Thank you Mr. Gee for supporting teachers!
OK, that said, I do think that he oversimplified the similarities and differences between computer games and formal education. Good teachers, who explain why their students need to know seemingly random facts, can make learning fun.
Also, I disagree with some of his criticisms of classroom instruction. The one that I have the biggest problem with is his argument for 'just in time' information. In the real world, no one is going to hand you exactly the right info. at just the right moment; you have to know how to go out and hunt it down and how to separate the important stuff from the worthless stuff. (And actually, some 'worthless' trivia can be great conversation starters.)
However, I'm not going to dispute that some games are great learning experiences. Here are my favorites from when I was younger, which you might want to see if they've been updated:
1. Wishbone's Odyssey Adventure (you as the dog Wishbone/Odysseus must go through the episodes of the Odyssey by solving puzzles - it's actually very close to the story and very challenging)
2. Oregon Trail (you are a pioneer on the Oregon trail, and you must make decisions when confronted by obstacles the pioneers faced)
3. Zeus (you build your own Greek city-state, while being introduced to concepts such as money management, trade, issues of unemployment, lack of employees, the importance of material supplies, hygene, resource management, etc. On top of all that, you also get a breif introduction to characters in Greek mythology)
4. Spelling Jungle (you have to use trial and error, work out sequence of events/problem solving, and you learn how to spell words)
5. The Time warp of Dr. Brain (different puzzles, some more educational than others)
Granted, the last two are for elementary students, but I had fun with all of them. However, even the war games can be valuable; my cousin learned a lot of the sci-fi vocab he needed for the GRE through computer games.
Sorry for the long post, but I wanted to add one more thing - the answers to the Lion and the Unicorn questions!
The lion represents England and the Unicorn represents Scotland, and the two were brought together to form the British coat of arms in the 1600's when James the VI of Scotland became also James I of England, thus uniting the two countries. Previously, the two had been at war off and on for hundreds of years. The old nursery rhyme about their strife was referred to by Lewis Carroll in his book Through the Looking Glass, a sequel to Alice in Wonderland. Personally, I like the sequel better than the original.
There seems to be a small revolution against the "just-in-time" information. I am not a fan of this because it doesn't really work. If students have to do this all the time, learning doesn't really take place. It's almost like teaching to the test or saying, "You only need to know this information once, and then you can forget it after our lesson or game is done." There isn't any sort of learning going on there. I don't like it.
ReplyDeleteI also like the fact that he commented on teachers. It's awesome that somebody finally stood up for the downtrodden teachers. But I have a slight problem with the portion right after he defended teachers. He said we need to make teaching a sexy job. I don't foresee this happening because of what he just said, how teachers are not respected within the community, how the politicians have made school more about testing and legislation. Unless he wants to start a revolution himself, that's not going to happen anytime soon. I love idea, and I love the gumption, but I don't think his idea will get legs anytime soon.
I cannot profess my love anymore for Oregon Trail. I have such fond memories of shooting rabbits and deer behind a highly pixelated covered wagon. Unfortunately, much of my oxen died from fording the river, and most of my family died of dysentery.
You both make interesting arguments against "just in time" information. Unfortunately, you are both wrong. Just kidding. I don't know if perhaps I'm misinterpreting the phrase/idea and underestimating it's role in the education community, but I thought what he was trying to say is that teachers could learn something from games about how/when to provide information.
ReplyDeleteAs a teacher, you may not be very effective if you throw a bunch of terms or facts at people--just because they are supposed to know them for a test or just because you say so--and then they don't use them ever again. Gee seems to be saying that the quicker you can find a context to pin these things to--or perhaps an application--the better. Am I grossly misunderstanding this?
I somewhat agree with your argument about "just-in time thinking." It reminds me of our discussion of Wikipedia -that it segments knowledge and information. And yes, it is nice to hear someone stick up for teachers.
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