“End? No, the journey doesn’t end here.”

And the journey never ends for us. There are always new paths to take, new people that we include on our journey, and new ideas that change our resolve. I must say that this past semester has rocked every notion of education I have had before to its very core. For the first time ever I look at the new trend of ‘fanfiction’ as an avenue for expression, or that video games can truly change the world. I’ve never felt so sure about something I’ve believed in ever before until I took this class. For the first time, in a long time, I saw realization flash in someone’s eyes as I explained video game theory. In those moments I hushed realizing that I had changed someone’s views and strengthened my resolve in what I believed in. It was a semester of reading and breaking down things that changed everything I thought or understood about education.

I would start with Szwed but I’ll be honest when I say he wasn’t the one that changed my mind about education. In reality I would start with Deborah Brandt whose writing about sponsors changed everything about what access was to me. Voices and ideas now exist in an environment with the ability of total lock down (bills like SOPA and PIPA). This is where my views began to change as from then on my views of what literacy was changed drastically. It was furthered by the Ted talk and writings of Jane McGonigal whose voice and strength makes me believe this message of video games and how they can change the world, has ground.

The course itself had many aspects that I loved. This here, the blogs, was probably one of the most interesting things to do as an English major. At first I was confused because I was always so used to writing essays that writing blogs seemed so foreign to me, but as the semester continued forward I found them to be really enjoyable as areas of venting or reflecting about the reading. It just felt far more personal than just writing an essay. We were able to put our voices in these instead of just playing by the rules of a professor and learning how to play the game. This felt like building up from our own ideas and our own forms of structure.

I also really loved the group projects and how they operated as a form of test taking for us, yet were able to inherit the identity of masters of the subject we are studying by presenting it in front of others. This takes into account video game theory and identity when a student takes on the role of something else. In this case we are learning far more because we had to create these points of learning instead of being given points of learning to regurgitate like tests. I really enjoyed these as a new way to express what we had learned.

And so, here we are. Half a year later, many sleepless nights, too many gallons of coffee and energy drinks (that can’t be good for my health) and here we are. I would be lying if I didn’t say I hadn’t learned a lot. Honestly this has been the most hectic, fast-forwarding, exhausting, sleepless, years I’ve ever had. It has been a year, to be honest, of some nights thinking about giving up or just doing nothing, but this has been an incredible experience. It’s a year I would never give up for any other and its one that will be a staple in my life.

“So it’s come down to this huh?” “You knew where this was headed right from the start, friend?” “You lost that honor of friendship long ago!” “IVE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS MOMENT” “HAVE AT YOU… what…” “….What?” “What is that?” “…My weapon of mass destruction?” “…Dave you taped copper wire around an extendable toy lightsaber and connected it to some AAs.” “NOW IT WILL ACTUALLY DO WHAT A LIGHT SABER IS SUPPOSED TO DO” “…..light tingling shocks?” “WHAT no.” “Do you know what light sabers actually do?” “………..yes” “Dave?” “I LEARNED A THING IN SCHOOL OKAY”

SO the groups were all fantastic. All the presentations and the activities that were linked with them were such a nice form of reconvening about ideas being put into practice. It just had an openness to it that was really relaxed yet incredibly intriguing. Just mulling around ideas and other forms of expression and teaching practices was really fascinating.

First off the adolescent group did a fantastic job of presenting social topics that I hadn’t thought about in a long time. It was just a really cool way of showing the complexity of personality building and how easily these forms of identity and expression can be easily bogged down by anxiety and unnecessary negativity from the authority of the classroom. I really enjoyed that we even had to ask ourselves these questions of what builds someone especially as we enter college, theoretically, building our own identity away from family and other influences that have been around for so long.

Next was the hip hop group which actually was one of the more interesting ones especially when we were shown examples of classes that use hip hop gaining attention from stars. It really was an interesting way to look at education and really made writing an essay look easy in comparison to writing a song that kept a specific rhythm. It was also really cool to see other variations of expression actually being treated seriously in an education sense and being used as a form of teaching.

There was, of course, the wonderful gaming group who did a wonderful job at showing how video games can teach a low risk educating environment and how, because of this environment, students are willing to take risks and try complex ideas without the overwhelming anxiety of failure if their experiment didn’t work out. They did smashing work, if I do say so myself, which I do.

Finally, there was of course the make hack play group. I owe a lot to this group, it’s ultimately because of their activity that I was inspired for my multimodal project in 431. I always ‘made’ and fiddled with things when I was younger. I also really got into wood working, but just have not had time, so their activity was the most soothing. It also showed that students really should just get down to the nitty gritty of things and figure out how stuff works. Even something as simple as the negative and positive charges on a battery are figured out through making things. Even experimenting with different kinds of batteries or adhesives really opens people’s eyes to a form of teaching not always tapped into. It was by far my favorite part of this project and has equally opened my mind to areas of hobbies, and new ways to creating things, that I haven’t tapped into in quite some time.

Welcome back reader!
*GASP its almost here. The end of our journey is on the horizon. The time of fire pits, good wine, Vince Guaraldi by golden halls and the smell of old cooking is around the corner. Students will convene with friends and family around the fire and the feast to take a reprieve in preparation for the two weeks of madness to come. It will be a time of peace and discussion about the future and reassurance of the path that we all walk, and perhaps (for those hopefuls out their) murmurs about the significant other brought to the gathering and whether or not they will be coming the years following, a scrunched warm smile is the only answer.
So I say unto you, and all those whose heart strings are played along the bass guitar of Guaraldi’s trio, have a wonderful Thanksgiving for there are a great many things to be thankful for, especially in these cold times.

WELCOME BACK USER
I trust that you have not suffered from cranial injury during the great Mid-Term Conflict of 2015? NO? Great! Have no fear, for the green and red tidal is upon us. For the great Winter Solstice is on the horizon. Braces yourselves, steel yourself user, for Christmas is Coming.

I have returned to the land of video games and there use in education/literacy. I have actually found far more uses and examples than I ever really though I would. I never actually knew someone could create a computer within a computer through a video game. Neither could I have imagined schools using video games as interactive introductions to their campus and what it has to offer. I had base ideas, but never really saw them in process. What I can say, from the things we have read, video games and their use in our culture, have far larger uses than just entertainment.

Another link was Elizabeth Lawley’s “Gaming to the Throne”, which actually used video games as a form of tourism or city planning. The example she used was the video game “Assassins Creed” in which they were able to map out the city of Paris, not only from the street level, but from the rooves as well. This provides these ‘tourists’ with a different perspective of the city and to see it from multiple angles allowing them to understand its layout and actually remember how to get around Paris. This has the possibility in a school setting as well as students can take a virtual tour of the school in a fun way, like challenges and races of who can get to Peter Kittles office first and take a picture of the hall pass. This will be exceptionally useful for those students who are transferring from out of state or long distance making travel extremely difficult. This kind of ‘virtual reality’ can prove as a tool in ailing freshmen’s anxieties. Coming to a new school, so far away from parents, can be a daunting task. This ‘interactive’ tour just makes that transition a little easier.

We also had James Gee’s “Why are Video Games Good for Learning” where a message, that I’m relatively aware of, tells us about the power of identity and taking on the identity of who or what we are talking about. Students take on the identity of ‘students’ and learn from a student mindset and voice. However, if one were to project onto their students the identity of a ‘colleague’ or ‘researcher’ the students would, unintentionally overtime, take on that identity and take part in discussions and projects as ‘colleagues’. Video games do this all the time as it places new players in an unfamiliar world and presents the player with an identity that they must take on if they wish to understand the rules of this new world and how to survive within it.

However, my favorite by far, is the insane use of Minecraft. There was no single author and more so an entire community that revolved around using Minecraft as a progenitor tool for virtual reality. The examples shown was a user creating a calculator using Minecraft, and Redstone but well get to that later, and another using it to create a computer or a line of music blocks that created the Skyrim theme. There was even an online educational course where a teacher was using the model of a cell, made in Minecraft, to give their students a tour of the inside of a cell. This immediately made me think of online courses and how these settings could create a foundation for those types of classes. Though it isn’t meeting in person not that that’s even encouraged in an online class, but it does provide a visual base for students to meet one another and talk. It creates a social construct for ‘colleagues’ to gather and discuss.

From what we have read, video games can do quite a lot more than just make things that blow up. Video games can be a part of our everyday lives and help others with anxiety in new worlds since games revolve entirely around that concept of daunting new worlds. They provide environments and tools for complex learning and understanding. They are the path to a new way of teaching and the classroom setting of identity and what the student is supposed to be.

“So I had to sneak into this prison to save a prisoner who held delicate Intel about the local Soviet research group. However, this base was guarded by snipers, dudes with helmets, and dogs that they would have patrol around the perimeter to sniff me out. So, in order to get past the dogs, I crawled through the riverbed in front of the base, in the middle of the night, to mask my scent and get to the prisons walls. I THEN used my speaker on my tape-player to play David Bowie in order to get one of the guards, at the front gate, to come investigate. At this time I was using a cardboard box to hide in, so this guard comes out hearing “The Man Who Sold the World” by David Bowie, and only sees an inconspicuous cardboard box. As he gets closer I then ‘shoot’ out of the cardboard box and pelt him in the face with a tranquilizer shot before disappearing into the box again. I then crawl forward, with the box still on, to the other guard and strangle him to sleep. I THEN snuck into the base, with a cardboard box as my camo, and get into the cell with the prisoner. However, at this point both of the unconscious guards have been found and were woken up by their fellow soldiers, who then tell these soldiers about a guy in a suit in a cardboard box. The alarms go off. I call in a support helicopter, making sure to blow up the AA radar before he would arrive, and throw the prisoner over my soldier holding a riot shotgun in my other hand knocking out guards with rubber bullets as I made my way out of the prison. I get outside and there are guards everywhere, so I throw the prisoner on the ground and get behind cover holding off the guards until the sound of “Rebel Yell” by Billy Idol can be heard on the horizon. My backup helicopter has arrived. This helicopter comes swooping in blasting “Rebel Yell” while also blasting missiles and gunfire at the guards. I then run out below the helicopter blasting at guards holding a guy over my shoulder, with explosions and bullets all round me, with “Rebel Yell” blasting as well. I sit back for a second and think, ‘Yeah…This game is pretty rad.’”

Tools, challenge, and identity. These are the three tenants, which I found to be the most interesting, from the 36 points made by James Paul Gee, in his book “What Video Games Have to Teach Us about Learning and Literacy.” Gee makes quite a few more interesting points, including a chapter about the use of authority in video games, but these three came across as the most important, and also just the most fun to observe and mull around on.

Video games, like education, provide its ‘students’ tools that it hammers home in a section that is going to be referred to as “the kiddie pool”. In “the kiddie pool” players are placed in a controlled world where threats are few and the laws are easy to understand and master. Rules, standards, and structures are taught and presented in a ‘safe’ environment. This is a prep phase for the much larger and open game that players will be thrust into with little safe guards and an immense amount of threats to challenge them and keep them on their toes. However, because of the prior “kiddie pool” area these players are aware of the laws and rules that are applied to the world. They also have an idea of the dangers that will be presented to them. So, whenever a new threat or challenge is given, players pull from their mental foundation of the laws and rules of the world (paper structure and class rules), taught to them in “the kiddie pool”, and take on these challenges confident in their skills. In this process, by completing challenges (test and essays), they build upon their foundations as they grow and slowly master the world and its finer details. During this process, not only are the students learning, but they are also creating their identity in this world that establishes who they are and adds ‘weight’ to what they are doing.

There is a sense of progress in the world as the player, with their values and ideals, implement their identity into the game. Not only does this create a game that everyone can identify with, but it also establishes a connection between the player and the game world. There is an inherent ownership when a character shares similar traits with the player, an ownership that drive the player to try harder and take on challenges to build the players identity, the characters identity, and the projected identity that acts as a balance between the player and the character. What is created, is one of the most complex relationships of identity and balance. On that creates weight in this virtual, and one that the player is willing to try harder and spend more time on. They do not know what the next challenge will be, but the odd thing is there is no anxiety, no overwhelming stress, and little fear. There is only the hunger for challenge and the difficulties and stress of the ‘next’ challenge, one they haven’t seen yet.

Video games have a lot of interesting ideas and concepts to show the educational world. It has its flaws to, but so does everything these days including education. Perhaps the best of both of these worlds can create a new incite in how to educate and present value and identity in students for their education to incite hunger in their minds, instead of fear or frustration in their eyes. We just have to create a foundation, a “kiddie pool” so-to-speak, in order for students to build their own worlds upon, to create new ways to learn and understand while their towers of ideas and values build. Allow them to be that student that they want, the characters identity, while not forgetting who they are and what they can give, projected Identity. Perhaps we will see new worlds built right before our eyes, worlds we could have never dreamed of, a world from the mind of a student who sees the rain grey veil… and smirks.

“Taps a key, waking the computer from its reverie” From Kentucky Route Zero

You’re looking for a specific answer? No…just a stone. A stone? For what reason? Something to hold in my hand. I don’t understand, why? To hold on something real. To realize that, for one moment, I have a grasp on something in life. To realize that I can do anything with this stone, that its destiny is tied with my own, that its very existence rests upon my finger prints, that I have control. …What are you going to do with it now? …. (Skips the stone across the lake watching the ripples glint and shine under the moonlight wake) ….Satisfied? …Someday.

What is literacy? This actually reminds me of a similar question with pretty much the same answers. “What is jazz?” The reason why these resemble so closely is because there are so many ways to answer these questions, while at the same time coming up empty. If we were to ask someone “what is literacy” say a quarter of a generation ago, we might get a specific answer like “reading and writing”, yet, there is no satisfaction with this answer. There is no overwhelming sense of understanding or jubilee from this. Is this person right? Yes, but they are also wrong on so many levels as literacy has the capacity to evolve and morph into new and unexpected pieces that not only question our own volition, but question what exists around us and how we contemplate our own understanding from these observations. Literacy is so many things while at the same time a simple statement like “reading and writing”.

At the beginning of the semester Szwed describe to us the main points of literacy which included the context of the literacy and the motivation for writing it. If we accept the truth that literacy is a tool for humanity to use to respond to the earths echo around us, then Szwed showed us the process of capturing that echo, breaking down its sounds and pitches, then splaying them on a page through the ears and eyes of another to then share with everyone. Literacy is the practice of breaking down and responding as stated by Szwed, however, literacy also piles up as each generation remixes the previous’ earthy jazz with their own style and emotion. The tune changes and the previous generation breaks off complaining that their inheritors “don’t understand” or “aren’t trying as much” whereas between the notes and inclines of tune a new song is born and the echo resounds with a pitch and style unknown and ‘new’. Something Szwed does not mention.

This new remix comes from the voice of Lawrence Lessig who described this new phenomenon as something that has always existed and, despite our generational views, is something inherently beautiful and should remain free as it is the one form of creative flow that helps the ‘new’ acquire a voice from which it can sing from its own tune. However, we must also include Brandt’s piece of “Sponsors of Literacy”, that shows us a world of the ‘new’ being regulated by those who have the clout and willingness to supply tools for literacy. Here we see that the ‘new’ could be restricted from others if they don’t have a computer, something we take for granted. We realize that even though the ‘new’ is a tune that should be shared with all who are willing to listen, this process is sponsored through pieces of technology and tools that are required as we enter a digital future. At the same time, this piece of ‘new’ tune can be lost in the pilling up of literacy as its buried under previous generations literacies and a constant flow that then ‘spreads out’ creating sections of literacy. In this process we see groups having their own languages and literacies creating mini-cultures that have their own remixes constantly fluctuating and building up. It’s a behemoth to take on all at once which is why we tune in on a specific note and join in on a specific groups constant remixing creating the ‘new’.

Ultimately, literacy is a constantly evolving entity that can’t be summarized in four words. It’s something that sways and ripples alongside creation. It’s the song on the radio, it’s the magazine under the bed, it’s the ghosts in the static, it’s the display on the screen, it’s the microphone on the stage, it’s the brass sax on its stand, and it’s the pen in the hand. All these tools and notes combining into one cacophony of notes and keys that adjust and alternate to create a specific tune as a response to the world around. Literacy is the creation of a ‘new’ tune, remixed or otherwise, exchanging notes and fluctuations with the echoes of past tunes and remixes to recreate again and again. Its constantly evolving and changing as a new voice or ear join the cacophony. Literacy builds up, spreads out, and remixes with each new note and voice.