A Few Words on Gaming

Until recently (as in, about an hour ago when I read and listened to James Paul Gee) I never felt there was any significant value in playing video games. Sure, some seem loosely "educational," in the sense that they are based in real historical events (mostly wars), and I've often heard the case made that they improve hand-eye coordination, but this is hardly enough to convince me that video games have any true scholarly value.

Enter James Paul Gee. He makes the point that, ultimately, video games are very effective at teaching us problem-solving skills. Gee also suggests that video games promote creativity by allowing players to create characters, societies, and in some cases their own worlds. He points out that video games are constantly assessing us when we play them. They build challenges in a logical way, from the initial training stages to complicated "bosses." When we play video games we are encouraged to take risks. His case is quite convincing. Still, I have some questions.

My first question is a practical one. I understand the points he makes, but I'm not sure how I would integrate gaming into a high school English class. Should it be an activity I use in my classroom, or should I just encourage (or at the very least, not discourage) students who play video games? If I had to answer my own question, I would venture that Gee isn't necessarily promoting the use of specific video games in the classroom. Rather, he is encouraging educators to think about some of the aspects of video games that make them engaging and effective and incorporate those into our teaching practices.

This leads me to another question. Do most video games have this type of worth, or is it only a specific few, or only certain genres. For example, do sports video games encourage problem-solving skills to the same degree as role-playing games? If there is a difference, what criteria should be used to evaluate games? When I hear Gee describe the games he refers to in his article they seem to be quite different than the games I grew up playing. When I was a kid, I had games like Space Invaders, Donkey Kong, Frogger and, of course, Pacman. They are pretty simple by today's standards. I'm not sure that they are able to provide the same benefits as the games that students are playing today. At least not to the same degree. In high school Super Mario Brothers and Zelda were in everybody's Nintendo. These seem to be the basis of many of the platforming games today. But we never had anything quite like a lot of the games that Gee describes.

The last question that keeps bouncing around in my head is whether or not traditional games (card games, board games, etc.) have the same basic educational value as video games. I ask this partially because I feel like many teachers keep board games in their classrooms and don't mind students playing them if there is extra time, and some even model lessons around certain games like Jeopardy, Trivial Pursuit and even Bingo. Most of these teachers would never even consider allowing their students to play video games during school time. Do we have this backwards?

While I don't plan on racing off to the store to purchase the new X-Box 360, I do see the value of certain games that I previously would have written off as mind-numbing. I'm looking forward to exploring this topic more.