Gee Chapter 5 - Telling and Doing: Why Doesn't Lara Croft Obey Professor Von Croy?
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OVERT INFORMATION AND IMMERSION IN PRACTICE
Humans are poor at learning from lots of explicit information given to them outside the sorts of contexts in which this information can be used. Humans also tend to forget information they have received outside of contexts of actual use. Humans do not learn well when they are just left to their own devices with complex contents that they know very little about.
The Dilemma
For effective learning, humans need explicit information, but they have a hard time handling it. They also need to be exposed to the actual contexts of practice, but they can find such contexts confusing without explicit information and guidance. This is the dilemma that has spurred many education debates for years.
Gee discusses this dilemma with a discussion of two video games. "the solution to our dilemma is to deny there are two hands here and to see overt information and immersion in practice as two fingers on the same hand.
LEARNING TO BE LARA CROFT
Lara Croft, the heroine of the Tomb Raider games, is one of the most famous video-game characters. The Tomb Raider games depict Lara as an adult using the skills she learned as a young girl from Von Croy, Archeololgist Professor, in pursuing danger, knowledge, and adventure across the world.
1st episode (a chapter in a book) shows Loara as a 16-year-old being trained by Von Coy after they have broken into an ancient and sacred royal tomb in Cambodia. The player gets to live and play Lara's apprenticeship. The player searches for treasures and avoids many pitfalls and dangers. At the same time, the episode is also a training module where the player is explicityly coaced on how to play the game. While Lara is being trained, the computer gamer is being trained on the computer controls. Von Croy warns Lara to respect the ancient tomb and stay on the path with him. Of course she, just the like player, is not interested in staying on the path, she wants to wonder off the path to discover hidden treasures. At first GEE followed Von Coy's instructions, but he did find himself wondering off in search of treasures.
This game has a way to ensure that even the most hopeliess players will discover that they can find good things if they are willing to disobey the professor.
STRANGE LANGUAGE: VON CROY TEACHERS LARA HOW TO PLAY A VIDEO GAME
When Von Coy and Lara come across their first obstacle, Von coy says "the first obstacle, a small hop tp test your--how do you say--pluck. Press and hold walk, now push forward." This statement could seem strange because Lara is not standing there with a computer control. But, the gamer playing the game does have a control and this statement from Von Coy is helping the gamer learn how to play the game. The next step is for the player to learn which keys will perform the commands that Von Coy is referring to. There are three ways.
1. The player can look in the booklet that comes with the game. When the player is listening to Von Coy, the player is looking up the computer key equivalents of his command (another way in which teh virtual and real worlds are married).
2. The player can make guesses from having played other games.
2. The player could do, what a number of people would do, and press all the plausible keys until the player gets the results that they want.
LARA LEARNING
Hearing these various commands is confusing the real-world with the virtual-world with the gamers. This language represents a very basic and crucial learning principle, one regularly ignored in schools. Learners cannot do much with lots of explicit information that a teacher has explicity told them outside the context of the actual practice. At the same time, learners cannot learn without some explicit information; they cannot discover everything for themselves. The solution is to give information in context and to express it in ways that make sense in the context of embodied action.
virtual identities and reality identities are merged into projective identities. The projective identities are the heart and soul of active and critical learning. The player does not receive all of the instructions in the first game. That means that with every game played, the player is always learning.
LEARNING IN A SUBDOMAIN OF THE FULL DOMAIN
The third episode starts with Lara as an adult in Egypt. Lara has learned and the player knows the back story of Lara. The first 2 games is learning opportunity for the gamer. They are playing and learning at the same time. This is known as playing in the subdomain. The gamer learns the basics of the game in a training session of the game. This principle is sometimes ignored in the education system.
Having gamers and students learn in training modules will help them be successful when the learning gets more complicated later on.
TRANSFER AND BEYOND IN VIDEO GAMES
There are times in a video game where players recognize that they are learning. These times become more common as the game progresses. They develop skills during the game at different levels. When they get to a more complex level that has different skill requirement. The player learns that what they learned previous is not going to work now and they need to develop other skills.
SYSTEM SHOCK 2
A game made in 1999. It has been altered over time. System Shock 2 combines elements of a role-playing game with a first-person shooter game. It also combines genres, combining the science fiction of star travel, the action of a war movie, and the horror of a movie like Alien.
System Shock 2, is like other good video games. It uses a number of the learning prinicples that have been discussed throughout the book. Players make choices that allow them to play the game according to their own favored styles or explore new ones. There are multiple routes to solve problems. Players get multiple and multimodal sources of information to enable their own discoveries about the story, virtual world, and the problems they face. System Shock 2 also has traing modules and early episodes that, like Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation, exemplify important learning principles.
TRAINING MODULES AND EARLY EPISODES IN SYSTEM SHOCK 2
System Shock 2 has several rooms that are the game's training modules. In these rooms you hear a voice that tells you that you are about to engage in a virtual training course using a "simulated cyber-interface identical to an actual military-grade cyber-interface." The voice tells you to "move the mouse, see how it changes where you look? That means you're in Shoot Mode. Hit the Tab key. This puts you in Use Mode where you can use your mouse to interact with items in the world." At this point of the game we see that a language mixes references the use of a virtual character in the virtual world to references tot he computer in the real world on which you, a real person, are playing the game. When you begin the game, you wake up in disaster. You work your way through the beginning of the game with nothing too bad happening to you. You are learning the game. You come across information kiosks as you travel through the lower levels. When you come across the kiosks, you right-click the mouse to receive information on how to play the game. There is also situated information about how to play the game and clues about the basic story. You do get praise for moving through the game. You also receive cybernetic modules rewards that can upgrade your skills and stats. You receive messages how to upgrade at upgrade stations that are located in the next room. There are figths within the game. The earlier fights are easier than the later ones. The game begins easy and gets more difficult as the player progresses through the various rooms and levels.
Too often in education students are immersed into more complicated situations with very little guidance from teachers. This can lead to students missing out on important learning from simple, basic situations. They can miss out on important development and learning. Children need to start with cases that are basic or fundamental, not just easy. These basic, fundamental cases can lead the learner to discover and practice patterns and generalizations. Teachers should create and concentrate the most fundamental words, phrases, and grammatical forms into early lessons. Students will build upon these fundamental words and phrases in future lessons, just as any good video game.
LEARNING PRINCIPLES
This chapter has suggested a variety of learning principles that are built into good video games. These principles are important and relevant for learning in both video games and learning in content areas of classrooms. Their order is not important.
23. Subset Principle
Learning even at its start takes place in a (simplified) version of the main idea.
24. Incremental Principle
Learning situations are ordered in the early stages so that earlier cases lead to generalizations for the later cases. When situations get more complex, students can transfer the earlier simplified lessons to the more complex lessons.
25. Concentrated Sample Principle
Fundamental signs and actions are concentrated in the early stages so that learners get to practice them often and learn them well.
26. Bottom-Up Basic Skills Principle
Basic skills are not learned in isolation or out of context; rather, what counts as a basic skill is discovered bottom up by engaing in more and more of the game/lesson.
27. Explicit Information On-Demand and Just-in-time Principle
The learner is given explicit information both on demand and just in time, when the learner needs it or just at the point where the information can best be understood and used in practice.
28. Discovery Principle
Too much information is kept to a minimum. This allows ample opportunity fo rthe learner to experiment and make discoveries on their own.
29. Transfer Principle
Learners are given support and opportunity to practice transferring what they have learned earlier to later problems/situations.
