00:00.00 archpodnet Welcome to the show. Everyone Paul how you doing. 00:02.50 Paul I am still doing okay, um, the the project that we've mentioned before of going off to the field again has been pushed back by another week so I think that means I get an extra recording with you in addition to this week's which is exciting I'm looking forward to to you know everything that we can do before I go. 00:32.98 archpodnet Ah, yeah. 00:42.12 Paul And last week I kind of fell into a project. That's that's pretty cool. It's ah it's a mapping project with an historical group out of Yorktown heights in New York and they're trying to find the locations of roschabos a number of Rochambau's camps from. 81 and 1782 when when the french army was here as part of the american revolutionary war. so ah so yeah I'm doing this as a volunteer but ah, again, it's that intersection of archeology and technology and public education and all these ah these things that mean a lot to me. 01:23.20 archpodnet Um. 01:50.46 archpodnet Nice, nice. That's really cool I am in well technically ocean city but the bigger town is ocean Shores Washington it's over on the Pacific Coast kind of south well kind of central central Washington Coast I guess so to speak right on the pacific ocean. In fact, there's a trail. 01:51.88 Paul Ah, you doing Chris where are you. 02:29.52 archpodnet 15 minutes to my right as I'm sitting here is the pacific ocean. It's all cloudy and crazy out there. So yeah, it's just started raining and it's cloudy. So not so much. But ah. 02:43.20 Paul Nice good weather. Yeah, but you like that. Ah. 03:05.82 archpodnet I do actually love it. It's not so good for our tech setup in here because our solar panels on the roof we were. We were up in the Washington Peninsula for the week before this and I had to run the generator every day because our eighteen hundred Watts of solar on the roof was not enough to keep the batteries topped off because it just wasn't we we were maybe getting. 03:09.92 Paul Oh. 03:39.50 archpodnet 5 six hundred Watts of peak solar during the day and then it would just trail off on both sides of that and that's just not enough to to keep everything going so had to run the generator this park we're at has has plugins. So yeah, it's crazy right? Yeah, it's a. 03:52.52 Paul Wait am I hearing this right? It's it's raining in the Pacific Northwest Yeah, this world. Ah. 04:16.64 archpodnet I don't understand it speaking of a crazy world. Let's talk about gamifying education and we are bringing on a guest I actually I get random emails from people saying hey this person might be good for an interview and to be honest. Most people just see network or they see podcasts and they send it out without thinking and I get these just like totally off the wall requests for interviews for people and ah this was kind of one of those things I thought and I was looking at it and I was like wait a minute. I was just like almost ready to hit delete and I was like actually this sounds kind of interesting and I think we could make this work for this podcast and I really want to talk to this guy. So ah, let me tell you first a little Bitt a little bit about jdcaivelli okay, that's where I'm going to put the bio. All right? Jd welcome to the show. 02:55.90 JD Calvelli Hi. Thanks so much. It's really really awesome to be here. Super excited to speak to you and the rest of your listeners. 06:04.70 archpodnet Fantastic! Well why don't we just start by learning a little bit about the very well named and makes me want to work there center for radical innovation and social change at the University Of Chicago what kind of stuff are you guys doing there. 03:34.66 JD Calvelli Yeah, for sure. Um, so the the center for risk um of risk as we affectionately shorthandedly call it? Um, so it was a it's It's somewhere between a social innovation lab ah think tank and a nonprofit. 06:44.18 archpodnet Nice. 07:03.34 archpodnet Month. 04:10.78 JD Calvelli Ah, sort of sits in this interesting space. Ah in between a bunch of different areas of thought um and and of Knowledge. So We're affiliated with the university but we don't really have the same incentive structures as like a University department would or University research would. Um, we aren't a for- Profitfit Enterprise We don't have the same incentive structure of having to appeal to a profit motive or a profit incentive and you know, ah we we are. We are a nonprofit but we aren't a traditional nonprofit in the sense that we don't necessarily have to apply for grants or anything like that We have. We're Luckily we're lucky lucky enough. 07:52.40 archpodnet Um. 05:24.90 JD Calvelli Excuse me luckily enough, we're we're able to be funded by generous donations which is really awesome, but we're started by Steve Levitt the author of freakonomics sort of because he did a lot of work right? He he thought um, a lot about. 08:41.53 archpodnet Wow. 05:57.98 JD Calvelli How the world is an interesting place and we don't always look at it from the right angles. Um, and we don't necessarily take ah the right meanings or the right? Um, Hush should I say this? um we don't necessarily we we depend a lot on conventional wisdom ah to kind of guide the way in which we approach. 08:58.38 archpodnet Um. 09:23.56 archpodnet No. 06:36.68 JD Calvelli Ah, different elements of the world and he was sort of like well I don't know about that. Ah, it might be interesting to sort of take an outsiders ah opinion or an outside perspective sort of unencumbered and unfettered by these other incentive structures to see what's really going on in some of these spaces and try to do some genuine good. Um, so. 09:34.84 archpodnet Nice. 09:39.30 Paul Or. 07:16.88 JD Calvelli That's the the long and the short of it. It's very new organization. So we're we're still kind of figuring out where we are and what we do um but we have a lot of different projects in a lot of different spaces one of which I'm here to talk to you all about today I imagine. 10:14.28 archpodnet Yeah. 10:36.60 archpodnet Okay. 10:33.60 Paul Yeah I need to find out more about this I Do think that that where you're just saying looking at the world from multiple angles. That's something that we're constantly trying to remind ourselves and that's why your project and risk were appealing to christen me. Ah, because even though this isn't about archeology or directly. 10:54.78 archpodnet Yeah. 11:13.50 Paul Applic to archeology that willingness to step back outside of our comfort zone outside of our normal perspectives talk to somebody that doesn't do what we do to try to find out where these intersections of ah culture and technology intersect with what we do try to do and you know and you know. View the world view our work view our interpretations from multiple angles that's ah, that's a really big thing and ah before we jump into it I also you know Chris I don't know if you recall but ah back in November of 2017 we interviewed Joshua Fairfield episode None 12:29.74 archpodnet Laha. 12:32.24 Paul And it was a similar sort of thing he was talking about his book owned. It had nothing to do with archeology but it had a lot to do with technology and the ownership of technology and such and so that was a nice intersection I keep on thinking about that book and thinking about that discussion that we had because it's um. 12:43.58 archpodnet Red. 13:04.68 archpodnet No. 13:08.94 Paul It's resonated over these last few years and I'm hoping that that some of what we talk about with JD today does the same. 13:23.40 archpodnet Yeah, absolutely and None off JD you kind of had me at Steve Levitt because ah every time I I listen to ah you know I listen to a lot of archeology podcast network podcasts as a producer and I've kind of had to stop listening to some others but I used to be. 10:37.20 JD Calvelli Ah, is. 13:56.28 archpodnet Ah, pretty religious listener of freakonomics and anytime they'd bring on Steve Levitt I was just like oh my god this guy he's just like speaking everything that you know is right because he just is so kind of like deadpan and and matter of fact, with his opinions. It's just amazing I love it. But. 14:07.52 Paul And. 11:20.40 JD Calvelli Yeah, he's um, he's he's a really interesting guy and our office is really small. We're only about 16 analysts so we get to work directly with him and he's just he's just amazing. He's super intelligent really interested in. 14:34.90 archpodnet Um, yeah, that's awesome. 11:57.14 JD Calvelli You know like I said sort of challenging conventional wisdom thinking about how we could how we could ah think about certain things differently try to find the truth kind of hidden in the details. Um, and I hope you know some of that has has rubbed off on me in my in my time with risk and and will continue to going forward. 14:56.58 archpodnet Um. 15:24.22 archpodnet Yeah, absolutely So. We're going to talk about you know one of the things that you wanted to talk about on this show. But I'm just Wondering. Do you guys as as analysts do you. Are you working on a number of projects right now or are you super like hyper focused on on a project with a team. How does that work. 13:01.40 JD Calvelli Yeah, so um, it sort of depends. But in general we we tend to cycle around on a bunch of different projects. So I've had the the benefit of working in a bunch of different areas. Although mostly um, my interest area has kind of driven me into the space of. 16:11.24 archpodnet Um. 13:37.84 JD Calvelli Education and modernizing education and how we can sort of improve educational outcomes. Um, but some other sort of projects that I've that I've worked on thus far at risk have been working with a company that has developed an algorithm to predict Earthquakes Um, which was previously considered to be unpredictable. 17:02.26 Paul Oh. 14:16.71 JD Calvelli Or which were rather previously considered to be unpredictable. Um, so we're working with them sort of to build out um an api to validate the extent to which um, they actually are able to predict earthquakes another project that I that I worked on was with a group out of New York that was interested in utilizing beatbox. Ah, for speech therapy. So we worked with them to try to help them develop a ah randomly controlled trial um to discuss or rather a sorry me backup we work with them to ah to help work to develop a randomly controlled trial. 18:13.50 archpodnet Ah. 15:31.56 JD Calvelli To test whether their curriculum actually does ah benefit students with speech impediments. Um, so you know just a bunch of kind of the spaces where like people maybe aren't necessarily looking to find um to find good or to find social good the spaces where. Where there isn't so much Um, attention Drawn. We We tend to look. 19:13.24 archpodnet Chirp. Okay, nice. 19:13.52 Paul Um, I'm going to actually yeah at the risk of derailing it which is my main function on this podcast. Um you use the word analysts and not researchers and that is interesting to me. There's got to be a backstory to that. 16:29.50 JD Calvelli Ah. 16:49.10 JD Calvelli Yeah I think um, not sure for the backstory. But I think a lot of it comes down to a lot of people that that come to risk come with a more data analytics background. Um, and so that was that was partially. 20:07.32 Paul M. 17:23.90 JD Calvelli Ah, where I came to risk from I was political theory um with like applied political theory lens which is kind of like an oxymoron I think if you think about it? Um, but so a lot of my work in in political theory was sort of with. The application side the data analytics side. Um there and I think a lot of other people come to risk with a similar background in terms of like approaching problems from a data-driven perspective and trying to suss out. Um some interesting information from from. You know, ah datasets and whatnot and you know that's that's Steve's big thing Steve is a huge fan of of taking data and looking at data and thinking about oh well, what is this data actually showing us or what is this data actually telling us as opposed to what we think um, you know or what we assume it would be telling us. So. 21:36.30 archpodnet No. 21:34.10 Paul Even. 19:12.82 JD Calvelli That's I think where the analyst term comes from but we do our fair bit of researching as well. 22:11.62 Paul Well I would assume I was just ah, a little hung up on that that title as being not what I expected and just so maybe that's look at the world from different angles and you know give it give yourself a title. It's not necessarily what one would expect in a research environment. 19:32.64 JD Calvelli Yes. 19:47.70 JD Calvelli Would expect? Yeah, but. 22:51.40 Paul That's kind of ah what that's eating your own dog food to a certain extent. 23:02.26 archpodnet All right? So probably in segment two we're going to talk about the game. You guys have developed or are developing called algorithm and before we get there though. I've got the title of this podcast. Hopefully I don't change it after this recording I've got the title of this podcast and and and in the intro we're talking about. Gamification of Education. So as you guys are looking around and and identifying places that you know need help that you can that you can do something for as you mentioned what made you land on gamification as a way to help education because there's probably lots of ways we can try to help education since it's. Incredibly flawed in a lot of ways. 21:22.12 JD Calvelli Yeah I think um I think there's a lot of ways in which education needs help and we hope that ah that it can be helped in every possible way that it can be um, we decided to take a look at the gamification space particularly because it seems.. It's new enough where it's interesting, but it's not established enough yet where it's really well understood exactly what it means in our opinion to to like gamify education. It's very hot I think a lot of people kind of like oh yes, let's let's gamify everything. 24:57.74 archpodnet Move me. 22:35.38 JD Calvelli Um, let's let's talk about how we can make everything into a game because it will incentivize people to do things. Um, but that's like the the exact ways in which in which that's going to work in the education space is still very much on the up and up in terms of how that's going to to happen so we found that an interesting space. Um, also Steve you know as a. Um, as an academic. He's very interested not only in data analytics. But also um, behavioral economics and he's often often described as like a behavioral economist. Um, and you know while I was not a behavioral economics major um I've been surrounded by individuals who who know far more about it than me. And None of the most important things about behavioral economics one of the most interesting things about behavioral economics at least to me in my time at risk so far has been about um incentives and incentive structures and I've used that word incentive I think like a none times at this point already and it's only been like 10 minutes but 27:03.58 archpodnet Okay. 27:00.66 Paul Are. 24:23.54 JD Calvelli I think it will come up a lot more as as we continue to talk but the idea the idea you know behind incentives and nudges of like how do we get people to do things that they otherwise don't necessarily want to do um and education and gamification of education kind of spits in that mental model of like. Okay, in some cases. Kids don't necessarily want to engage in education or the education system as it currently exists can we utilize gamification can we utilize? um you know games and interactive art and experiences like that to try to incentivize students. Um. To engage and with with things that otherwise they might not be interested in engaging in and hopefully spark an interest in those things going forward. Yeah, even if they didn't think that they would have an interest in them. So That's sort of I think ah why we decided to to look at the gamification angle specifically. 29:00.64 archpodnet Yeah, and that's tough with education too right? because it's not just education as a buzzword. It's education of certain topics and I'm just thinking about like normal normal games and and specifically like video game type stuff I mean a lot of the things that. Stick with people are some of the more harder tasks but still entertaining in ah in a way that makes you want to do it over and over and over and over again to either try to better your time or you know just do better at it and then something just sticks in your brain. Obviously if you do that thing through repetition and trying to get people to do that and also teach them something valuable. Not just. How to shoot and kill aliens in a more efficient way is the is is a huge challenge I can imagine. 27:17.44 JD Calvelli Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Um and I think the the you know the way in which we've been thinking about it. So I come from a game design background I studied sort of interactive art as well. Um, and game design prior to coming to risk I was kind of an odd duck I think for for risk before getting there which was which is cool because I came with a different perspective in a different mindset which I think is exactly what Steve's looking for in terms of people showing up. You know? Um, but. 31:15.38 archpodnet Exactly. 31:16.60 Paul He. 28:29.12 JD Calvelli You know one of the things 1 of the things about um, that problem sort of is a fundamental game design problem of like how do you design a mechanic. How do you design a function. How do you design the activity. Um that the player is going to undertake in such a way that they'll be interested in continuing to undertake that thing. 31:53.84 archpodnet Um. 29:08.74 JD Calvelli Um, to do it over and over and over again. Um, and that's hard enough when you aren't also including um the educational aspect right? It's hard enough when you aren't also trying to teach them ah something about the world or something about you know anything. So it's definitely something that we're we're exploring um and it's definitely a fundamental. Ah you know concern. 32:15.20 archpodnet Rep. 29:48.48 JD Calvelli When it comes to making games. Let alone educational games. Um, so you know we're trying our best and and hopefully we've made Hopefully we've made something that can at least start a conversation about how we can try to do that better going forward. 33:11.42 archpodnet Okay, well I think with that we will take our none break and on the other side we're going to talk about the game. You guys have developed again called algorithm and it's all about data science and we'll get. We'll get into that in the meantime we've got some ads coming up if you want to. Help us out for the archeology podcast network be sure to head over to http://arcpodnet.com/membersand you can help us out for less than a Netflix Netflix subscription a month and about the same as an expensive coffee at Starbucks so that's not too bad and you keep this kind of education out in the space back in a minute.