In 2009, Sykes and Holden began working on Mentira, a design-based research (DBR) project and game-based curriculum. Years later, Mentira is gone. In many ways, we would say the project has failed. Consideration of the details illuminates general truths regarding the potential of DBR to result in innovation at scale. Success and failure are not as simple as we typically understand them. Metrics and mechanisms common to researchers describe only a small facet of projects’ lives and deaths, missing most of what looks to be important to sustenance and growth. Without major attention given to broader goals and practices, we overlook likely ways to go from idiosyncratic experiment to meaningful impact. We look at why Mentira died and what lives on in its place, with advice for other practitioners and scholars of educational technology.
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