Stephen Downes

The term 'Creepy Treehouse' has caught some currency recently. Barbara Fister explains, "A creepy treehouse is a place built by scheming adults to lure in kids. Kids tend to sense there's something creepy about that treehouse and avoid it. Hence, a new definition: 'Any institutionally-created, operated, or controlled environment in which participants are lured in either by mimicking pre-existing open or naturally formed environments, or by force, through a system of punishments or rewards.'"