triangle.

Jackie Pelegrin 11:47

Right. Yeah, it's relatable. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it becomes real in our minds and not just abstract far off somewhere. So that's great because the game really does that. It doesn't, you know, even you and I were you and I were talking before this, and you asked me, have you have you ever played chess? And I'm like, no, but I've always wanted to. And so now this gives me that motivation, right, to start learning how to do it. And chess is I've heard is really great for uh being able to have that cooperative gaming, competitiveness, but in a healthy way, right? So uh there's so many benefits to to games in so many ways. Yeah, you know, you really get to have that deeper understanding, yeah, of those different elements. I love that.

Speaker 12:33

Chess is is really good for cause and effect planning. It's very, very good for cause and effect planning. Like if I move this piece, what what is the effect, right? What's gonna happen? What could happen down the road? Uh it's it's it's all about deductive reasoning and inference. There's a lot of critical thinking that you like chess is really good at. It's almost like push-ups for your critical thinking, right? Right. Like you want to like get better and better at chess. Yeah.

Jackie Pelegrin 13:05

I love that. Yeah, because you have to think ahead. What is your not only what do you need to do to for your next move, but what is kind of see what well, if I do this, what is my opponent gonna do, right? What is their move gonna be? So you always have to think ahead, right, to that. And yeah, you're right. Deductive reasoning, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it's really good for critical thinking. Yeah, I love that.

Speaker 13:27

The

Chess Thinking & Surprising Strategy

Speaker 13:28

wonderful one of the one of the very strange things I learned about chess along the way in building this app is the best move I can make is a move that changes the probability of uh of either side winning the least. Right? And that that's counterintuitive. Like I can't make a move that improves my position. The only thing I can do is keep it exactly the same. The uh if the odds of me winning are 10 to 1, the best move I can make keeps the odds at 10 to 1. Right. It's up to the other person to make a mistake, and then I have to see it and make the right response. Uh uh, that's totally backwards from what my understanding with chess is. Like, it's just like like a traditional video game. I make a move, I did a thing, and it either made me better or worse. It's like, no, in chess, there's never a move that makes you better. There's the move that keeps the game where it's at. Wild, wild. And and and that's almost like when you when you think about game theory, like how how often is trying to win the thing that takes the person's and sets them back instead of trying to just keep where they're at, right? Like uh if a race, the runner in a race might use up all their energy trying to win and then they didn't keep pace, right? Like it's almost like that. Anyway.

Jackie Pelegrin 14:59

Wow, the psychology behind it is just fascinating. I love this. Oh, wow. We could definitely go go on with that. Well, maybe we'll do a follow-up on that and the psychology behind games and things. Oh, that'd be interesting. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Using AI Without Losing Taste

Jackie Pelegrin 15:14

So, Dan, I loved how you mentioned earlier that you used AI throughout the creation of Chess Rateau, but you also emphasize that human judgment, taste, and verification become more important, not less, when AI is involved, which I think is so important for uh all the all the listeners that I have to hear this. So, where did AI genuinely help your creative process? And where did you find that you still needed to to step in and make human decisions during that process?

Speaker 16:19

So I think the best analogy, the one that pops into my head right now that we're talking about it, is like if I'm designing a house and the house needs to get built. I there like I don't care what color the fence is, I don't care what painting technique you use on the fence, I care about where the fence is located. I care you right, like there are there are things that it doesn't matter if I'm there to make the decision. It doesn't matter. You're not gonna screw it up as long as that fence gets painted, up and down, left to right, air gun, brush, doesn't splash it on. I don't care. I just want, right? But if if you're gonna decide that you want the fence 20 feet tall, now all of a sudden, hold on, why am I not consult it on that, right? Um it it working with AI all the way start to finish, generative AI uh on a project, if if you're if you're if you have a vision and you're following it, you'll you're you're almost forced to to see like where the important parts are as you struggle and fight with the AI to actually get what you want. Um everybody can tell if the AI wrote the whole story. Nobody, you right, everybody can tell that, right?

Speaker 2 17:48

Right.

Speaker 17:49

Uh however, if if you're using like and a story's a great example. Like, I may think, oh, hey, right now I want to write a story about a monster under the bed. If I just say chat GPT, write me a story about a monster under the bed, it's it'll do it. But if I say, hey, ChatGPT, I'm writing a story about a monster under the bed, interview me and ask me all the questions you need to know about writing this whole story. All of a sudden I've changed the dynamic of the tool to uh default to me in the operator's seat. And then I'm using the tool to make sure all of the boxes get checked. Um that's that's to me one of the that that's I hope all your listeners can can start adapt that right away. Like use the interview method. Don't don't have it unless you're literally like, I need to brainstorm a list of word ideas. Like I want some wordplay. Uh yeah, right? Like brainstorming a giant word cloud, that's one thing. AI is great for that. If you just need bulk, like massive, like, oh, I just want variations and then let me look and I'll make one, like it's it's good at that. But otherwise, like it have it interview you and it forces the tool to keep you in the driver's seat because the more you use generative AI, the more I feel like whatever you're using it for, whether it's programming, uh making a recipe or uh writing a story, uh actually these days probably making a flyer, right? Uh right. Uh that and that's oh, that's a that's a good example. Like painting the fence. Like I know there's a lot of graphic design out people out there, and go ahead and hate, hate on me all you want. But like if I need a flyer, the low lowest hanging fruit chat GPG flyer is probably all I need, right? Like I I hate to say that, but like it's it's just a piece of paper to get an easy visual message out, right? It's just a it's a it's a it's a the meme version of marketing, right? Here's my flyer. Uh um but at the same time, if you are particular, like you can see the lack of human input in that lowest fruit flyer, right? Like if if I guarantee, I guarantee if you say make the flyer or you say interview me about how to make the flyer, those two outputs, one's gonna be a lot closer to what a human would have come up with all on their own, right? The other one is gonna look like every flyer out there right now just being thrown up on a bar wall, right? That's where we're at.

Jackie Pelegrin 20:38

Exactly. Wow, I love that because it really does put it keeps you in the driver's seat. I love that. Because many times I'll I'll ask, uh, I'll I'll give the AI tool context. Like if I'm working on curriculum, I'll say, I'm working as an instructional designer and I'm doing this, and here's the here's the course, and uh here's the learners, and I try to give it as much context as I can. And but I love that idea of the interview element. I didn't think of that. So I'm gonna try that, even on curriculum and see what's going on. Please do, please do. I will do that. Yeah. And tell all my team members, hey, we need to and train the faculty to do that too, because I can tell you from experience, just from the past six months when faculty started going in and using AI and using it to get ideas for assignments and different elements to help improve the curriculum and courses. I can tell right away it's AI. I'm like, that is AI generated. I can see all the hallmarks of it. And I'm like, they just copied and pasted it. Oh no. What are you doing? We got to change some of it. Right.

Speaker 21:44

I I don't mind when people use AI, but don't be lazy. Don't have the AI do the whole thing. Like you still have to put your brain on it, right? And that's the that's one of the difficult things is we that the psychology of it, by having such a powerful tool, we immediately default to thinking less. Like literally, brains engage less the more you're using an AI tool. And like you have to actively fight that. And I find the interview method fights that because you are engaged the whole time. It's asking you. You're not just standing waiting, like, oh, it's gonna generate a big long thing. No, it's it's gonna generate a huge long list of questions. It's yeah, I can't wait for you to go give it a try. Uh I love that.

Jackie Pelegrin 22:29

And I'm gonna do that.

Speaker 22:30

And then I get I get royalties, uh patent pending, danleeson.com.

Jackie Pelegrin 22:36

I love it. Yeah, because I use it to generate I use it to generate some you know my interviews and things like that, but then I always finesse it. But yeah, I should a I should do that and say, what kind of ask me what kind of questions should I ask this guest or when I do my solo episodes too. Um that's really great.

Speaker 22:56

Give it a constraint though, because sometimes it will never stop, right? It can give you questions and you you have to you have to give it some constraint of or just keep going until you're burnt out and be like, look, I've answered enough questions, just do it now.

Jackie Pelegrin 23:09

Right. Exactly. So maybe say, let's uh let's do five to seven questions to start, see where we're at, you know. Yeah. Uh because that's true. It will, it will really, yeah, it does, it doesn't know how to stop and it just keeps going and going. You're like, oh my goodness, wow. Yeah.

Speaker 3 23:26

That's cool.

Jackie Pelegrin 23:27

I will try that, Dan. That is such great advice. I love it. I appreciate that. So I love how we talked about earlier, Dan, your that your background includes all of these elements improv

Design for Participation With Improv

Jackie Pelegrin 23:38

comedy, immersive entertainment, podcasting, hospitality, and game design. And as you mentioned, those are those are different environments, right? So what have all those experiences taught you about designing for active participation, like with the game, rather than treating people as passive recipients of an experience? Because I think that's where a lot of educators have done that in the past. So, what has that taught you with all those experiences?

Speaker 24:04

Oh, um well, I uh based on the the framing of that question, designing for active participation, I would say uh everybody's the main character. And starting from that place, it's uh it's much more easy, I don't know, to to walk through the user's experience. Uh I I've noticed, and it doesn't matter where uh what industry you're in, there almost always is a cycle of, yeah, but what's the customer, the guest, the user, what's their experience? And then like, what what are we pushing, right? And there's always this back and forth, uh, no matter where, no matter where you're at. And by stepping into the the actual user, customer guests' shoes, we're able to uh hopefully understand their their their side of it, almost like their emotional journey through it. Even if it's uh customer service at a hotel, their complaint, like I checked into a room and it's dirty. Okay, that's they're going through an emotional journey. It's a boring arc. If I was scripting a movie, I probably would have want to have something other than just the dirty room happening, right? Some sort of development, but uh uh it's still that uh that same emotional arc. Uh that's it's it's no different than when you're seeing uh like a like a call center and they're assembling people for the day and they're like, hey, we've got to push these gift cards. I used what I used to do, uh sprint and MCI long distance in the 90s, right? Um The universal thing is being able to look at the situation and apply the rules of improv. Yeah, I should have sorry, should have backed up. Uh the rules of improv be being make make some make make your uh your Steam partner look good. Um yes and uh those those those are the the two main ones that I find are most applicable at any any spot. Uh there takes a there takes an understanding of that guest and user customer experience in order to be able to make that connection. Um and improv gives us those tools of naturally listening to the people that we're interacting with and including, when I say they're the main character, you're including their emotional state and what they're saying to you. You're including it in the moment. Um I have worked for so many hotels where I've witnessed a front desk person just straight tell the guest that they're wrong. And it's like it's weird, it's weird to say that, but like they might not, they might not be like looking him in the eye saying, you're wrong, but their response puts the subtext of the whole interaction as the guest is wrong. And it's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Yeah, I know you didn't say you're wrong, but when your response to the room is dirty is I d I don't know, Maria doesn't make mistakes when she cleans rooms. It's like, okay, well, you just did not accept what they were saying at all. Like, what are you doing here?

Jackie Pelegrin 27:39

You're implying it without saying it. Yeah.

Speaker 27:42

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But the improv teaches us like to yes, end it. Like, yes, and let's get you into a room right away. I, you're tired. Right. Right.

Speaker 2 27:55

Exactly.

Speaker 27:56

You don't even, yeah, you don't even have to like admit culpability in a legal sense. You'd be like, oh my goodness, it's it's awful to have an experience where you walk into a dirty room, right? Like you you can even like lawyer it up and phrase it that way. In just in some way where you're not rejecting. Well, in improv, we call it the offer. You're not rejecting the offer, you're accepting the offer. Um, but yeah, every every walk of life, every business I I've been in, it's all people when it comes down to it. I've I mean, I've never worked with just me and computers. Um, that's weird. Everything, even this game, like where am I now? I'm talking to people. Like I'm I've hit a point in the business where I'm not developing a game anymore. Now I'm developing relationships with people, right? It always comes down and comes back to the human elements. I don't care what you're doing. The human elements are the most important. And the rules of improv apply everywhere.

Jackie Pelegrin 29:00

Everywhere. I love that. You know, and it's interesting too, Dan, because as you were talking about that, it it helped me remember in uh in customer service and in marketing, and even now in instructional design, we use some of the same tools. They cross over from business to education. So in customer service and in marketing, they use what they call a customer journey map. And it has four quadrants in it. I don't know if you've seen it before, but it has what is the customer thinking, feeling, doing, and saying? And then you put all those elements in there and then you build a persona of the customer. And in this case, in education, you build a persona of the learner. So you do that same thing, you do a journey map and figure out what are they, what are they going through? And then you help to, I even tell some of my students, I'm like, if you want, build a character of that persona, print it out, put it on your desk. And then as you're designing that training or that uh that course, then look at that person that you're designing it for and keep them at the center of it. Because it's true, you're gonna they're gonna get competing priorities from stakeholders, right? And um and subject matter experts that are gonna want their own preferences. And I'm like, but wait a minute, what about the learner? What do they want? What do they need, right? So yeah, it's so important. Yeah, it's it's uh yeah, especially when you have all that push and pull, like you talked about, and the tug of war that's happening. Oh, yeah, that's real for sure. Yeah. I love that. That's great. So on to our bonus question, Dan, because I love the bonus question part. This is one of my favorite parts. What is one thing you think traditional

Gamification for School & Work

Jackie Pelegrin 30:37

education could learn from video games that would immediately make learning more engaging?

Speaker 30:43

Oh, definitely sex sells. No.

Speaker 3 30:46

Um That's good.

Speaker 30:48

Uh yeah. Yeah, yeah. We could we can do that with fifth grade geography, right? Sexy it up. Um, I would say it's it's that uh, well, we we talked about it earlier. Um anytime you have a reward, a psychological reward loop, you're gonna get people to engage whether they like it or not. Uh gamifying is is the to me the best way to get to get information into uh heads uh of learners that that uh I mean some some people they just open the book and they absorb the page and they're good. But uh not everybody's like that. And some of us, even when we're excited about it, it it can be difficult to retain the knowledge, even when I want to learn it. That's what I learned about chess. Uh so a little bit of gamification anywhere, it just just make it just makes it so much more palatable, right? Just makes the day better for everybody.

Jackie Pelegrin 31:55

Absolutely. And as I think about this current generation that's coming up, right? Or that's already here, actually, they're not coming. They're here, the alpha generation, I think is what they're calling them now. So they're the ones that grew up with the digital tools and the technology. That's and all these things that are competing, right, for their attention. It's so important now to make sure that we're we're doing good game design and and having those gaming elements that that are um not overwhelming them, but really have purpose, right? In that. So yeah, that's so important.

Speaker 32:27

Look, gamification and the psychology tricks can keep someone pulling a slot machine with the most banal, uninteresting things happening, then we can get it to to learn morals and ethics and machine programming. We can get there. We we can we can do it all. Come on, let's get those games. Let's gamify the whole thing.

Jackie Pelegrin 32:51

Right. I love that. That's great. Uh yeah, I love that, Dan. So as we wrap up, what advice would you give instructional designers like myself, educators, or other creators who want to experiment with new tools and unconventional ideas without losing that human creativity and judgment that make their work more distinctive?

Speaker 33:12

I would say forget that self, shut that ego down, go back to your little kid version of you before you knew who you were, quote unquote, before you knew what everything was, and tap into that original human curiosity, right? A kid doesn't walk into the situation saying, Oh, I know this. They walk into the situation going, oh, I know that I do not know this at all. That curiosity, that that will carry you so far with uh for your human creativity uh and and your new tool usage, right?

Speaker 2 33:54

Right.

Speaker 33:54

That going at it, shutting down that ego and that sense of self, oh, I don't know how to use this tool. Well, if I'm curious and eager, I I'll learn how to use it. If I'm scared that it's replacing me, you'll never learn how to use it, right? Um yeah, just just uh just remember what it was like to be that curious, open, younger self and and do your best to to to bring that into the now, right? You you don't lose your judgment because you're trying to be curious and creative. In fact, you'll find it only gets better.

Jackie Pelegrin 34:29

Oh, that's true. Yeah, because as novices, we yeah, we just want to ask more questions, right? And dig deeper and learn more. Yeah, that's so true. I always uh say to my students and other new instructional designers, I always say, when you're working with subject matter experts, whether it's faculty or stakeholders, anybody, doesn't matter what, whatever you're designing, don't you're not the expert in that content they are and know what your place is and and stay a novice um and know that your lane is to to learn that to have the education piece and the instructional design piece, but let them stay in their lane of being experts in that. Because if I if I become the expert, then why do I need a subject matter expert, right? Yeah, it's yeah, it's uh it's always good to kind of know what my where my expertise is and where theirs is, and then we come together and we make something that's beautiful and and wonderful for learners. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 35:26

Absolutely, absolutely.

Jackie Pelegrin 35:28

Love it. Great. Well, Dan, thank you so much for joining me today and for helping us think differently about learning, creativity, play,

Curiosity First, Then Closing & Support

Jackie Pelegrin 35:36

and the role of AI in the design process. This conversation today is such a great reminder that meaningful learning does not always have to begin with more content or more memorization. Sometimes the better question is how we can create an experience that invites people to participate, experiment, make decisions, and stay curious. So, for Dan, Dan, for anyone that wants to keep learning from you, what's the best place to follow you or connect?

Speaker 36:03

Uh yeah, just go to danleeson.com and that'll that'll point you uh to the the main website. Uh that's danleeson-le-e-s-o-n.com.

Jackie Pelegrin 36:13

One of the things that we're gonna do. Love it. And as I was mentioning offline, I I think your website design is fantastic. It's engaging and it's like, oh, I wanted to just keep you know learning more and so I love it. So it's great.

Speaker 3 36:28

Thank you. Thank you.

Jackie Pelegrin 36:29

You did a great job. Yes. So well, thank you so much again for joining me, and I look forward to having you back on, especially as you start to create more more games and more opportunities for that. I would love to have you back on to talk about uh any updates or anything else you want to share with the listeners.

Speaker 36:48

Fantastic. Thank you, Jackie. That sounds fun.

Jackie Pelegrin 36:51

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