Ocarina of SPACETIME!

This week's readings were absolutely fascinating. I first dove into the Gee article, "Good Video Games and Good Learning." As I read, I found myself agreeing with so much. Yes, people spend large amounts of time tackling difficult problems...in games. They are creative, motivated, and they persevere. The games are set up to challenge them the right amount, to present information at the right time, and to 'pleasantly frustrate.'

While I was reading, I recalled some of my own experiences playing games. I had a good deal of fun with Duck Hunt, Super Mario Bros, and Legend of Zelda on my nintendo system as a kid. When we got an N64, I fell in love with Mario Kart, Super Mario 64, and Goldeneye, but no game could live up to my very, very favorite: Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. I was enthralled with the game. I had to go on exciting quests, talk to characters, run complicated errands, and work out puzzles to get through different levels. I worked for precious tools and weapons, including...


The Ocarina of Time! Needless to say, I was really nodding along when reading the article. Thinking about how much time I spent on that game, and how pleasant it was, really made me want to put my thinking cap on when the author asked: "How can we make learning in and out of school, with or without using games, more game-like in the sense of using the sorts of learning principles young people see in good games every day when and if they are playing these games reflectively and strategically?"

What a question. My first thought was that...games aren't graded. If we want to make school learning as effective as game learning, we have to take away the high stakes, the shame associated with failure - it's all got to go. We instead have to set tasks to our students that are hovering right above their current ability level, scaffolding them into more complicated tasks. And we have to be okay with failure while continuing to praise success. This way, students will be comfortable taking risks and 'playing the game.'

I think another key factor is that students need to believe in the epic win, as Jane McGonigal discussed in her TED talk. Players of a game know there is an end that has been designed to be achievable. In school, it sometimes might not feel that way - students might be missing key tools like the Ocarina and feel like the system is not set up such that they can 'win.' That needs to change if students are to buy into school learning the same way they buy into games.

Gee's final question continues to be fascinating to me, and I hope we discuss and explore it more in class. How fantastic would it be to harness that sort of educational potential!

The TED talk was interesting as well. Jane McGonigal discussed components of gaming that are useful in real life: cooperation and collaboration, believing you can be successful, being trusted with a mission. "What exactly are gamers good at? 1. urgent optimism. 2. social fabric. 3. blissful productivity. 4. epic meaning." She argues that gamers are "super empowered hopeful individuals." I was really wondering what she was getting at until she described her example games at the end. Making changes that aim toward an epic win in the oil shortage really did seem much more likely to take hold than changes motivated by "I should probably do this, it'll be better for the world."

I wonder what other games she has come up with since then. Could we really solve problems with games? I mean, at their heart games ARE the process of solving problems, but can we 'trick' people into playing for a cause?


Can we get people to buy in?