{"id":12,"date":"2007-06-08T22:21:22","date_gmt":"2007-06-09T02:21:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.minkhollow.ca\/KB\/Blog\/?page_id=9"},"modified":"2026-09-07T20:53:51","modified_gmt":"2026-09-08T02:53:51","slug":"about-becker","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/about-becker\/","title":{"rendered":"About Me"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"I am a writer, educator, researcher, designer, farmer, programmer, and lifelong maker of things \u2014 ideas, systems, books, games, courses, gardens, rabbit pedigrees, and occasionally trouble.<\/p>\n

My academic background is in Computer Science and Educational Technology. I hold BSc and MSc degrees in Computer Science, a PhD in Educational Technology, a graduate certificate in Serious Game Design and Research, and certification in instructional design. I spent more than 35 years teaching computer science, game design, digital game-based learning, technical writing, and related subjects, and became internationally recognized for my work on serious games, gamification, and the design of learning systems.<\/p>\n

I have written several books, including Gamification 101: How to Bring Joy Back to Learning By Making Your Classroom Gameful<\/em> (2024) and Choosing and Using Digital Games in the Classroom<\/em> (Springer, 2016), along with many articles, chapters, talks, workshops, and assorted provocations about education, technology, games, and design.<\/p>\n

These days, my interests are broader than any single discipline. I am especially interested in how people think, learn, make decisions, construct explanations, and live inside complex systems. A recurring theme in my work is that good design begins with understanding the system you are actually dealing with rather than the one you wish existed.<\/p>\n

I also run a small farm in rural Alberta, where I raise Rex rabbits and other animals and am continually reminded that real systems are messy, adaptive, nonlinear, and deeply unimpressed by theory. Farming has shaped my thinking about education and design at least as much as academia has.<\/p>\n

I write about whatever currently has my attention: learning, games, design, autism, systems, animals, rural life, technology, abuse and coercive control, human behaviour, and the odd side quest that refuses to stay in its lane.<\/p>\n

I was identified as Autistic later in life, which gave me a new framework for understanding both how I think and why I have spent so much of my life examining systems from the edges rather than accepting their assumptions from the centre.<\/p>\n

At this stage of my life, I am less interested in fitting neatly into a professional category than I am in following interesting questions wherever they lead.<\/p>\n

This blog is where many of those questions end up.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n