Personally, I am not a big “gamer” so to speak. I know friends, and my brother who spend hour upon hours playing games on their computers, or game consoles through the TV. I have never had the pull towards them. As a child I played Mario on Nintendo, and other forms of Mario like Mario cart, and other such games that I cant even remember the names of. I also remember getting a 168 games cartridge that we had to blow on to make it work. People of my generation I am sure have fond and frustrating memories of blowing on the bottom of video games to make them work, or hitting the top of the Nintendo so get it to unfreeze. Now people are playing games online, or using a compact disk, where they can save their games, or talk to people all over the world, and join forces to concur whichever game of their choice.
Unfortunately, that’s about the extent of my experience. I have lightly dabbled in Sims, when it first came out, and the odd game on Facebook, which I lose interest in in about 2 weeks. I find that they don’t keep my attention, and I would rather relax and watch TV or read a book, then play a game, that I struggle with more times then not. Therefore, I was intrigued while reading J.P. Gee’s “What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy.” I liked that he has taken chances to learn the games that his son is playing, and that he finds the good side of video games. It is my belief, and something that I happen to childishly do, is that if someone tells me its bad and not to do it, then of course I do it. We all touch the stove as children even though its “hot!” as humans we are curious and challenging the boundaries of our parents discipline. I see the appeal of video games, but I am also a very social person and the thought of sitting at home, alone, for hours playing a game just didn’t appeal to me as a teenage, nor does it now.
Gee connects the article to teaching in a way that I hadn’t thought of before. He says “…that learning is or should be both frustrating and life enhancing. The key is to finding ways to make hard things life enhancing so that people keep going and don’t fall back in learning and thinking only what is simple and easy” (6) How has this theory not translated into schools? How come we struggle to keep teenagers engaged in material, yet they can go home and choose to play a game of strategy and skill for hours? Are we making school too simple and not relatable for them, or are we just seen as glorified babysitters, to keep them occupied, and only the University driven benefiting from school? These questions were coming to me as I was reading. I do with that he had talked to some teens and expanded his research, (which he may do more into the book. Which I would like to read in full, I just don’t have the time right now.) but to create a reason that kids spend so many hours playing a game that requires skill, thought, problem solving, creative thinking, rapid hand movement and many other skills that we associate with school. Yet we have kids checking out of learning and going home to play “games that are longer, harder, and more challenging” (6) then any schoolwork that they will ever encounter. These games are based on “good learning principles” (6) and they are selling off the shelves like crazy. However a classic novel in a high school may be carted around in a teens backpack without ever being cracked.
So I pose the question…how are we as teachers going to be able to keep kids as interested in our classes as they are to their games? Can we use video games in our classes to teach different genres/subjects/themes etc? Also, if you are a “gamer” so to speak, please tell me the appeal because I really don’t understand it!
The Tagxedo below is of the same game console as above, using the name of games from a-l. It was very interesting, in relation to what Gee said in his article that the main words were: Adventures, kid, challenge, and dragon were the ones that stuck out for me. This just more then reinforces his point of view and what we need to be striving for in classes.
Resources:
Gee, J.P. (2007). “What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy.” New York: Palgrave/Macmillan. Chapter 1. Retrieved Nov. 25, 2012
Gee, J. (2005). “Good Video Games and Good Learning.” Phi Kappa Phi Forum, 85(2), 33-37. Retrieved Nov. 25, 2012
www.tagxedo.com (2007) Retrieved Nov 26, 2012
4 responses so far ↓
mdry // Nov 26th 2012 at 10:50 pm
I blew on a lot of cartridges in my day! My sister and I used to have Super Mario Brothers marathons. However, our favourite and most played nintendo game was Vegas Dream. I don’t know if anyone else ever played it but you boarded a plane and flew to Vegas where you had the choice of four games: black jack, keno, roulette, or the slots! There was also a story line running through it where you could meet someone for drinks at the bar.. maybe they would be a thief who would steal all your money, or maybe you’d end up getting married! It was all extremely exciting. We would play for hours. None of my friends had it so they LOVED coming over to play. Thinking back now, it probably wasn’t the most appropriate game for elementary children with the gambling, alcohol, thievery, and spur of the moment marriage… but I think part of the allure was acting like grown ups. We had money to spend, we felt the rush of never knowing if we would be successful or lose it all, would we find love or get robbed? How would it end? It was a lot more realistic than any of the other games we played. And here we thought kids were playing video games for the fantasy!
I have noticed for me personally that the allure of video games has always been the reality aspect. This is probably the reason that I always hated car racing games, or games with guns (excluding Duck Hunt of course because who didn’t love Duck Hunt?) or zombies. I wanted to play games that were realistic and that I was comfortable with. I currently own an Xbox with a Kinect system. The only games I own are three variations of Rock Band, American Idol Karaoke, Dance Central, and a Sports Pack that features darts, table tennis, bowling, bocce ball, etc.
I know that a lot of people are playing video games for the World of Warcraft games and things like that. But the fascination in the active reality games that came out with the Nintendo Wii and now the Playstation Move and the Xbox Kinect is huge! I feel like this proves that while there is a level of fun in the fantasy games, people by nature are fascinated by reality! I feel that by learning about the patterns and interests of our students when it comes to said games, we will be able to better know our students. I think it proves something I firmly believe in which is that students engage in that which they can relate to in life. Students like video games that allow them to engage in real activities. Thus, when approaching our lessons, we should always be thinking about WHY we teach what we teach, how it relates to the students’ everyday lives and their interests. They want to learn, they just need to understand why what they are learning is relevant!
I am not going to lie… in our evening class tonight, our teacher went off on a tangent. I know he was trying to tell us something extremely important but somewhere along the way, the specific relevance was lost. The information was beginning to sound more like an extreme scenario, or unrealistic approach. It lost practicality and thus lost the class. As I looked around the room, no one was paying attention. Everyone was either trying to stay awake, playing on their computers on screens that were NOTHING to do with class, or texting on their phones. Keeping information clear, relevant, and related to students lives and interests is SO crucial… and apparently that is what I took from readings on Video Games! haha
I think that what was discussed in the reading that you drew attention to, Sarah, in your taxedo is some of the fantasy/adventure. I definitely agree that that is important. There should always be magic and adventure in the classroom. Perhaps a great way to use video games in the classroom to merge fantasy and reality would be to have students create their own video game based on a book read in class. Students will have the practical element of designing a game they are interested in while being able to engage in the assigned reading. For a lot of students, a final project like that might just be the motivation they need to get excited about the book!
I need to stop now.. I am rambling and no longer making sense. Sorry. I just got excited reading your post, Sarah, and I got off on a tagent! I hope I made a point somewhere in here!
kairosman // Nov 26th 2012 at 10:51 pm
Re: What video games have to teach us about learning, let me count the ways (36 and counting!)
Yeah I am not a gamer either, and very suspicious of claims made by the gaming community that playing video games is “educational”, so I too was more than a bit skeptical when I started doing the reading for this week’s topic. But I am very happy that I did! I have come away rethinking many of my assumptions. I am not a complete convert to the cause yet – I continue to have reservations (spiritual ones in particular) – but who has the time to debate the hypothetical consequences of virtual realities for kids who are already suffering from our society’s spiritual deficits while drowning in a 12 month program that should really be a 2 year program (even a 4 year program would be justified!)?
Regardless, you ask, “how are we as teachers going to be able to keep kids as interested in our classes as they are in their games?” And my answer is, to paraphrase Gee, by applying the learning strategies that are embedded in good video games. In the introduction to his book “What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy.”, he makes the following general points to link play, learning and gaming (Gee, 2005):
– Play is integral to learning
– Good video games take 50-100 hours to master
– Traditional ways of thinking and learning are not helpful in learning a new video game
– A video game becomes popular only if it has got effective learning principles built into it
– Kids prefer video games to the classroom because video games’ learning theories are more relevant to kids’ lived reality and experiences
The following empirically-validated cognitive theories of learning are said by Gee in his book to be built into successful video games (Gee, 2005):
1. Situated cognition: Learners embedded in particular material and social worlds that mediate learners’ conceptual frames/lens (scientific approach)
2. New Literacy Studies: reading/writing take place as social/cultural practices that have economic/historical/political implications (critical theory approach)
3. Connectionism: humans don’t think as well using logic and abstract principles than when they reason on the basis of patterns they have picked up on from their lived experiences, what it is to be networked with other people and technologies that so that one can be “smarter” than one is individually
English and Biology are not “sets of facts”, but “‘games’ that certain types of people ‘play’, deploying their respective disciplines’ tools, languages and discourses and upholding disciplinary values peculiar to each field, ie ‘playing’ by a certain set of ‘rules’” (Gee, 2005, p. 34). Further, they are said to “do” English and Biology (Gee, 2005, p. 34). The games kids play are described as “affinity spaces” where kids “bond” mostly to an endeavor or interest and secondly, if at all, to each other (Gee, 2005, p. 23.) This sounds much like the English department at UBC in the 90s where I disliked most of the people but loved what I was learning.
As kids now live in “technologically remediated worlds, their school’s fidelity to traditional ways and means of educating becomes correspondingly unsustainable (de Castell et al, 2007, p. 597). A new “attentional economy is one important result of the now multi-billion-dollar entertainment industry vying for the attention of children and youth” (de Castell et al, 2007, p. 597), the upshot being teachers have to compete for their students’ attention. Perhaps instead of playing a losing hand, we should be thinking of developing curricula/pedagogies along the same lines as those video-game developers incorporate into the games they create?
Highlights of Gee’s 36 ways reasons to stop worrying and adopt educational theories embedded in games (Gee, 2005, 34-37):
– Video games capture players through empowering them to adopt various avatars/identities of their choosing.
– Words and deeds are all placed in the context of an interactive relationship between the player and the virtual world.
– Games encourage players to “write” the worlds in which they live ie they are producers not just consumers.
– Failure is a good thing ie initial failures are ways to find the boss’s pattern and to gain feedback about the progress being made (sounds like figuring out your prof doesn’t it?).
– Games have different difficulty levels, and allow players to solve problems in different ways, and at each player’s own pace ie they are customizable.
– The problems players face are ordered so that the earlier ones are well built to lead players to form hypotheses that work well for later, harder problems.
– Games always situate the meanings of words in terms of the actions, images, and dialogues that they relate to, and show how they vary across different actions, images, and dialogues.
– Good games stay within, but at the outer edge, of the player’s “regime of competence” or ZPD in Vygotsky-speak.
– Good games encourage players to think about relationships, not isolated events, facts, and skills.
Enough said.
Works Cited
de Castell, S., Jenson, J., & Taylor, N. (2007). Digital games for education: When meanings play. Situated Play, DiGRA Conference, Tokyo, Japan. 590-599.
Gee, J.P. (2005). Good video games and good learning. Phi Kappa Phi Forum, 85(2), 33-37.
Gee, J. P. (2005). What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
lwchan // Nov 26th 2012 at 11:31 pm
Perhaps I may tag on to Sarah’s sentiments and frustrations towards gaming and its connections to education. In “Good Video Games and Good Learning”, James Paul Gee points out that “players will not accept easy, dumbed-down, or short games”, so why do students feign to pick up a Jane Austen classic over a Stephanie Meyers book? Why might students be more inclined to read the graphic novel Romeo and Juliet: The War over the Shakespearean play? Indeed, Gee raises a notable observation and inquiry; however, I wonder if we can actually draw succinct and direct parallels between the two activities. The purposes youth engage in gaming are different from the reasons why youth may read books. Gee asserts that the interactive nature of video games and the invitation for the player to be part of the game attract youth to be active agents in the experience. In other words, where games seem to be active, “books are passive; you cannot get them to talk back to you in a real dialogue the way that a person can face-to-face.” Youth will run out to purchase the next interactive video game over the “static” paper novel.
However, when I consider my passion for classic literature and the pleasure (including pleasure in frustration) of reading a complex text, I find the sentiment that “books are passive” as quite reductive and judgmental. As my critical thinking and literacy skills were nurtured through my education and engaging in different discourses around conventional paper texts, I found myself growing to be an active learner, thinker, and consumer of English literature. I do not believe that I was “passive” simply because I could not manipulate the setting or plot of a story nor engage in a conversation with the characters. Reading literature enabled me to develop as an active learner and thinker about life. This learning empowered my mind to perceive the world and society in a variety of ways. This is the learning I intend to impart to younger generations. Though I am no expert on him, a quote by Leo Tolstoy truly resonates with me in that “people usually think that progress consists in the increase of knowledge, in the improvement of life, but that isn’t so. Progress consists only in the greater clarification of answers to the basic questions of life.” I am skeptical as to how playing “Halo” or “World of War Craft” will enable students to engage in learning that goes beyond negotiating tasks and problem-solving in the virtual world. How will gaming teach students to be active learners in a more internalized and mindful way? How will students learn that being an active learner does not always mean being engaged in one particular fashion?
At times, in considering my disconnect from the technology and forms of media that twenty-first century learners are engaged in, I cannot help but assume an “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” philosophy. However, I realize that this attitude will not take me far down the path of teaching. Surely Gee’s research has its merits and it is through gaming where educators can “hook” students into learning that is mastery-oriented over performance-oriented. I do not doubt the learning values Gee outlines in the article; however, I would like to challenge the idea of books as passive learning tools and video games as active learning tools and further consider that as educators, privileging one over the other is wherein imbalances and discrepancies take root.
maya // Nov 28th 2012 at 10:30 am
Good question! Yes; we should incorporate video game technology into our classrooms; but how? And separate from that, how do we apply their appealing characteristics into what we are already doing in the classroom?
Video Games are so popular at the library; I am attempting myself to learn more about their appeal. I don’t have the statistics at hand, but I can tell you anecdotally that an enthusiastic “Where are the video games?!?!?!” is one of the most frequently asked questions at the Children’s Information desk at Central. (So popular that we recently added Video Game collections to four branches, in the North, South, East and West areas, to provide easier access to the collection.)
An aside: I had to laugh the other day when two 6-7 year old boys were talking to one another about games and one of them said, “My brother plays those ones (pointing at the Teen Collection) but you wouldn’t like them, because of their mature content.” The other boy nodded, looking quite serious.
So yes, this is a hot topic right now not only in the educational/academic literature but the world of Children’s Librarians, too. When we first started adding video games to the collection we needed an entire sub-committee to do so, so that there were people who could familiarize themselves with the most popular games, the “must-haves”. We now have children and teens involved with our buying process, so we get first hand information as to what we should have in the collection.
On a personal note, it was interesting for me to be doing these readings this week because I let my son play video games for the very first time this week. (I have been avoiding his introduction to computers/cell phones, etc. I have made a choice as a parent to wait as long as possible to expose him to the world of technology. We don’t have television, and he’s not permitted to use my cell phone because it is “a grown-up tool, not a toy”. Without getting too deep into my personal philosophies, let’s just say that I am so troubled by the influence of media and the consumerism aspect of technology that I made the choice to counter that influence with a home environment that resists the push of products onto preschoolers, toddlers, and even babies. It’s all I can do. At any rate, this week he was home for three days, sick and I was desperately trying to get work done and I gave in and set him up on CBC Kids and showed him some games he could play. They are the games I introduce kids to at the library, when parents ask for a recommendation for video games (for children under ten-ish). It was very interesting for me to watch my son play these games because his commentary was is sync with everything we just read. I guess this is the beginning of the end of my successful resistance to the role of technology in the home I had a good run!
I recently read a research article that spoke to the importance of keeping video games fun when incorporating them into the classroom. The key message I got from the author was that through our well placed desire to incorporate gaming technology into the classroom we must not inadvertently fail our students by taking something that is appealing to young people and turn it into something that feels like “school-work”. The author explains, “We should help students harness the energy, proficiency, and enjoyment of virtual experiences and explore the multi-disciplinary applications…without forcing content or turning what students enjoy into “school work”. (Schamroth, 2010.) The author noted that student feedback is integral to empowering teachers to apply video game technology engagingly, successfully. The author witnessed that the students who informed her research were engaging in a typically recreational pastime and were therefore engaged as “seemingly autonomous learners, not subject to school-based assessment of judgment” and suggested that students’ “play” needs to be accepted as a useful tool to experience learning and demonstrate achievement. (Schamroth, 2010) “Perhaps then, “the author proclaims, “educators will more consistently and productively integrate video games…valuing digital literacies and virtual environments and their contribution to innovative learning…” (Schamroth, 2010.)
In Gee’s article he speaks of the importance of forming a gaming “identity”. He explains that “good” video games “capture” players through this sense of identity; personal meaning and connection to the game is amplified by the ability to see their self in the game. (Something that is difficult to do with say, a textbook.) On this note, my son spent an inordinate amount of time choosing a name that represented his character. We had to enter his full name, and then the letters were scrambled to form different words, giving him dozens of examples from which to choose his character’s name. He was very invested in this process.
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I also identified with Gee’s comments about agency and control. We know that ownership of an individuals’ pedagogical approach is integral to forming meaningful connections. And Gee is right in his assertion that generally this sense of control and ownership is not commonplace in the traditional classroom, with its emphasis on streamlining and standardization.
The other point that I identified with is the ability of video games to support learners at various levels of print literacy comprehension. My son is an emerging reader, so I was worried about him being able to play without recognizing all of the words on the screen. I didn’t want him to feel discouraged, so I started pointing out directions and instructions, and he said, “I know Mama, he just said that!” (pointing to his earphones where he was listening to the audio accompaniment of the game). So, we have now entered the world of gaming. I have to say, I’m glad I have someone in my home who will be able to support my learning of this tool, and keep me up to date over the years
Works Cited:
Gee, J. (2005). Good Video Games and Good Learning. Phi Kappa Phi Forum, 85(2), 33-
37. Web.
Abrams Et Al., Sandra Schamroth. “Digital Worlds and Shifting Borders.”New Media Literacies and Participatory Popular Culture Across Boarders. London, England.: Routledge, 2010. Print.
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