This week's texts (I'm using "texts" in the cultural studies/eduspeak/Charlie and Deanna sense of the word) were pretty eye-opening to me because I hadn't really bothered thinking about gaming much before to challenge my own stereotypes about gamers as kind of losery, social inept teenage boys--even though I have known plenty of gamers who didn't fit this stereotype (well, and, erm, a few who did)!
I think both the James Paul Gee reading and the talk by Jane McGonigal made me realize some perhaps important distinctions. Namely, once again (I'm being reminded of this a lot in this class) that Technology is not just this big monolithic thing. One of the point-counterpoint topics is about (I'm paraphrasing), should schools conform to today's kids and their use of technology and the kinds of media they are consuming, or should kids conform to schools expectations of what is important to learn, etc. What this week's material kind of signaled for me is that games might well be deserving of serious consideration because they don't at all seem to fit the criticisms normally leveled at Kids Today and Their Technology! By which I mean, they don't seem to make kids impatient, shallow, socially inept, pale blobs. Rather, as I've been convinced, gaming seems to instill patience, strategy, and what did McGonigal call it? Urgent optimism? And a need to form complex relationships built around a common goal. I mean, that's amazing, right?
But the questions that I'm left with are, How much does that apply or can be applied to Real Life? Certainly Jane McGonigal thought there was evidence that it could be (the work she did with the games built around a world crisis or social justice issue kind of thing), and Gee made a strong case for why real life should be more like games. How much transferability of skill/knowledge is there between gaming and real life? If you are able to form all these meaningful, world-changing relationships in a game, could you do the same in real life? The stereotype about gamers would say no. But what does the research say? I'm looking forward to talking about all this in class...
Hi Diane~
ReplyDeleteYour willingness to challenge your own assumptions about gaming suggests an open-minded consideration to the possibilities. Your question, "How much transferability of skill/knowledge is there between gaming and real life?" Maybe that depends upon the nature of the game. If games are relative to subject content, or designed to parallel real-life reward/consequence systems, skill/knowledge transferability may be higher than we imagine? An interesting topic to explore in class...
~Mindy
I like your description of the gamer stereotype, and appreciate that you're aware that it doesn't apply to all gamers - I would consider myself a gamer, and I definitely don't self identify as a losery, socially inept teenage boy. =)
ReplyDeleteI also thought your comment that games may be deserving of serious consideration was great. I think the idea of "games" is much different now than it used to be, and the criticism often generated today is made by people who didn't grow up playing video games. I definitely feel like the skills learned in games are transferable to the real world - I talked about this is my blog post about these readings, though in a slightly tongue-in-cheek style. I think we, as teachers, could get some pretty awesome results if we can figure out how to harness the urgent optimism in our gamer-students.
Hi Diane~
ReplyDelete"One of the point-counterpoint topics is about (I'm paraphrasing), should schools conform to today's kids and their use of technology and the kinds of media they are consuming, or should kids conform to schools expectations of what is important to learn... "
Great question!! This relates to the 21st Century Learners Point-Counterpoint topic. What is the most effective approach? Should learners conform to education, or education conform to learners? What attributes are we, as educators, attempting to develop, and how do we achieve these means? Are students to be molded into a conformist intellectual prototype, or are they intellectual independents, with creative potential to utilize education (information) towards their own developmental objectives??
~Mindy