Your Project Persona
When you play a computer game, you take on another way of thinking - called a 'persona'. This enables you to think and act as if you are the person in the game - a soldier, a mayor of a city, or a medieval king.
It has amazed teachers just how quickly young people, often ones considered poor readers, can pick up the information required to play the game. We now know this learning process as 'stealth learning' meaning it takes place without us actually thinking about it.
You learned to walk and talk without being aware of the process involved - you were surrounded by people talking and walking, and you saw yourself doing it just like them. In fact, you learned to do a complex balancing act, and master a difficult language without ever thinking that you would not succeed. At no stage does an infant think, "I will have a couple of goes at this walking thing, and if it doesn't work, I will just accept it and give up".
So, stealth learning is not restricted by what is difficult or possible, it is just accepted as though it is already being done. An infant 'talks' as though they are really talking, even when it doesn't seem to make sense. When excited parents take a video of the first few words (or what they think are words), of course the infant believes they are talking. It just gets better the more they act as though they have always been able to talk.
Stealth learning takes place with adults in much the same way as infants learn. We learn quickly when we act as if we are already doing it. We have a picture in our mind of ourselves doing it, and don't think about how difficult or complex it may actually be. Two other factors are important:
- Stealth learning enables us to take on a 'persona' of another person, or act as if we are someone that is successfully doing the task, and leave behind any 'baggage' - thoughts that would tell how difficult it really is
- Stealth learning works best when we are totally absorbed in the task - surrounded and immersed in it. It is our entire focus, and all our thinking is directed to winning and coming out successful. Then we relax, and sometimes surprise ourselves at how well we did. Usually we ask where the time went.
The avec projects require us to think and act 'as if' we are professionals. We apply for a place on the project team, write a vision statement outlining our skills and experience and what we can offer, then undertake the requirements of the project we have chosen. The 'project persona' then, is the description of that person who applied/wrote the vision statement. We are defining our 'persona' or what sort of things make up that person. The definition will be in prose form - a personal profile rather than a resume - and it may include:
- education/training/qualifications
- work history/experience
- major accomplishments - awards, prizes, personal and professional recognition
- defining moments - events that had a major influence on our lives
- influential people - people who have acted as our mentors and role models
- lifestyle - including where we live, car, interests, aspirations
Remember to be consistent - success in one area usually carries over into other areas. You may choose to write it in the first person, or in the third person. An example of each can be viewed here:
Roxanne Simpson (Design Projects)
Andy Maclean (Design Projects)
