In Gee’s 2008 article, he examines the missed opportunities that can occur when games are only designed and viewed for educational purposes. This shortsightedness is something Gee admits to being guilty of and seeks to rectify by considering how the game Portal, despite using physics as its “content” the game is not defined by it, instead, physics serves as “possibilities for action that defines play” (2008, p. 233). According to Gee (2008) physics is a tool within the game; the tools people have on hand can direct their attention and their range of discoveries. Gee (2008) argues that currently learning from games is not easily transferred to the physical walls of the classroom. For example, in regard to language learning, games take advantage of placing complex language into a popular context making the language accessible to users who are unable to experience such success within the world of school texts. The article seems to suggest that while the game world and physical classroom can exist at the same time, they have difficulties interacting, so what tools does Gee think are necessary for learning to be transferred from the game world to the physical world?
In a later article, Gee and Gee (2017) explore the interactions between online and offline learning. They (2017) describe the similarities between science and game play, where science is a “high-powered, tool-enhanced, socially and institutionally organized conversation with the world, based on a desire to understand and a respect for the world’s responses” (p. 9) and games are a world with its own set of rules that must be known and understood to progress. Gee and Gee (2017) observe that the ability of gamers to test out different scenarios within a game, existed before video games; people have been playing out possibilities in their minds before acting on them. Rather than focusing on a particular aspect of technology or traditional learning, the article argues that the best of both worlds exists when the focus is placed on communication networks, such as the ones found in a DTAL system (2017). Communication networks are vital due to the influence they have on shaping learners’ focus and appreciation, so a modern DTAL system is ideal as it offers tools from both worlds to continue and develop interactions in both spaces (2017). The article (2017) mentions that the right conditions can best utilize DTAL systems, but I feel there are barriers that inhibit society from moving beyond affinity spaces, did Gee and Gee observe people from different social and political backgrounds interactions within DTAL systems?
The 2017 article builds on what was written in 2008; the interactivity of DTAL systems provides the space for users to explore and react to their environment, much like cats do. The rigid wall between learning in games and the physical classroom described in 2008 is broken in 2017 with the recognition that experiences and interactions build on each other and form how people value and appreciate the world, thus guiding an individual’s learning journey.
References
Gee, J. P. (2008). Cats and portals: Video games, learning, and play. American Journal of Play, 1(2), 229.
Gee, E., & Gee, J. P. (2017). Games as distributed teaching and learning systems. Teachers College Record, 119(11).