Can we even recall all the gimmicks in the last 15 years that were supposed to transform these recalcitrant non-readers into junior professors? There were all those summer programs that promised you free Pizza Hut or some junk if you read 300 pages in three months. I also remember Goosebumps books, which were all uniformly awful (primarily because they were all basically the same book with a different bogeyman copied and pasted into each incarnation--the man-eating plant, the neighbor who's a vampire, etc.), but were hailed as the next big thing in making everyone excited about books. There was Pokemon (which came with books of some sort, though usually with very few words, and what words there were were incomprehensible in the style of most translation of Japanese pop culture), fan fiction, graphic novels, movie tie-ins, Harry Potter, and on and on.
Every new kind of packaging was supposed to finally get everyone reading, and what seems to be plainly obvious is that reading is not for everyone. Literacy might be, but not literary habits. And maybe that's OK. Everyone doesn't have to love Hemingway for the US to be a culturally developed nation. At the same time, these proselytizing efforts have increasingly taken the form of the lowest common denominator of "reading" and "books," to the point where it's worthwhile to stop and wonder if reading any combination of words is always better than reading nothing at all?
There is a reason that Goosebumps is awful, that most serialized fiction is awful, that Pokemon is awful, that basically anything that librarians and schoolteachers try to market as a "gateway drug" to reading is crud. It's because librarians and schoolteachers assume that the reason that some kids don't like to read is that nothing "resonates" with their interests, and since the interests of children are crude and unsophisticated, so too should be their books. This approach seems to be belied by the high probability that no one has ever become a reader because of Goosebumps, while at least some people have become readers because of books that require somewhat greater intellectual and moral exertion than man-eating plants and farting.
So this brings us to video games as a means of encouraging reading. There is no logical connection between these two activities--in my experience, the only activity that video game playing encourages is more video game playing. This is not inherently evil (just mostly), but neither is it going to achieve the stated end. But! also! "some educational experts suggest that video games still stimulate reading in blogs and strategy guides for players." And nothings instills lifelong literary habits like video game strategy guides. And indeed, the single instance this article offers of the connection between gaming and reading is that great bastion of literacy--the internet message board--"Noah also wrote about the games and other pastimes on a group Internet forum. “I was so surprised because he does not like writing,” said William Tropp, Noah’s father." Again, I have to wonder--how excited should we about every line of text a child reads? Is it an achievement that a child can establish basic communication with his peers, which is essentially what a message board allows, and which is completely different from understanding literature? Are food labels the next big literary thing?
Conveniently, the librarians rescue us from the quandary of celebrating crud in the name of literacy: “I think we have to ask ourselves, ‘What exactly is reading?’” said Jack Martin, assistant director for young adult programs at the New York Public Library." When you can no longer defend your own ground, it is usually a good idea to pretend that your ground may only have been the collective delusion of your opponents. I understand Henry Jenkins's argument for transmedia story-telling, and I think some of his promotion of fan fiction and recreational media creation is interesting, but when he gets into his predictions for the glorious future of education based on collaborative multimedia creation, he makes the same error of confusing education with entertainment that the proponents of video games as literature do.
They make other errors, too. For example:
Holly McLaughlin, a senior at Kimball who played Civilization as a sophomore in Ms. Lord’s class, said that at first she failed at the game, choosing to develop culture and religion at the expense of roads and the military. Playing, she said, helped her gain a deeper appreciation for why leaders made certain decisions. “Rather than just reading about it,” Holly said, “you would understand everything about it, because you had built a network of roads yourself.”Yes, I also loved Age of Empires in high school and played it obsessively, and sadly, it taught me nothing about ancient history. That's because a video game is sadly not history unfolding before you; it's the creation of video game designers. And if the designers want to make a game that can be won by "developing culture and religion," then they can do that, and poor Holly McLaughlin would never know the difference. If they want to design a victory that requires the ancient Egyptians to build a hydrogen bomb, they can do that (or, that's what cheat keys are for). The connection between a historical video game and actual history is whim, not fact.
Finally, there is this small error:
“Games are teaching critical thinking skills and a sense of yourself as an agent having to make choices and live with those choices,” said James Paul Gee.So video games help you practice being alive in ways that actually being alive don't? Also, what being alive shares in common with literature is its interest in this phenomenon called mortality, whereby people die, usually permanently, and that's seen as a pretty big reason that people have to "make choices and live with those choices." In video games, however, you just get teleported back to level 1 to start over. In spite of Mr. Gee's intensive training in critical thinking, he seems to have overlooked this slight flaw in game reality.
42 comments:
Lawl.
Next you'll be saying that reading doesn't improve your literary skills because you're not reading about words.
Also, the whole mortality thing; I doubt that anyone would bother paying for 'One life' games. As for choices, try looking at Bioshock, or Fable, or hell, any decent MMORPG. You make the wrong choice, you've screwed yourself out of hours of gameplay.
Gratz on making GP's blog. You've really made it in being an ass.
"and what words there were were incomprehensible in the style of most translation of Japanese pop culture."
Do yourself a favor and go pick up a copy of a book called Uzumaki as I'm pretty sure you will retract the previous statement after reading it. :)
Besides that I'm past the age of having to be motivated to learn by using a video game so have fun with that. :)
Also I forgot to add. Its pokemon. How big of a literary hit can one get out of a japanese comic revolving around pocket monsters that have balls thrown at them all the time.
Comparing all of manga to one kid's book is a great understatement.
Have a nice day.
While this is written out decently I have to ask what exactly your point is. It seems like railing against video games themselves rather than a disagreement with the educational value.
While some games may not have an explicit historical value (such as the rather absurd Return to Castle Wolfenstein) there are those that still have a value such as American Civil War: Gettysburg.
That's not to say that games should only be used to teach history. Team building skills can be taught and learned using competitive games such as the US Army developed America's Army in junction with the Team Warfare Ladder. Budgeting and economic basics can be taught using games like X3: Reunion where you can work on trying to build a self-sufficient producing company ranging over various producers, and created goods.
As far as reading? Might I suggest that you try playing Zork? Certainly an older game, but still provides a decent position for my argument.
Games have a learning benefit, regardless of what kind they are. Granted I won't be making Silicon Chips in the real world like I do in X3: Reunion, but the basic principles such as supply and demand are still very prevalent.
If you want kids to read or write, they need to read and write things the yare interested in.
If a kid likes to play a game, they will read and write about that game. As the game itself starts to reach a peak in how much they can read or write about it, they will seek new topics. Often these are about other related games, but just as often it is about related topics to the theme of the game.
The game is not the end all to education. It is however one of the many catalysts that will launch a child into the world of literature and education.
As an example, let me tell you about an experience I had when I was younger. I was playing Sam and Max Hit the Road. In the game, they used quite a few words I had not heard before, ie miasma, cesspool. I looked up these words and found their meanings and use them regualrly. They also mentioned the Koran and I looked that up and learned a little about Islam. Did the game teach me about Islam and the meaning and usage of those words? No, but it sparked my interest.
So to say that games are worthless in an educational sense is a bit pretentious. Make me wonder how many kids are trying to learn Particle Physics after playing Half Life.
E. Zachary Knight
Oklahoma City Chapter of the ECA
MySpace Page: http://www.myspace.com/okceca
Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1325674091
I don't offer this as any more than an anecdote, but I can tell you that absolutely, unequivocally, my older son -- now 13 -- learned to read as a direct result of playing video games.
At a very young age -- around four or so -- he developed a strong interest in playing role playing games, which, at the time, emphasized long narrative passages of scrolling text. He'd ask me to read it to him, and after a while I got tired of doing so, and suggested that if he was really that interested, he should learn to read so he could understand.
It took him the summer before his fifth birthday, but by the time he was done, he was reading quite competently, and has been an excellent (and voracious) reader ever since then.
My wife and I encourage our children to read for pleasure as well as for schoolwork, so I suspect it would have been only a matter of time before his reading skills developed, but there's no question in my mind that he learned to read when he did as a direct result of wanting to play video games.
I'm going to do my best to eschew the vitriolic manner of responding to this post that I believe many people will resort to, considering that they'll all be coming from GamePolitics. But suffice it to say, I believe you are underestimating the beneficial affects of certain video games, MSI.
Let me first say, though, that I agree for the most part that teaching a child to first start reading via run-of-the-mill video games is a silly idea. And yes, Age of Empires won't teach about history any more than Brother's in Arms won't teach anything worthwhile about World War II, or Operation Market Garden.
With qualifying statements aside before I go in to my own spiel, to outright reject the idea that video games can not help to make a person more literate is irrational.
Of course I speak only from my own experiences, but growing up in the late 1980s and early to mid 1990s, beyond the typical Street Fighter, Mario, and other types of games on my NES, SNES, and Playstation systems, I also played a very wide variety of action-adventure games.
Just to give a few examples, I would recommend doing some web searches on the Quest for Glory, Space Quest, King's Quest, and Police Quest series of games for PC. I know there are others, but these are the best examples I have, having played them all.
While action-adventure may have fallen out of favor in the late 90s and 21st century, these games probably made me a better writer, as well as reader, than any book or teacher from elementary school to high school could have or ever has had on me. Why? Because it took a combination of reading comprehension, coupled with a rational thought process, to get through the games. Not only that, but because of the detail afforded to the story in these games, it was literally like reading a work of fantasy, save that to progress through the story, I had to do more than flip pages.
You can disagree if you like. Frankly, it does seem like you're already rather dead set in your own belief concerning this topic. I find that very unfortunate.
You are covering an incredibly small section of Video Games in your summary don't you think?
Yes, your mainstream 'point and shoot' games are pretty limited in their textual appeal, but let's face it, Star Trek won't teach people astro-physics, it comletely defies physics at times, and yet a heck of a lot of Astro-Physicists will claim that is was series' such as this that first attracted their interest in the subject.
Same with Video Games, I don't think most mainstream games will encourage learning directly, but they CAN promote an interest in a subject matter, to use your example, Civilisation doesn't teach world history, but it could quite easily encourage a child to learn more about it.
I guess you never heard of the Nintendo DS and the library of games that help teach kids to read, write, spell and perform arithmetic.
I primarily started reading because of goosebumps thank you. And that led to many of the R.L. Stine books I read up until now where I read many things from literary classics which I tend to find highly boring in cases like a tale of two cities, to things like Stephen King and Dean Koontz.
And also because of that I have a high interest in becoming a writer, and even have really wanted to work in a book store since I was 14.
I might also add that many libraries tried to ban me from reading Goosebumps when I was little so I wouldn't say that librarians chided it as the get kids into reading thing. And Harry Potter also got a lot of children to read.
You might also want to play a decent RPG because some require a high deal of reading, and have gotten many people inspired into things like books or technology.
I think you have a strong misconception about the argument being made about literacy and education in general in regards to video games. You seem to be basing your arguments on the old and antiquated concept of "education" being vastly separate from entertainment or any form of "low brow enjoyment," of meida. A very Marxist ideal, I might add.
What I think you should be striving to take away from this is a shifting in the educational paradigm--movement away from the insanely structured, lecturing, and ultimately Puritanical style of teaching--and towards less structured, less quantifiable, but ultimately more rewarding and more applicable paradigm of play-as-learning.
Looking at this from a McLuhan point of view, the play-as-learning and play-as-educating paradigm fits pretty well into the concept of the global village, which we are moving closer towards every day. The traditional method of teaching and learning in a classroom setting with a professor lecturing for hours on end has been shown more and more frequently recently to not be the most effective method for teaching (read: No Child left behind).
Speaking from my own experience, as a gamer, as a cultural theorist, and as a student of Life 2.0, games built some of the most integral foundation pieces for my critical thinking, my project management skills, my overall fiscal strategy, as well as diplomatic relations, understanding my role without a group of people, and countless other life skills. This is not a 1:1 ratio, but such things never are. Rather, the result is correlative.
Totally personal side note: I have to say at the time I loved Goosebumps, and it was a GREAT gateway book for me give into more indepth books with complex issues of morality and less defined roles of good and evil. I think it was one of the best things I ever did, and now I have read arguably more books than just about anyone I know (don't have an exact number, but I personally own 1,000+ books, and have read somewhere in the neighborhood of 3-4x that many -- some of them many many times over). So for me, Goosebumps was a great opportunity to get into reading.
Ms. Glasses, prepare for the sass.
It's incredible to me the number of ill-informed media and bloggers who go off into vitriolic tirades against gaming. It seems to be the favored step-child of late, with everyone from old foes such as Jack Thompson to people such as yourself who have shown up late to the party with nary a clue as to what they are talking about.
The simple fact is that if you know someone who gamed they would tell you about their experiences playing the moral implications Bioshock, or discuss with you the intellectually enthralling puzzle game that is Portal. Of course there is dross in the industry, and hacks can be found in any medium. But the simple truth that these are just two examples out of hundreds of an art form – yes, an art form – that becomes an interactive experience for the consumer that can speak volumes into their life without negative effect.
As a journalist, I encourage you to take another look at the subject matter you are addressing before you make such damning, unqualified statements. The ill-informed may view you as an intellectual, but intellectuals and those within the industry will only scoff at your inaccurate generalizations.
Signed,
Justin Arnold
Reporter
fearandloathinginseattle@hotmail.com
Yes, it's time we got back to good old fashioned video-game bigotry. I'm glad that the video game illiterate have places like this to gather and feel good about their choice of ignorance and incompetence. I only hope they can understand why people who actually care about children hope they stay out of the way.
I've heard many personal anecdotes from parents who have said that their children have vastly improved their reading skills by playing games such as World of Warcraft.
(Before picking up each quest there is a lengthy couple of paragraphs; many of them containing words which are unlikely to already be in a childs vocabulary)
I must say, this article seems to be completely unbased... It's completely non-factual, seems to be entirely based on your own (misguided) personal opinion which has no evidence (anecdotal or otherwise) to back it up.
You appear to me to be very set in your literary tastes (I would hesistate to call you a "literary snob" - but from the tone of your article you appear to be) - you denounce things like Manga and Games when your knowledge of them both seems to be barely skimming the surface.
A work's genre is no guarantee of it's quality or lack thereof; or of it's educational value or lack thereof.
Perhaps that should have been considered...
Buzz! TV Quiz, look it up. owned much? going by your blog the answer is yes.
You are a snob.
The End.
You, sir, are an idiot.
There's a reason why close-mindedness and bigotry never resulted in the advancement of society.
Start acting like a professional, and go do some actual reserach before writing ill-informed blog posts like this.
*sigh*....
video games are all ABOUT learning! the whole game itself! Every game we play whether it be a video game or a card game or tic tac toe (or ro sham bo if you prefer) its all about learning...patterns
our brain is wired to figure out complex patterns...even in things that don't necessarily have them...just look at the clouds...see any faces or things? its your brain trying to get a pattern....notice how looking at clouds like that is fun? its cause your brain is processing a pattern and "getting" it...each time you get it you get a shot of "drugs" or endorphins that make you feel good
so...an rpg? your managing your party, leveling up etc...your learning the patterns of how the game works to make an effective team...
racing? even easier....you learn the pattern for quickest route
all games are made of patterns which we are supposed to eventually master...each time we get better we get a shot of endorphins and feel good...which is why games are so addicting....once we completely master a game's pattern (hopefully after the end of the game) we get bored and move on...
there are other reasons why we get bored early and they are all variations on how difficult the pattern is to discern...if its to easy we master it the game early and don't want to beat it cause were bored....if its too hard we don't see the point in wasting all the time...it has to all be paced correctly so that we a fed a bit at time so we don't become bored and master all the elements of the game.
now...
i know that some people are going to be like "that's not what she meant by learning"
well to be perfectly honest, games are good teachers...but usually of only one focused thing...a good example of a game that DOES teach a single thing very well is math blaster
games aren't usually good at teaching advanced kinds of thinking...
they are good at teaching us our instinctual habits
Fight or flight:pacman
survival:space invaders
exploration: "pick an adventure game"
all games teach us something...timing (ddr guitar hero)...aiming (an fps) spacial relationships (tetris)
and its all done using the brains pattern recognition system
reference:
A Theory of Fun by Raph Koster
(Thought I hit post but I'm back on the same page. Sorry if this double-posts.)
"Again, I have to wonder--how excited should we about every line of text a child reads?"
The cheap-shot response to that is "Well, I'm a gamer and I'm literate enough not to write sentences like that."
The more complex response is that you have a point but basically shoot yourself in the foot by being utterly pedantic and dismissive of an entire medium.
Getting kids to read is an important goal, and no, games are certainly not the only or the best path to it. Neither are strategy guides or messageboards great tools for literacy either (though I'd argue that the former help develop research skills and the latter can be good social environments). But neither is that to say that they have no educational value and can't teach problem-solving skills -- or logic.
There's a whole generation of scientists who say they caught the science bug watching Mr. Wizard -- and Lord knows plenty of people have dismissed TV as a fluff medium with no educational value. Similarly, I'm sure if you polled graduating computer scientists on what put them on their career path, you'd get "video games" as a frequent answer.
Your seeming dismissal of Harry Potter, without so much as an explanation of why, is even stranger, and I think the bottom line here is that you just seem to be complaining without offering any alternatives. All you're saying is "Video games are a waste of time, and most children's fiction is crap." Well, most of EVERYTHING is crap. Seek out the stuff that's good.
Why do I love books? My mom used to read to me every night. Mostly fantasy (a genre that was, at one time, largely dismissed as inconsequential trash -- noticing a pattern here?), stuff like Narnia and Prydain and Lord of the Rings. Dad bought me comics -- and as a comic fan, let me say that you're right, most serialized fiction IS awful, but the best comics deserve the same praises as the best prose books. I'll grant that the best games don't, at least not at this point in time -- but that doesn't mean I'll dismiss the medium out of hand either.
No, games aren't the best tool to teach a child to love reading. And yes, someone should have explained to the Civ player that her logic was fallacious. But at the end of the day, games are a medium, a young one, with a lot of positives and a lot of potential.
And you're, unfortunately, about to get flooded by a bunch of Game Politics readers who say the same thing in much less polite words. But that says a lot less about gamers than it does about people who post in blogs' comment sections.
Hmmm....well, lets start off with this. You're article didn't argue the poing worth a shit. I could've made a better argument dead.
Next, I'm an ACTUAL video games journalist. I've written for many, and many of sites, and now I am writing my own. Since I play video games, it's led me to journalism, and with journalism, before you post any news, you have to read it first.
Next time you start arguing a point you know nothing about...put it on a blog or website that's closed to the public so that we don't have to hear it.
I hope you have a good....no wait....terrible day. ;)
Civilization I and II taught me more about world geography than K-12; Age of Empires II gave me a lot of knowledge of medievil European history. RPGs taught me to read. Zelda taught me to have a passion in writing fiction.
I have been preaching the word of the dangers of video games too. Mushroom Men is NOT a game. It is real. But the videogame seems to be confusing everyone.
It is easy to make blanket statements dismissing the literary value of video games. I certainly don't expect anyone to learn how to read playing Madden or Spore. But you can be certain that if they are used as a tool and a supplement to a well thought out strategy, they can be valuable.
As a native from a Spanish speaking country I have an example:
My brother-in-law developed an interest in Playstation RPGs while in highschool. With appropriate nudging and additional material such as Webster's Dictionary, conversations regarding the stuff he was reading, suggesting novels he could pick up and topics to research in the internet, he steadily increased his proficiency.
When the time came for him to take the national standardized tests in 9th grade, he had the best grade in English in the entire school. And he was proud to declare that he learned it playing video games (which was partially the truth), while the guy in second place lamented the Saturdays he had dedicated since seventh grade to study at a British institution.
Your line of reasoning evidences the belief that parents and close family don't have to play an active role in a youth's education. That using the media as nanny and teacher is enough to develop a youth's potential. That in itself is a very dangerous mindset, and something that deserves more analysis and less snark.
This only shows your incompetence as a gamer, age of empire is multiplayer-heavy-rts. In short if you are good at it you will gain knowledge about basic economics, cost/profit in the form of units, damage, health etc (there are better games for this see supreme commander).
Litterature you'll learn by playing rpg-like-games such as neverwinternights and kotor, history you can learn by tbs based games like civilization and total war (yes it's based on reality, even though the gameplay is not). Fps games are most likely useless though, unless you count basic group tactics and killpoints as knowledge.
Then there is the whole reflex and stress handling thing too, and english comprehension. I'm swedish I learned english by way of heroes3and civilization1, when I was 6-7 yrs old.
And for the record, you can't possibly know what happens when we die. For all I know we might very well start at lvl 1 again. And I don't care what your religion says, because unless you have actually been dead yourself you can't possibly know, and probably not even then either.
You know, for a person who seems to pride themselves on being intelligent, you sure seem to lack the ability to provide any reasonable logic to back up your argument.
I will admit, it's certainly hard to make the claim that playing a game like pokemon or the like would be motivational and thus drive someone to read, but at the same token, a game like pokemon requires tons of reading in an of itself. It seemed to me that your making the argument that the content of what is read is not as important as the of reading itself.
I know a few teachers at my old high school who would disagree heavily with that sentiment.
To that extent, your wrong in the argument that games could not inspire a person to read. Many gamers I know did not become intrested in the subjects they now study till after those subjects were presented, however simplified that presentation may have been, in the form of a game or as part of the overall story or structure of it.
For example, using my self here. I've long had an intrest in the history and mythology of the east, but one specific book I have come to love would never have hit my radar had it not been for a game.
The game in question was Dynasty warriors. I was intriqued, dispite the absurd voice work and manic portrayl of the charecters in that game, to learn the true history of this era they seemed to exsist in and where they feel in it's history. SO I picked up the book upon which the game was only slightly based.
Romance of the Three Kingdoms, one of the most well regarded tales in chinese lore. Based partialy on truth, it's now one of my favorite books.
A similar game, called Samurai warriors, based on a time in japan known as Sengoku, or "Waring states", would also spur my intrest in the history of that region, to which I've devoted considerable study.
Don't think that just cause a game does not deal rigidly with a piece of subject matter, that it cannot inspire. Even a work of fiction can drive creatvity.
Next time you wanna deride games, it might help to look beyond the ones aimed at 3 and 5 year olds.
Just a thought.
P.S.
My apologies for the spelling. My area of expertise is computers and technology, not spelling or grammer.
Sometimes, I just wish I had never learned how to read..
I'm 16. I do not read books. Yet I am in the extension English class at my school. And guess what? Nearly everybody in the class is a gamer including me. The other classes are filled with people who play sport and don't know what a book is.
Also, the types of games I play require me to quickly read and write messages to other players online. Surely that helps in some way.
Also, the adventure game or the rpg tends not to rely on gameplay but rather on story and puzzle solving. My favorite game series is the Ace Attorney series for the Nintendo DS. A series that puts you in the role of a defence attorney and is best described as a visual novel where you have to use your wit to point out contradictions in people's testimonies.
I am a real gamer. Not the type of kid who begs his mom to buy him a game because the cover looked cool. I was when I was like 3. But I read reviews. Heck, I read 40 Gaming related RSS feeds per day. It takes me around 2 hours skim reading the titles and only reading the articles that interest me. Like for example your one.
Gaming does lead into reading. And gamers probably read more than any other type of kid.
Books aint the only things with words in them. Try out some of these games; Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney, Hotel Dusk Room 215, Final Fantasy, Super Paper Mario.
I suffer from crippling dyslexia and I grew up in the Spectrum era of games. I have to conclude that using the machine for playing games and programming my own (rather pathetic) efforts most definitely helped me deal with my then not recognised "condition".
I'm not saying that I wouldn't be as proficient with words as I am now without that lovely little grey box, but I am absolutely certain that it helped my early educational progression. Without a doubt.
Ooh, nothing drives up hits for free like a blog post that blames video games for society's ills. It used to just be rap music, rock music, fantasy novels, and just paperback novels in general. Oh, and comics, radio dramas, movies in general, etc.
The fact of the matter is that — and I say this as someone who is quite fond of video games myself, though I lacked the good sense not to get an English degree — video games are inherently no better or worse than any other form of entertainment. They can be solitary. So are reading books, or listening to music on headphones (even classical! Oh no!). They can be competitive. So are chess and badminton. They can be social, too, like Trivial Pursuit or a cocktail party.
The question isn't whether something helps people learn to read or not. A completely illiterate person could gradually learn to be a chess grand master (though, in fairness, it would be a lot harder to study the tomes upon tomes of openings and endings that are essentially required reading for such high-level play). As it turns out, some people happen to prefer somewhat more interactive entertainment than others. Nothing wrong with books — just because they're completely passive and require no skill other than looking at words and figuring out their meanings doesn't mean that they can't be wonderful things.
For what it's worth, though, I do highly recommend dismissing the vast majority of Japanese comics and animation straight out of hand. Please don't bother with Uzumaki, despite the earlier recommendation, as it is… less than stellar.
The literary implications have already been said. Instead, I'll take an alternative route and go into history and warfare. That is right. History and warfare.
Now, I am not usually one for history. It has never been a very good subject for me. However, I have learned things, in fact, as late as just the other week. I was playing Civilization III (and I have the Complete Edition, which has more Civs, due to the expansions), and I was the Byzantines. I sent out some dromons, and it was the dromons that suddenly sparked my curiosity. So, I went online and looked up about the dromons and Greek Fire. Then, I even went to read up a bit more about the Byzantine Empire. And I learned more from that.
Then, as I said on GamePolitics.com, there are some games such as StarCraft, a very popular real-time space war game, can teach things such as tactical strategies. When you're up against a number of human players, all out to win, sometimes you really have to consider strategy. Should I use a decoy? Air drop? But if I do that, what are their anti-air capabilities? Should I go for a frontal assault? Or maybe I should take an air force, target their Detector units and buildings (which detect cloaked units), and send in my cloaked troops. How are my defenses? What is the weak point of my base? If I'm attacked, will I be able to hold my own? All of those, and even more, can occur in just one game of StarCraft. If you are up against good players, you simply can't rush in sometimes. You need a good strategy.
You are so stupid!
Mass Effect pwns The Iliad.
Sounds like you should go work for a company that reports about gaming but knows nothing about it. Do some research next time before you start ranting on how videogames aren't educational. Videogames challenge the mind, help develop decision making skills, make young people want to read (because if they can't they won't be able to play the Bratz game all their friends are playing) and also teach you how to deal with prepubescent teens with big mouths. Maybe you should stick with writing about things you know like colonial America "Yawn" and ancient Greece, at least that would have been interesting.
Well indeed youa re right it seems you didnt need games to learn to type rubbish on the internet, looks like you did that all on your lonesome so congratulations.
Dear four eyes,
Get a clue.
I played numerous games when I was growing up that taught me a lot about history, geoegraphy, and mythology. I'm surprised that no one has yet mentioned "Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego?" Granted it's no out of date, but it was a FANTASTIC game! And fun, too!
But since you're such a literary expert, allow me to quote for you some Mark Twain.
"'Tis better to be silent and thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt."
Okay, I work in the video game industry, and I'll be the first to defend the effectiveness of games as a teaching tool. However, if we really want to convince the original poster to reconsider her views, I don't think name calling is the way to do it.
i am a 19 year old guy i read novels and i play video games so i tend to think that video games do help with reading i know a guy who hates reading books like thoughs of daivid webber and cathrin asaro but he reads magazines abought games with well writen articles and other such things so i do not agree with you in the least
FAIL.
Dear Miss S-I: You really tapped into a new readership with that post. This must have been linked it to some blog read by the same people that, when I was a kid, wrote multi-page letters to Superman comics. Fortunately, I have noticed this so late that no one will see my remarks, until the far future when a sentient robot will pore over these archives, and conclude, "Yep, we are better off with them being extinct!" Hail to our digital descendents...
Boy, I'm glad you pointed out that you're not a write... I'd never have guessed! Oh, wait.
First of all, the complaint isn't well written - there's a point against it. Other points taken away -- despite being verbose only one "supporting idea" was given. My 2nd grader might be able to get away with that, but she won't get by with it in 3rd grade!
Oh, did I mention a 2nd grader? She plays video games! Her first was the NES game "Legend of Zelda: the Adventure of Link". It requires quite a bit of reading just to get around the towns, learn the required spells and pick up the needed equipment to go on to the next battle. She was 4yo when she played that, as was her older brother when he played. They both learned to read with Link!
SJ latest obsession is Kirby - there's no reading involved in the game, but the poor kid only has Japanese versions of the cartoons and so has to read the English subtitles. She is now drawing her own Kirby adventures and writing about them. (practicing reading, writing and art!)
I may have been bored to tears from hearing about video games and characters, but I'm no fool. They have piqued my children's interest into practicing other forms of learning and of expressing what they've learned. Both love to draw and write. The older is no longer obsessed with game or cartoon characters, but is drawing to expand on a talent. I hope his sister will some day soon get to that point. Both of my children have varied interests in reading, many of those interests were first introduced by a video or computer game.
Oh, yeah, we'll be banning video games here any day now...NOT!
~ MaryEllen
Home schooling mom
Thanks for the awesome commentary! Too Shy to Stop writer Ken Ward actually just wrote a piece about unique ways to teach children how to read. You can read the article here.
I don't see why you are so against the evolution of education. In today's changing world its somewhat expected. Different times call for different measures from an education. The younger generation will always be different from the previous one, naturally, and rather than fight a child to the benefits of reading, it’s a lot more beneficial to have them get there themselves. It’s a known fact that anything initiated by oneself tends to be much more fulfilling and actually learned than simply rout memorization.
So playing MarioKart all day for hours on end will not result in me wanting to go off and read about cars or engines, however it may trigger the curiosity ofsome and they might go off and become amazing mechanics. That’s the beauty of the dynamics of video games—the intended depth is left to the player. Of course they are also programmed to be won a certain way, or cheated a certain way. If someone wants to research the floor plan of the Great Pyramids while playing “Lara Croft Tomb Raider,” fine by me.
Now specifically speaking towards Mrs. Lord’s class at Kimball Union Academy, Civilization III as a teaching tool added some interesting changes to the dynamics of the classroom. For once the overachieving girls (stereotype I realize but true nonetheless) could not keep up with the video-gamer boys. They thrived in this environment and then, along with the rest of the class, had to dig into some aspect of their civilization and draw parallels to others. To do this they had to a) identify these prominent aspects, b) Find their occurrence in other real-world empires, and c) reflect why this might prove to create a strong empire. The once uninterested kids became engaged and lead the class. If there is a learning tool that can create that type of student then why not use it?!?
Which is exactly what happened in Mrs. Lord’s class at Kimball Union Academy, and lucky for you Holly McLaughlin is here. I’ll be honest with you, we loved not having lectures everyday but that feeling would soon be overridden by the immense amount of research that was to come. At least I can say now that my empire of Persepolis had the cultural revolution of that of the Roman Empire in the Golden Age and a military with the discipline of that in Ancient China. What do you have to say after playing Civ? It was fun?
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