HANSE: The evolution of cooperation - computer simulations of trade and interactionThe Hanseatic League, providing the project's acronym HANSE, was a successful union of cities centuries ago, it can be seen as an example of transnational cooperation of which neither only the rich, nor only a few cities, nor only some traders profitted. No, the wealth that was created supported regional economic success and lead to thriving communities. Re-creating HANSE as a trading game is just an example of what we wish to do, students are encouraged to be creative and produce a couple of very different trading games. But what about the rules?The PRISONER'S DILEMMA is in fact a model situation, it is all about two basic choices in life. They are in a way "digital yes or no" choices, which groups as well as group members, humans beings as well as plants and animals, money making corporations as well as political or regional or social groups, have to make. This is because even if there are more than two ways of solving a problem or conflict, these ways can usually either be seen as examples of cooperation or defection (a term which means "cheating"). So this model situation has been studied in the 1980s, known as "Axelrod's tournaments", in which cooperative strategies proved to be superior, winning the game. We do not just wish to repeat these competitions, using much improved tools in modern IT. We wish to vary parameters and study a variety of different situations as can be found in "real life". Not in order to understand why cooperation can evolve, but in order to EXPERIENCE why cooperation can evolve, even in so-called "asocial environments or groups".In other words, we wish to design situational contexts, or learning environments, designed at vocational schools, to be used at any school, mainly created by IT and business courses, but also to be useful in any course at schools and at work, later on. Even better, the learning environments and contexts will not be used to tell students to learn, they are meant to let them experience what the title of Axelrod's book, "The Evolution of Cooperation", promises. And what mankind needs, cooperation rather than common failure.The practical concept of HANSE is a 4-step procedure. First students create their own trading games during their classes, integrated into the classes and improving teaching in vocational college courses. Then the trading simulations are converted in software simulations of interaction. After that, the best strategies and results are compared to real life situations, to experience and understand when and how we can profit from cooperation, not just money-wise. Eventually our material, hands-on experience, and the software are turned into "packages" to be passed on to other schools, to provide ideas, instructions, lesson plans, Internet support and anything else so that classes elsewhere can relive the experience of the "evolution of cooperation", instead of being taught to cooperate.Apart from our wish to enrich teaching and strengthening key competences, we also wish to point out that the teaching profession can be experienced as a thrilling passtime rather than a duty to make a living. Other side effects are naturally centered around EU awareness and the insight, that only democratic environments provide the grounds for success in any respect. Students from different countries will come together, and they will keep exchanging ideas after the project. Naturally, cultural competences, teaching and learning languages, and developing a better command of ESP (English for Special Purposes), these topics are all meant to play a very important role in HANSE.
HANSE: The evolution of cooperation - computer simulations of trade and interaction The Hanseatic League, providing the project's acronym HANSE, was a successful union of cities centuries ago. The 'Hanse' can be seen as an example of transnational cooperation of which neither only the rich, nor only a few cities, nor only some traders profitted. No, the wealth that was created also supported regional economic success and lead to thriving communities. Students were encouraged to re-create HANSE and produce a couple of very different model trading games. These were actually simulations of interaction, which also mirror dealing with other conflicts or competition in society, in 'real life'. And the rules? The PRISONER'S DILEMMA is in fact a model situation about two basic choices in life. So they are in a way 'digital' choices, you can usually cooperate of cheat, or you can help or refuse to help. Such choices are made by humans beings as well as plants and animals, by money making corporations as well as political or regional or social groups or individuals. In academic studies of 'real life' conflicts, the so-called GAME THEORY, these decisions are usually seen as examples of cooperation or defection (a term which means "cheating"), and they are made in an 'iterative' way, again and again, for example in early (1980s) computer simulations known as 'Axelrod Tournaments', in which basically cooperative strategies proved to be superior, winning the game. We did not only wish to repeat these computer tournaments, using much improved tools in modern IT. We wished to vary parameters and study a variety of different situations as can be found in 'real life'. We wished to design situational contexts, or learning environments, to be used by anyone, even if they think cheating pays, as people in so-called 'asocial environments or groups' might believe. We did NOT want to tell students that cheating is bad, we wished the students to try out strategies on their own. To EXPERIENCE what the title of Axelrod's book, "The Evolution of Cooperation", promises. And what mankind needs, cooperation rather than common failure. The practical concept of HANSE was a 4-step procedure. First students created their own trading games during classes, improving teaching in vocational college courses. Then the trading simulations were converted into software simulations of interaction. After that, the best strategies and results were compared to real life situations, in order to experience and understand when and how players can profit from cooperation, not just money-wise. Eventually our material, hands-on experience, and the software were turned into 'packages' (webpages plus material) to be passed on to other schools, to provide ideas, instructions, lesson plans, Internet support and anything else so that classes elsewhere can relive the experience of the 'evolution of cooperation'. Apart from our goal to enrich teaching and strengthening key competences, we also wished to point out that the teaching profession can be experienced as a thrilling passtime rather than a duty to make a living. After all, we decided to keep all the good games and simulations, not only online simulations, because we had experienced how valuable they are, including the games played on the classroom desks. There is an overview plus teachers' information on http://hanse-dilemmas.net/main-page.html. Because of legal issues we publish photos and personal data elsewhere, not on this internet platform: hanse-dilemmas.net. HANSE is never finished, it will be going on for years. This stems from our 'snowball system' of dissemination, we mainly use personal contacts between schools to pass on the games and simulations that are best choices for the schools that we know and contact. And then HANSE will hopefully spread ... Why don't YOU join in? :) Other side effects were naturally centered around EU awareness and the insight, that only democratic environments provide the grounds for success in any respect. Students from different countries came together, and they still keep exchanging ideas after the project. Naturally, cultural competences, teaching and learning languages, and developing a better command of ESP (English for Special Purposes), all these topics were all meant to play a very important role in HANSE. And did so.