Room With A View

An article in the Globe and Mail from last week about a wife who murders her husband because he divorced her. The thing is, it was a virtual marriage between two avatars and the wife murdered the husband’s avatar. Hmm…..

A study commissioned by the US Department of Justice is discussed on CBC’s May 1st episode of Search Engine. Some people may be surprised by the study’s findings. It’s well worth a listen but here are a few key points:

• there is not a simple relationship between violent video games and violent behaviour
• boys that don’t play games are more likely to get into trouble at school
• kids like the complexity of games not the violence. It just happens that the violent games tend to be the complex ones.
• kids are acutley aware of the difference between fantasy and reality. They know that games are not real. That’s why they like them.
• youth violence has gone down in the past 15 to 20 years. The reporting of violence has gone up.

Here’s a link to the study’s homepage.

Grand Theft Auto IV was released recently week. CBC’s The Q has a good story on it. For those not familiar with the game the player earns points by stealing cars, running people over, killing cops, and pretty much doing whatever is totally evil. Obviously, it’s controversial and it makes money–lots of it. It’s estimated that it grossed over $500 million in its first week. That beats out all other entertainment releases ever. The number one grossing movie ever was Spiderman 3. It made a little more than $150 million in its first week. What does this mean to education? It challenges us to look at what kids are learning in games like this and how they are learning it.

We need to look at what they are learning so we can challenge students to think critically about what they are consuming and what effect it might be having on them and society.

We need to look at the how they are learning in games so we can figure out what makes some games so captivating so we can weave these same techniques into our pedagogy.

Peacemaker is a simulation game where one plays either the leader of Israel or the leader of Palestine. I’ve been watching it’s development for several months and it’s now finished.

PeaceMaker challenges you to succeed as a leader where others have failed. Experience the joy of winning the Nobel Prize or the agony of plunging the Middle East into disaster. PeaceMaker will test your skills, assumptions and prior knowledge. Play it and you will never read the news the same way again.

It’s tough. I installed it on a desktop machine in my computer lab in hopes that I’d be able to review it–no way. Five minutes here and ten minutes there just didn’t work. It’s way too involved for that. Last week I bought a license for my personal MacBook so I could play it on the plane on the way to Thailand. Even so I’ve barely got started. It’s involved, there’s a lot to learn, and there’s no easy solution–pretty much a realistic simulation.

If you’re at ISB and you want to check it out, let me know. I’ll sort out a way for you to try it out. I’m dieing to see how we can use this with kids. Right now I think it has potential for high school social studies, Theory of Knowledge, and MUN classes. I look forward to hear what you think.

Here’s an interesting study on game use in education. A quote I particulary like is

Far from being sidelined, teachers were required to take a central role in scaffolding and supporting students’ learning through games.

I’m not a gamer. In fact, games drive me nuts. Once in a while I’ll sit with one of my kids and try to play but within a few minutes frustration builds inside me to the point that I’m ready to throw the controller across the room. I’m not a gamer but I try to be open-minded. I’m not anti-gaming.

I’ve read about Marc Prensky’s work and I’ve listened to a couple of podcasts by him. To those that don’t know his work, he writes about gaming and what kids learn through it. Most recently I listened to Prensky being interviewed for Apple’s Cut To The Core: Essential Podcasts for Educators. (subscribe here)

Last class yesterday afternoon I used the podcast with a seventh grade class. It was the last block of a long week. It was our mentoring trip week so half the middle school students went on trips at the beginning of the week while half went on trips at the end of the week. This group had traveled at the beginning of the week so it meant we were all a bit tired by Friday. It seemed like a good time to change things up and see what they thought about Prensky’s ideas. I played clips from the podcast, pausing periodically to get their feedback on what he was saying. I was blown away.

At one point Prensky comments that parents should really thank their kids for playing games because they learn so much. Of course the kids loved that idea. They gave examples of what they’ve learned from games. One student pointed out that what he knows about WWII he learned from a game. (He named the game but I didn’t catch it.) Another student—one of the quietest in the class—said that when playing games he learns about how he learns. (The conversation veered in another direction before I could flesh out this idea properly but I’d like to follow up on the idea later.)

The students felt very strongly that gaming is a social activity. They play with other people either on-line or in the same room. Even when they’re not playing they talk to other kids about the games in order to learn how to advance to the next level.

One thing we didn’t resolve was the idea of violence in games and it’s acceptability. We ran out of time while we were discussing it. There was some division among the kids on this issue. Many students felt that games were fantasy and as such violence was okay. Other students brought up stories of kids doing violent acts and saying it was because of violence in games.

It was a great discussion. I learned a lot from them. As good as the discussion was, we still only heard from a handful of students. Perhaps small group discussions would help. More Web 2.0 tools like blogging or discussion boards may work as well. Also, Web 2.0 tools would have the advantage of keeping the conversation going even when we run out of time in class.