Post #3- Synthesis of Gee's First Two Chapters

How We Learn

                In general terms, we receive much of our learning from school, sitting in class for seven hours a day, absorbing information that we may or may not be able to recall in a week, month, or even year.  Our learning comes from textbooks and power points, handouts and lectures.  We learn through a passive means, and because of the passivity of that type of learning, a relatively unenthusiastic means.

                However, learning, which happens primarily within the school day, needs to be looked at critically.  In an age of preparing for state exams and completing state mandated assignments, the strategic learning of the past (for instance the creating a hypothesis and experimenting with it) seems to be hitting some snags.  Which means, perhaps, that it has come time to look to other ways of learning.  Instead of merely accepting the ways in which we are taught in elementary school, we should begin to challenge them, begin to look at what else is available in the ways of learning.

                In relation to learning, we need to, then, broaden our definitions of reading.  As this is one of the major ways in which we judge learning, we have, as a society, a relatively narrow viewpoint of what it means.  Reading should not merely be looked at as a means of looking at works on a page and knowing what they signify.  We can read photos, ads, cartoons.  We can read almost anything, and no two people read compositions the same.  For example, I, as an English student, might read Jane Eyre in a critical sense, but someone else, let’s say a Chemistry student, might see the novel as merely entertaining, and a Gender Studies student might view the novel purely in light of how woman and men are portrayed.  There can be overlap, but we will not necessarily read this book the same way. 

                But, we can also read an advertisement for a car in various ways as well.  There may be words on the page, or billboard, but the words alone will most likely not be enough.  We read the images presented and we can see the ad as geared towards woman or towards teens, for instance, without any mention of women or teens in the writing.

                Just as we read differently, we also learn differently.  While this is not a terribly new idea—as we have seen teachers attempting to teach differently to help students of different learning types. We have students who learn by example and learn by seeing and learn by doing.  Leaning is also done collaboratively, which is something that video games excel in.

Video Games and Learning: Can it Really Work?

                Video games, at least complex and well designed video games, can have a large impact on leaning, especially in this particular moment in time.  We are immersed in a fast paced world of cell phones, the internet, electronic devices for reading books, and therefore, video games, beyond just entertainment value, help us learn new ways of looking at the world, new ways of reading the world.

                As stated above, reading happens in more than just one way.  We do not merely read language, but rather we read images and things.  We can read compositions which are composed of sound, image, and word.  So, when it comes to video games, which are composed of all of those pieces, we can ‘read’ them, the same as we can read ads and commercials and signs.

                It is important, throughout the discussion of video games place in teaching and learning, to view it as a semiotic domain.  Semiotic domains are set areas of study/activities which share a common set of values and ideas and wherein individuals can act and think in specific ways.  By viewing video games and their players in this light, we can begin to separate from the stringent definitions reading and learning and thinking hold.  For instance, within the semiotic domain of video games, players can actively learn the games on their own, but moreso than that, they can learn and experience the games through the use of cheats and guides and websites and forums devoted to the specific game they are playing.  Players can collaborate and share secrets they have learned while playing.  They can immerse themselves in a critical conversation while picking up strategies and help, learning various modes of collaboration and intrapersonal skills.

                Good video games allow an outlet for learning.  They allow children (or gamers of any age) to interact and learn the inner workings of the game that is being placed.  Active learning, learning which allows the player to experience the world, to read the world in new ways, is done at the basic level of games.  Players can learn the various ways in which to travel through a city or fight certain bad guys.  For instance, in Dragon Age, the player learns the best ways of fighting—do you approach under a stealth guise and get the bad guy from the back, or do you chose to go in guns (in this case swords or arrows) blazing and meet a head on assault?  Players learn how to navigate throughout the world through trial and error—which is similar to teaching principles, especially those within the sciences.

                But, active learning is not enough.  The stage of critical learning must be reached.  In order to reach the level of critical learning, the player (or learner) must be able to do more than just learn the patterns within the game.  The player must be able to interact with the internal design, the grammar, of the game.  In order for critical learning to take place, the player must begin to be active in the learning process beyond just memorizing patterns.  The player needs to be able to critique and manipulate the game, learning its inner grammar so that it can adapt to new ways of playing as well as to possibly find ways of proceeding which had not been originally intended or outlined.  Another important aspect in critical learning is that of being able to interact and critique the external design—that is, the community and values and acts surrounding the game.

                By understanding the ways in which video games are learning systems of their own, we can perhaps begin to delve further into the principles of learning which are built into games.

My Thoughts

            I personally found these two chapters very interesting.  As someone only just now venturing into the world of gaming, I am both excited by the prospect of gaming being useful but also baffled as to how these games help me learn. 

                I have been making my way through Dragon Age and it’s been a tedious process.  After a total of 10 hours of playing I have found myself thoroughly stumped.  I don’t know where to go or how to go and within two more hours of playing have managed to figure only one insignificant thing out.  I can put a fire guise around me to walk through the walls of fire which had been killing me upon contact. 

                Now, after reading these chapters, I have begun to understand the active learning part.  I have begun to figure out the patterns of the game, the best ways, for me, to approach fights, and how to quickly gather what I need, when I need it.

                I am assuming that I am beginning to enter the critical learning stage in my gaming.  This new domain I am in is vastly different than the previous medieval fantasy world my characters have inhabited up to that point.  I am working through this world, noticing the changes, noticing ways in which the patterns I have noticed are not necessarily the most effective.

                Is that critical learning?  And if so, does Dragon Age qualify as a “good game?”  It might, and I can definitely see the relationship to Pikmin that Gee was speaking about in this example of active and critical learning.  Does the fact that the game places the player in a new world that completely ups the level of difficulty and changes the rules around make it critical if the player is new to the gaming world?  Or, could this game be considered critical learning capable for any player--whether new or not?  

              

             While I understand that these learning principles are present within various games, Dragon Age possibly one of them, I do not see how a game like this could be used within a teaching and learning environment to produce learning in another space other than video games.  That is not to say, however, that I do not believe games are useless, but I am merely trying to draw connections and discern ways in which these games could be used in a class room environment.

Some things to ponder:

1)      1) On page 4, Gee comments that if a “game does not have good learning principles built into its design,” it won’t sell well.  I’m curious though—is it really the learning principles built into the game that get it to sell? Or is it something else more along the lines of plot/excitement/graphics?

sib2) Is it possible for a good game, as Gee defines it, to exist without an external design?  Can the learning principals within a good game allow a game to be successful/good without the external aspects of the game?

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     3) How do we, as educators and future educators, translate the idea of video games as employing various teaching principles such as the “encouragement of exploration, hypothesis testing, risk taking, persistence past failure, and seeing ‘mistakes’ as new opportunities for progress and learning,” (37) into teaching? Kids might be engaging in these principles when playing, but if they cannot identify it or relate it to other forms of learning, how is it helpful?

Works Cited

Gee, James Paul. What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy. New York:     Palgrave Macmillian, 2007. 1-43. Print.