Digital games for education Mark Chen Feb 13, 2008

Benefits of gaming  Promotes problem solving and logic skills  Playing good games means recognizing patterns and making strategic decisions.  Situated experience can be powerful.  What transfers though?  Embodied narrative

Controversies of gaming  Violence  No conclusive research partly due to misunderstanding of games and genres  Assumes content or disposition transfer  Simple player-game model of experience  Addiction  Assumes games are valueless  Simple player-game model, again

Sociocultural model of gaming  If gamers are part of a larger cultural phenomenon, the source of powerful benefits and controversies are tied to cultural practices and norms.  Collaborative, collective decision making  Distributed expertise  Danger of dominant norms marginalizing certain players

Gaming literacy?  Participating in a transmedia culture  Websites, FAQs, fan fiction and art, wikis, digital literacy practices and tech knowledge, online communities  As with any domain, to be literate means to participate (produce, consume, share).  Rather than censor or exclude certain cultural practices, we should encourage critical thought and a sense of self in social contexts.

Some good games for classrooms  Still, there are definitely some games that are better suited for classroom use.  PeaceMaker and other games for change:  Animal Crossing  Civilization (Kurt Squire)  SimCity (Cole and 5th D stuff)  Darfur is Dying:

Resources  Jim Gee interview:  Orange County DoE video on games for education:  Mark’s essay on pros and cons of gaming:  Mark’s essay on games for learning:  A response to the New Atlantic’s take on video games:  Games Learning Society conference  An example of New Games Journalism:

Class agenda  Discuss the Gee article—do you agree with his premises or not? Explain.  Describe your experiences playing digital games from the past week.  What decisions did you have to make?  Were the games difficult to get into?  What are the issues with the games you played this past week (not all digital games in general)?  Think about the written “texts” in the games you encountered. Do you think there is value in the texts for helping students increase their traditional literacies (reading, writing)?  Talk about the social nature of games—do you feel the games you played encouraged cooperation, competitiveness, social interaction, etc.?  What were the stereotypes visible in the games you played?  Short presentation/summary