Can video games help people learn? James Paul Gee offers a convincing argument in What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy that they in fact can create positive learning experiences at all age levels. Gee posits that beyond providing simple entertainment, video games have inherent potentials to encourage users to explore different identities, encounter and think about different cultures, or even grasp simple concepts like the power of practice.
It was fascinating to think about Tomb Raider, a game I played regularly years ago, as an educational tool. As Gee notes “This is what is magical about learning in good video games—and in good classrooms, too—learners are not always overly aware of the fact that they are ‘learning,’ how much they are learning, or how difficult it is.”(123) Subconscious messages of challenging authority and attempting to pursue one’s own goals were never part of my active thought process while playing these games, but I see Gee’s point here. The way the game is set up to offer multiple rewards for completing quests in different ways really drives home the point that these games are capable of training us about the decision making process, and the consequences involved.
I appreciate that Gee used a game like Tomb Raider, one of the all-time best selling video games, here to explicate his point rather than something obscure. I think using games people actually play makes his points more valid and, frankly, believable. It also makes his insights applicable to a wider base of both games and gamers, and his ideas can be more widely extrapolated as such.
Relevant to this week’s reading, I have been playing Myst III lately in preparation for later in the semester. If I said I was enjoying it, I would be lying … profusely. I just find it slow and tedious, and more to the point, I have never been particularly adept at (or interested in) intricate puzzles. I do enjoy a few visually based puzzles, like the ones at Eyemaze for example, but I find the ones in Myst particularly obtuse, and obviously made for people who are smarter and have more patience than I. This isn’t to say I don’t enjoy quest games that incorporate puzzles-Zelda, Castlevania, Final Fantasy, and Space Rogue were all some of my favorites growing up. But Myst lacks action, and I find the puzzles overly complex, to the point that I feel no sense of satisfaction on completing tasks, only relief. I’ll keep at it though…
Misha makes some interesting points over at Propaganda Redux on Gee, hitting the nail on the head “I just hope others in the class did not get turned off to this idea because it is in a book about video games–his points would be valid if you changed the words ‘video game to ‘books’.”
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Ken-I find it interesting that you seem to agree with or support Gee’s argument. Maybe I’ll have to take a look at that part about Tomb Raider. To echo what I’ve said on my own blog and in other comments, I really believe that while there may be things that one can learn while playing a video game, this method should not become the preferred method, or even a primary one. It’s a game! Not only do I believe that education shouldn’t demean itself to have to become “fun” to get and retain students’ interest, I also would hate to see games become purely educational. I happen to like an escape from time to time, and I would really hate to think I’m learning something while doing it. (yes, I am laughing a little) But still… as to what you said about Myst, I would wholeheartedly agree. Man, slow and tedious indeed. I still don’t get what I’m supposed to do. I haven’t made it past the first stop and I’ve clicked on everything I could find to click on. I just don’t get it. It’s like what Josh Brown said in his article about users of the Lost Museum: “…teachers and students who gleefully clicked on different 3-D exhibits but professed utter bewilderment about the significance of what they found.” Yup, that’s me. But the glee only lasted about an hour, then I got irritated and quit the game. I promise to give it another shot.
[...] my comments on Tad’s blog, Ken’s Historiarum, and on Maureen’s [...]
You know, there’s a totally unsubstantiated theory, undoubtedly fueled by people with segmented mathematics skills, that there are “geometry people” and “algebra people.” The idea is that the one group neither likes nor excels at the subject matter of the other. I am wondering if Myst appeals to “geometry people” and the patterning and proofs are simply tedious to “algebra people.” Or, maybe I just like it because I’m no good at games requiring speed and manual dexterity and I really don’t like role-playing, violence, or creating and interacting in an imaginary environment. I only care about the story of Myst as far as it interweaves with the puzzles. That’s one weird family, but what a fabulous environment they live in.