If you're at all curious about why in the world video games might be worthwhile, watch this thought compelling argument by James Paul Gee (given last week at GLS 4.0) on how video games are good for learning and society.
Find "Talks Beyond Games" (page 3) and start at 39:15
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I jotted down bullet points here:
How we can make choices for a different future
Complex Systems are biting us
Students need to be thinking about complex systems - this should be a 21st Century Skill
Baby boomer - Linear thinking fails to rethink goals
Passion Communities around complex systems - they organize and produce knowledge that competes with expert knowledge
Our job is to design things like a game with social, passion communities organized around them.
(Next game I'm going to buy: Portal)
Education can/should be about giving people tools to help them see world in new way, and that enables people to leverage powers.
Games at their best give you empathy for complex systems.
Humans learn from experience, but when they're given tools to theorize about their experiences (often through social groups) better learning happens.
Bottom line: People need to theorize in social (passion) groups around complex systems to learn and produce solutions.
"Prosumers"
Take away question: So how do we a) design places that are malleable by learners and b) provide tools for theorizing that combined will foster self-organizing passion communities? What does that look like for organized education?
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