de Castell and Jenson (2003) – Serious Play: Curriculum for a Post-Talk Era
- de Castell and Jenson contend that the digital medium exposes the fallacy of language representing human intelligence.
- Education is shackled to this outmoded method of thinking which has removed play from learning and ignores the efficient manner in which video games teach.
- Serious play allows players/students to become fully absorbed in a subject on their own timeline which education could benefit from by restructuring to allow for engagement beyond the achievement of learning outcomes.
- de Castell and Jenson discuss the ability games have to allow a player to dive into a subject with their attention fully engrossed in their activity but it could be argued that an increasingly important skill for 21st century learners is one of communication and empathy that may be difficult to fit into what sounds like a single-player experience.
- de Castell and Jenson conclude by stating how play can save educational goals which brings to mind the practice of ‘play therapy’ which helps patients find creative solutions, develop empathy, and learn new skills to relate to others with which may alleviate the previous concern.
- de Castell and Jenson postulate a re-tooling of the curriculum which brings up the question of learning support and inclusive schooling and how might students with learning disabilities would integrate into a system based on serious play. A common obstacle faced in education is the rival causes of advancing a student to remain at an age-appropriate socio-emotional level versus the student’s mastery of concepts so it would be interesting to find out how a play-based model might address this issue.
Squire (2008) – Video game literacy: A literacy of expertise
- Squire argues that literacy can be expanded to include video games which have revolutionized the way we consume knowledge/information
- Squire describes games as synthetic spaces for action that are transforming traditional structures such as narrative by using space instead.
- Squire further claims that games developed to challenge students and arouse curiousity in education is imperative for students to find success
- Squire contends that historical role playing games are useful to foster game literacy but this does not take into account the importance of historical and cultural bias that may go into these games’ development and may skew the representation of non-dominant cultures or minorities.
- Squire describes the digital space as one where participants produce rather than merely consume which coincides with the higher levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy of analysis and synthesis
- A question that arose while reading the section on using commercially available games is how can we avoid the disenfranchisement of our diverse student population? Gaming communities certainly do have multicultural and diverse populations in them but there are real disparities in the representation of cultures and peoples in video games. While working in the Arctic with an entirely indigenous population I struggled as an educator to find relevant representations of Arctic indigenous culture.
Both pieces discuss the transformative nature video games have on literacy and the acquisition of knowledge through non-traditional means. A difference between the pieces is de Castell and Jenson’s conclusion that education can be reformed using the principles and sense of play from video games while Squire emphasizes a greater need to implement video games directly into education to maximize its relevance to students.
de Castell, S. & Jenson, J. (2003). Serious Play. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 35, 6, 649-666.
Squire, K. Video game literacy: A literacy of expertise. Available at: https://www.academia.edu/1317105/Video-Game_Literacy–A_Literacy_of_Expertise