It's flashy! It's fun! It's a waste of students' time and attention!

"I ain't saying you treated me unkind," sang Bob Dylan. "You just kinda wasted my precious time."

From X:

Figen posts a video of a teacher who brought a PlayStation to class to use Assassin's Creed to teach about the Industrial Revolution.

This is a distraction and a waste of time, responds Tom Bennett. It gets students to expect bells and whistles.

SoL in the Wild agrees it's "100% terrible." He blames constant messages to teachers to make lessons fun, fun, fun. Learning is supposed to "feel relevant to students’ lives, be fun, and revolve around engaging, activity-based experiences," he writes. But, dressing something as a game "distracts from the content and decreases the likelihood that students actually learn the concept you’re trying to teach."

It's "cringe," he writes. "Most students don’t need, or want, school to mimic their entertainment or digital lives. They want clarity. They want teachers to get to the point and help them understand something they didn’t know before."

Merced, California schools have signed $610,000 in contracts for "education through entertainment" offered by School Yard Rap. That will pay for an "African American Affinity Camp" for 100 students, who will explore their identity, learn about African-American history, create hiphop and rap songs, DJ and dance. There's also a summer "Rap Camp" and other activities. Less than 5 percent of Merced students are black; 69 percent are Hispanic.

School Yard Rap's founder, Brandon Brown, says the African American Affinity Camp is open to all students, despite the name. His company now works with schools in 28 states.