Gee Chapters 1-3
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Contents |
Chapter One
In the first chapter of James Paul Gee's book, "What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy," Gee introduces the reader to his thesis, namely that "good" video games teach important principles of learning. Video games are often, what Gee calls "pleasantly frustrating." They are often long, hard and complicated, but this is exactly what gamers demand. Gee notes that while schools simplify their curriuclum in order to "get it learned" game designers strive to create games that are ever more difficult and challenging. Gee wonders what principles of learning are embedded in these video games an how can those principles be applied to schooling in the 21st century (3).
Gee explains his background as a linguist and argues that all learning is simply "learning to play the game." Gee believes that how you think about something is determined by your experience with various sorts of social and cultural groups. For example, family members, church friends or peace activists encourage people to read and think in certain ways. And Gee has realized that video games mimic this type of learning, offering players different characters and identities that lead to different ways of looking at and interacting with the virtual world. Gee also sees learning as social, rather than individual. Video game also provide social learning environments, be it a social multiplayer environment, or online review sites/magazines/message boards surrounding a particular gaming community (7).
Next, Gee explains his intention to connect his video game theory to to three important areas of current research. Gee believes these areas of study capture central truths about human learning and that these truths are well represented in the ways good video games are learned (9).
- situated cognition - human learning is fully embedded (situated) in a material, social or cultural world
- "New Literacy Studies" - reading and writing should be viewed through social and cultural practices, with economic, historical and political implications
- connectivism - human beings think best when they reason on the basis of patterns they have picked up through experiences in the world
Gee ends the chapter with a note about the controversial topics of violence and gender in video games. Gee makes it clear that people of every ethnic group and social class play video games and that more women are playing every day. He cites The Sims, the best selling video game of all time, as an example. The majority of Sims players are women. And he reminds readers that none of the current research suggests video games lead to real-life violence in any predictable way (11). Technologies, all by themselves, do not have any effects, good or bad, in Gee's option. Technologies have effects only as they are situated in specific contexts. Games reflect the culture we live in and therefore Gee suggests policy makers speak to the real-world culture of violence and abuse, not just the images a child sees (13).
Chapter Two
Gee explains how computer gamers are active participants in learning. There is a great deal of social networking that goes into gaming. Gee sites his experience trying to learn how to play a game on his own utill his son walked in the room and said something to the extent of " are you crazy trying to learn this on your own?" Basically gamers use networks, friends, the internet and other sources to enhance their playing. Get talks about gaming as a non passive activity that requires social interaction. He later goes on to talk about "semiotic domains" which inquires how things take on meaning. When semiotic domains are used in an active way, Gee points out that three things occur: -We learn to experience the world in new ways -Have the potential to join social networks or groups -Gain resources that prepare us for future learning .........
Chapter Three: Learning and Identity
This chapter uses learning to play video games as a crucial example of how identities work in learning. All learning requires taking on a new identity, and forming bridges from one’s old identity. Video games recruit identities and encourage them to work in powerful ways. He argues that if schools worked similarly, learning in schools would be more successful.
He uses a video game called Arcanum: Of Streamworks and Magick Obscure to illustrate his discussion about identity and learning. Arcanum is a world where magic and machines coexist in a tension filled and uneasy balance. Human, gnomes, elves, ogres, dwarves all live in this world. He explains that before you begin playing you must construct your character. Each race and gender has their own unique characteristics, with their own degrees of strength, dexterity, beauty, intelligence and charisma. These traits will effects the way you interact with other characters, and how others respond to you in this world. The author chooses the character of a half-elf which he names “Bead Bead.” He also explains that in the game you can choose your own unique background such as what happened in your past. As the game progresses you get points that you can distribute to your character to allow them to develop their traits or give them new skills. In the game you interact with other characters, and you begin to build a reputation of being either good or evil. The goal of the game is to carry out a quest that was given to you by a dying old man after you’re involved in a crash. You have the choice of carrying out other quests given to you by other characters, but the end of the game turns out differently from what it would have been had you built your character differently.
Gee describes three identities that are at stake when you play a game such as Arcanum.
- First you have the virtual identity. In his case that is the character Bead Bead who is a half-elf built up to be intelligent and persuasive.
- The second identity at stake is the real-world identity; the nonvirtual identity playing the game. He discusses that individuals have many different nonvirtual identities.
- He calls the third identity Projective identity, meaning to project one’s values onto the virtual character, and seeing the virtual character as one’s own project in the making. Here, the stress is on the interaction between the real-world person and the virtual person. The kind of person and history that he is trying to build through the virtual character is the projective identity. This projective identity belongs to both the real person and the character. In his projective identity, he worries about what sort of “person” he wants his character to be, what type of history he wants her to have, and wants this character to reflect his values. He says that a good role playing game should make you think about what you value and what you don’t.
He explains that in playing games where a person takes on a role of a character, the person playing feels a responsibility to and for the character to not let the character down. In his own example with the game of Arcanum, he somehow feels that he let the character down when he sells the ring that was given to the character at the beginning of the game. Although the game permitted the act of selling the ring, the author wanted her (the character) to act more intelligently and not have any regrets. In his projective identity, he was attributing feelings and motives to the character that went beyond the game world. In the same way, people playing games where they’re playing a superhero characters will not shoot civilians because the person they are “projecting” to the world, in this case a superhero, would not do such things.
Identity and Learning
- The theme of the book is that good video games reflect good principles of learning.
- The author starts to discuss how a game like Arcanum is relevant to learning outside video games.
- Such a game requires a commitment to see oneself in terms of a new identity and to see themselves as the kind of person who can learn. The author argues that the same commitment is required in classrooms if students are to engage in active learning. He gives an example of a science classroom and argues that students in a science classroom should also bring into the classroom their real world identities, just like in the game Arcanum. However, when students bring an identity of themselves as persons who cannot learn, teachers must first repair this before any active learning could take place. It’s just like learning to play a new game with the assumption that you suck at playing video games.
- The author describes three principles that are needed in order to repair learning:
- The learner must be enticed to try
- The learner must be enticed to put in lots of effort
- The learner must achieve meaningful success
- He goes on to explain how he was enticed to play by watching his son play video games, and how he put in effort because he found the virtual world to be amazing and he was compelled at how he could bridge some of his real-world identity to the virtual character. In video games he also achieved meaningful success because games are designed to reward each player differently based on their degree of success.
- He argues that if classrooms carry learning so far as to take on a projective identity (such as a scientist in a science class), then the student can come to know that he or she has the capacity, at some level, to take on the virtual identity as their own real-world identity. They get to learn what it is like to actually have the capacity to be the scientist they projected. Through their virtual identities, children can learn new values and new ways of being in the world.
- He describes several other learning principles from video games such as the practice effort. Humans need to practice what they are leaning a good deal before they master it. He says that schools have not realized this principle.
- Humans also lose what they learned when they cease to practice it
- He says that children cannot learn deeply if they do not practice it regularly and in a meaningful context. Children need to be motivated to practice what they learn.
- Schools today engage in passive learning more than active and critical learning, which will not empower students much.
- He talks about automatization of skills and how it gets in the way of new learning if it does not change or adapt to current conditions. In games, players are often forced to undo their routine in order to achieve a higher level of skills
- He also discussed that good video games operate within a learner’s “regime of competence”, so that the game is felt challenging but not undoable. At the same time, video games also offer the opportunity to operate at the outer edge of their regime, therefore causing them to rethink their routinized moves and learn new skills. However, in schools many advantaged learners do not get to operate at the edge of their competency, so they are not challenged. At the same time, many disadvantaged learners are asked to operate outside their regime of competency, and they often times fails.
Summary of Learning Principles in Video Games
“Psychosocial Moratorium” principle
- Learners can take risks in a place where real-world consequences are lowered. You can die and start a game again, you can choose the level of difficulty, and choose the game you want to play.
Committed learning principle
- Learners participate in an extended engagement as an extension of their real world identities in relation to a virtual identity to which they feel some commitment
Identity Principle
- Learning involves taking on and playing with identities in such as way that the learner has real choices and opportunity to mediate on the relationship between new identities and old ones
Self-knowledge Principle
- Learners in games can not only learn about the domain, but about themselves and their current and potential capacities
Amplification of input principle
- For little input, learners get a lot of output. For example, with the press of a button you can drive a car in a game. He makes the argument that science also operates with the same principle. In chemistry, for example, you mix in a few chemicals and you can blow up a lab or cure cancer.
Achievement Principle
- For all learners there are intrinsic rewards from the beginning, customized to each learner’s level, effort, and growing mastery, signaling the learner’s ongoing achievements.
Practice Principle
- Learners get lots of practice in a context where the practice is not boring
Ongoing Learning Principle
- The distinction between learning and mastery are vague since learners must at higher levels undo their routinized mastery and adapt to new or changed conditions.
“Regime of Competency” Principle
- The learner gets ample opportunity to operate within, but at the outer edge, of his or her resources so that at those points things are felt challenging but not undoable.
