Video Games

1
Video Games Virtual Worlds vs. Texts as
Teaching Materials

• Intro Video

2
Games In Culture

• Games Extend Into Larger Cultural Phenomenon
• PacMan
• SuperMario
• Pokemon
• Mortal Kombat
• TombRaider

3
Games are Social

• Children talk about games in school
• Social aspect creates fads in gaming
• Individual response to fads in gaming define the
  young student

4
Games Model Academic Life

• Looking at a computer screen for hours on end
  (work)
• Gamers get together to play (meetings)
• Gamers talk shop about gaming strategies (social
  interaction)
• Game websites have insider information concerning
  game completion and secrets (research)

5
Classroom v.s Games

• Classroom
• Visually Sedating
• Slow Feedback
• Paced to the Group
• Success or Failure are Final

• Games
• Visually Stimulating
• Immediate Feedback
• Paced to the Individual
• Success and Failure are a Restart Away

6
Edutainment

• Drill and Skill in digital form
• Fail to capture excitement/frustration of "real"
  video games
• America's Army
• Military has seen benefits from games and
  simulations for years.
• Recently there has been crossover of military
  sims into popular gaming

7
Morality

• Grand Theft Auto III
• Steal Cars, Kill Police, Frequent Brothels
• Ultima
• Good behavior necessary to attain "virtues" to
  complete quest
• Morrowind
• Multiple paths good or bad behavior results in
  different responses good and bad by game
  characters

8
Games Cross Seed

• There is a dialogue of conventions between games
• Classics are venerated and emulated
• Mistakes are ridiculed
• In-Jokes exist across time
• Successful novelty is the goal

9
Games are Everywhere

• Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs of Apple fame
  started working at Atari
• Experience with user interfaces and overlaid
  colors influenced the way they viewed computers
  contributing to the Graphical User Interface we
  take for granted today
• College students have games as part of their
  unconscious development (they like PowerPoint)

10
What to do?

• Be aware of the cultural shift
• Help create digital media which leverages the
  best of the classical academy and videogames
• Go have fun with your children, grandchildren,
  nephews, neices