Video Games and Learning

Sorry, I am really, really behind on this post, but better late than never, right?

I was part of the group covering James Gee and the Literacy and Gaming book. Basically, there was a whole lot of technical stuff about language, society, and gaming itself, all focused on how people learn, with examples from a video game fitting these themes. Although it is a great read, it is somewhat hard to get to the point until the entire thing is finished. Gee goes on in the book to explain that there are several aspects that are found predominantly in gaming that help us to understand how people think and learn, as well as interpret the world around them; these things are featured as concepts of race, gender, and ideas of good vs. bad among other things.

The purpose of the book is to understand that video games are a form of literacy and means of learning a literacy that can be transposed to other aspects of life (just like our movie trailer showed). By that, I mean that a person learns (often subconsciously) some way of doing something (for instance working for a given time will lead to rewards to get you one step further toward your ultimate goal). The example given in our trailer is of a student who learns that the process involved with interaction and division of tasks between a number of people in the same ‘quest’, will result in a better understanding and success in the given task. The ‘student’ (me) in this example is shown attempting to complete her task alone with little help and little motivation, and ultimately fails. However, after splitting the tasks between friends (much in the same way a group of people in a game would fill certain roles like healer, “tank” or the front man, damage, etc.) she is able to accomplish her goal of a successful paper.

In the end, the group who read this book came to the same conclusion that games are a tool to learn complex patterns of thought and recognition of those patterns, which are important and difficult to learn in other (more traditional) settings.

I know, this sounds ridiculously redundant, but it is so fascinating that I think it is important to fully understand!