Gaming & Learning? Taking a look beyond the book

1. Gaming & Learning? Taking a look beyond the book College Teaching & Learning Conference

2. Gaming & Learning

3. Reality learning • Video Excerpt – James Paul Gee • Pre-Reading Blog • In Class Discussion – Steven Johnson • Reading – James Paul Gee • Action Research Project

4. Video excerpt James Paul Gee

5. Pre-reading blog

6. content Excerpts “…a false premise: that the intelligence of these games lies in their content, in the themes and characters they represent.” (p. 57)

7. Cultural forms Excerpts “You have to shed your expectations about older cultural forms to make sense of the new.” (p. 39)

8. Popular culture Excerpts “We need to think, talk, and listen. When we tell students that popular culture has no place in classroom discussions, we are signaling to them that what they learn in school has little to do with the things that matter to them at home.” (p. 229)

9. Cognitive workout Excerpts “I think there is another way to assess the social virtue of pop culture, one that looks at media as a kind of cognitive workout, not as a series of life lessons.” (p. 14)

10. Trial and error Excerpts “’You’re supposed to figure out what you’re supposed to do.’ You have to probe the depths of the game’s logic to make sense of it, and like most probing expeditions, you get results by trial and error, by stumbling across things, by following hunches.” (pp. 42-43)

11. 36 Principles • Amplification of Input • Achievement • Practice • Ongoing Learning • “Regime of Competence” • Probing • Multiple Routes • Situated Meaning • Text • Active, Critical Learning • Design • Semiotic • Semiotic Domains • Metalevel Thinking • “Psychosocial Moratorium” • Committed Learning • Identity • Self-Knowledge

12. 36 Principles • Discovery • Transfer • Cultural Models about the World • Cultural Models about Learning • Cultural Models about Semiotic Domains • Distributed • Dispersed • Affinity Group • Insider • Intertextual • Multimodal • “Material Intelligence” • Intuitive Knowledge • Subset • Incremental • Concentrated Sample • Bottom-up Basic Skills • Explicit Information On-Demand and Just-In-Time

13. Reality learning Qualitative Research Paper Requirements • Option 1 - Interview a gamer • Option 2 - Play a game • Demographics • Questions • Findings • Discussion

14. Gaming research: Interview with a Gamer Melissa Farrish

15. Subject • Logan, age 14 • Middle school student • An avid “gamer” since the age of 3 • Spends 6 to 14 hours per day playing games

16. Reading • Credits reading skills to gaming • Recently scored at the college level on the Star test for reading comprehension • Reading and understanding text is a central part of many games • According to Gee (2007), video games have “a great deal to teach us about how reading works when people actually understand what they are reading” (p. 96).

17. Social aspect • Plays with friends and e-Friends • Social experience • Distribution of knowledge and skills

18. Adventure • Ability to be adventurous • Takes risks, explores, and tries new things • Makes his own decisions

19. Challenge • A desire to see how the story will end • Motivated to successfully master the highest level • Personal satisfaction • Ability to create

20. In the Classroom • Spark interest and enthusiasm • Move from "skill and drill" to forms of assessment integrated into the learning • Ability to teach at each child’s level • Create a “network” of learning following the dispersed (#34) and affinity group • (#35) principles.

21. Gaming research: Learning or wasting time? Ingrida Barker

22. About me • Middle School English Language Arts Teacher • Teacher • WV Virtual School Spanish I Facilitator • Principal of Curriculum and Instruction at River View High School • Doctoral Student at

23. Pre-Reading • Not a Gamer! • Benefits of Playing and Creating Games • Globaloria and Dr. IditCaperton • Networked world

24. SUBJECT • Jason, Male, late 20s, Southern West Virginia • IT Specialist • Changed His Name • Cisco Systems Networking Academy Graduate • Systems Development Courses • Passionate Gamer for 20 Years

25. OBSERVATIONS • Navigation of content andsocial practices/ viewsestablished by affinity groups. • Learning from mistakes - psychosocial moratorium and risk taking (p. 222) • Ongoing, committed learningto retrieve the treasure • Clear identification of setting and quest to follow internal and external grammars of the game

26. IMPLICATIONS Passive to Active Learning from Games • Games help players “understand and produce meanings in a particular semiotic domain” and “think about the domains at a ‘meta’ level as a complex system of interrelated parts.” (p. 25) • Critical, active learning in the virtual world of games forces gamers to make novel decisions to adapt to increasing levels of challenge and collaborate with others to build knowledge and skills.

27. TEACHERS CAN • Require Practice • Provide Feedback • Encourage Trial and Error • Facilitate Perseverance to Mastery • Scaffold Learning • Apply Concepts to New Situations

28. Game on for gordon Lee Ann Hvidak Porter

29. The interview • My Initial Thoughts and Attitudes • Special Intelligence Communicator Sergeant in USMC • Age 25 • No Post High School Degree • Married to “Alyx” • Plays FPS (First Person Shooters)

30. Social aspects • e-Friends • Meeting People • Cliques – Young Crowd / Old Crowd

31. connections • Active and Passive Learning • Strategies • Choices Determine Outcomes • Different Styles

32. CLASSROOMs • Incorporate Interactive Activities • More Meaningful Challenges • Avoid Teaching Concepts in Isolation • Choices • Ultimate Goal…to Educate!

33. perceptions • A Different Kind of Learning Occurs • Learning Occurs in Different Places • A Different Kind of Assessment • Get a First Hand Experience • How Do You Spend Your Time?

34. references Gee, J. P. (2012). How complex gaming environments can help young people solve problems and innovate in a world that is constantly changing. Retrieved from http://vimeo.com/15732568 Gee, J. P. (2007). What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Johnson, S. (2006). Everything bad is good for you: How today’s popular culture is actually making us smarter. New York: Riverhead Books. Microsoft. (2013). Microsoft Clip Art.