Digital games for education

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Digital games for education

• Mark Chen
• Feb 13, 2008

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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

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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

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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

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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.

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Some good games for classrooms

• Still, there are definitely some games that are
  better suited for classroom use.
• PeaceMaker and other games for change
  http//www.gamesforchange.org/main/GameList
• Animal Crossing
• Civilization (Kurt Squire)
• SimCity (Cole and 5th D stuff)
• Darfur is Dying http//www.darfurisdying.com

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Resources

• Jim Gee interview http//chronicle.com/colloquyli
  ve/2003/08/video/
• Orange County DoE video on games for education
  http//www.seriousgames.org/archives/000199.html
• Marks essay on pros and cons of gaming
  http//markdangerchen.net/2007/06/04/exam-question
  -1/
• Marks essay on games for learning
  http//markdangerchen.net/2007/06/04/exam-question
  -2/
• A response to the New Atlantics take on video
  games http//infocult.typepad.com/infocult/2005/0
  8/new_atlantis_gr.html
• Games Learning Society conference
• An example of New Games Journalism
  http//www.alwaysblack.com/blackbox/bownigger.html

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Class agenda

• Discuss the Gee articledo 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 gamesdo 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