derwin2k’s blog

Note: When I talk about education, I mean in the terms of learning something that you might learn at school, not the process of learning something that you might never experience at school, but can do so in the video game realm.What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy. Second Edition: Revised and Updated EJames Paul Gee Gee's book, "What Video Game Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy", is a great treatment of the field of games as educators, but he specifically focuses on real games, that real gamers, play. A whole chapter is devoted to Deus Ex! My heart was all a-flutter.The discussion in the group was interesting, and I wanted to note down my thoughts and feelings.When we discuss the value of learning at school, what do we mean? What does it mean to be able to use algebra in Mathematics, when we know most people will never use it ever again? What does it mean to be good at geography, for a society that is becoming ever more focused on indoor, rather than outdoor, pursuits? Most thoughtful people would realize that we are teaching transferable skills, finding the pliability of numbers, or understanding how to read maps. If we acknowledge those skills as being at the core of learning, then we can properly acknowledge the role of video game as teacher. Take Far Cry 2, which uses a paper map as primary means of navigation. Players soon decipher the symbolism of contour lines, lakes and roads, checkpoints and safe houses. Far Cry 2 is an orienteering simulator and the map-reading skills of players appears to get better over time. Gamers are instinctively learning in order to be better at the game, yet they have never read a map like this in geography class. They're learning the core idea of map as representation and how to interpret that representation.This is probably the most important thing video games in their current form teaches, yet many non-gamers don't realize this. They hear about the hand-to-eye co-ordination, but they look f...