EDL 755 Reflection # 4

Video Games: Reflection # 4

           

I surprised myself as I was reading Video Games and Learning. From the first sentence of the first chapter, I went in defending the way I teach without video games. My thoughts were counter arguing almost all of Squire’s ideas. The ironic thing, I am not opposed to video games in the classroom. I just thought his arguments lacked educational background and depth. I found myself questioning his reasons and how to apply his method of connecting video games to Montessori’s education philosophy. I honestly think this type of teaching would, as of right now, only work in a charter school, not a public school. After reading the book, I found myself sorting out what I agreed with, what I disagreed with, and how this would look in my classroom.

           

“We [are] responsible for our own learning” (pg 1). Agreed. “Learning cannot occur if children are forced to sit with their attention on their teacher; learning requires the ability to follow one’s interests, engage the senses, and test ideas” (49-50). Agreed.  These are about the only two comments that I agree with Squire. Students, rather they realize this or not, are responsible for their own learning. Students do not come to school to see their teachers work. Instead, students come to school to work. Unfortunately, some students have not realized this ‘aha’ moment and think school is a place where the teachers should find information, give it to them, and tell them what to do with the information. Students expect their teachers to think, work, and create for them. In order for students to want to work and learn, the material does need to be engaging, fun, and collaborative. I also agree that if I were to use video games in the classroom, the video games would have to be participatory and designed by knowledgeable designers. Where I differ with Squire, is that I don’t necessarily agree that video games are the answer. Not every student is interested in video games. It’s hard to teach with just one medium when you have over one hundred students with different likes, dislikes, and personalities. I also disagree that video games do not have to simple models or contain bias much like textbooks. Instead, video games should provide many perspectives from many different countries to produce well-rounded students.   

The disagreements between Squire and me are huge. First, he claims that people should learn video games on page 15 because video games “are developing academic interests and learning academic content,” engaging, and participatory. First, not every game is accurate in academic interests. Throughout the text, he claims that video games can teach geography, history, etc. For instance, World of Warcraft has numerous servers with basically the same cities. Yes, an avid gamer will know the name of cities, recognize landscapes, people, how they dress, terms, etc. My question is: How is this accurate to the real world? This is a fake, utopian world that does not exist. This teaches students about virtual worlds, not the world in which they live. Secondly, he claims that this teaches students terms and languages. As an English teacher, I can honestly say that the language taught in this collaborative, participatory world is not academic language that would land a student a job. Sadly, this language is showing up in formal essays, job resumes, tests, etc. Video games are causing confusion between two different types of worlds: virtual vs. reality. For example, I was traveling home from a graduation party with my husband. I made a comment and his response was “QQ.” I looked at him very confused. He simply replied that this was the new way to say, “Why don’t you cry about it.” Apparently, “QQ” is a symbol for tears on World of Warcraft. I did not and still do not understand why he did not just say what he meant instead of the symbol. This is not proper academic English, and this is what video games have taught my husband. As I also read  Squire’s claims of what video games offer, I found myself not only disagreeing but linking his thoughts to the “Level of Content Integration” by James Banks from Dr. Parks’ multicultural class. The content learned from video games only focuses on level 1 and level 2, which is basic topical information. In order to teach high level thinking, content needs to be at level 3 or level 4, where students learn multiple perspectives, make change, and connect to real life. My conclusion is that video games do not teach high level thinking. 

I also appreciated Squire’s in depth explanation on how the Sims is an academic video game. I, on the other hand, disagree. He claims that the Sims allows players to create goals, work toward goals, achieve goals, promotes creativity, works on relationship building skills, scrapbooking, and storytelling skills. He also claims that the Sims is a great participatory game because it allows “players the ability to produce and distribute content” (pg 31). The Sims also allows and gives “players the tools by which they could make unique game experiences that they wanted to play (like having the band the Damned move into their neighborhood and pee on their floor” (pg. 32). First, how is having a band pee on someone’s floor educational to a high school student? Funny, yes; educational, no. I am an avid player of the Sims. In my experience, this is what the game teaches: cheating to get what a person cannot have. The first thing I Goggled was a cheat code to achieve as much money as possible, so I could buy everything I wanted. When I play, I create an ideal, perfect world that does not exist. The game also only promotes level 1 and level 2 from Banks. The newest game, however, does offer an expansion pack to travel around the world. Once at this new land, the landscape is of highly recognizable historical land makers. Another problem with the Sims is that it is a very Americanized game of what Americans what and appreciate. It teaches that the ‘American Dream’ is wanted worldwide. Also, not every family in the world can afford to buy this program (or other programs) along with its many expansion packs. With its many drawbacks, I can actually see me using the Sims as a tool in my classroom.

Surprisingly, I am not opposed to using video games in the classroom. I just think the right video game for the right project needs to be used. It is also a shocker, that after I vented about the Sims as not an academic game, I would use the Sims in one of my lessons. My first thought in how I could apply video games into my classroom, was a project with To Kill a Mockingbird. I have students draw the town and houses through quotes from the book. I could do the same project with students who play and have the Sims at home. The Sims 3 allows players to create a town from scratch. My students could create the town of Maycomb. The students then would upload their town on the Sims’ Exchange. It seems like a fun option to my project for some students, but not all.

As a teacher, I was not surprised to learn that a 2002 study “found that kids’ internet use shows that when they want to learn something personally meaningful, they look online” (15). I don’t agree that the answer should be to incorporate video games. Yes, video games allow students to collaborate and blog on the internet. Sometimes, however, that information is not academic. I also agree that “While schools remain static, learning is changing” (14). Again, I do not think that the answer is to change our current education system to video gaming. Video gaming is a hobby. Hobbies are fun and teach valuable lessons. Too much of one thing, however, creates problems and may disengage students. I found it funny when Squire said that “Any time we turn a child off to learning rather than awakening their intellectual curiosity, we’ve failed” (15). His method of teaching is a turn off to some students. That is why I think this system would only work well in a charter school setting where some students would excel. I see that an education system that focuses solely on video games will lack in communication skills such as interpersonal. There is more to life than gaming. That is why I think video games may be great for one project, but not the focus or design of a whole educational system.