Henry shared the media that influenced him, including films like Operation Frontal Lobe and Isaasc Asimov sci-fi novels. He agued that every other pop culture medium has been involved in education, and games need to catch up. Even Hollywood markets films with education guides (e.g. The Alamo, which has one available on the official website).
Some stats Henry shared:
100% of entering college freshman play games
65% call themselves regular game players
48% said games keep them from studying “some” or “a lot”
32% play during classes
With that many students playing, said Henry, maybe the teachers should join them. —Education Arcade, day 1 (Water Cooler Games)
Glad to see Ian is braving “The Dangers of Academic Blogging” to give his ground’s-eye view of what looks like an important conference. Perhaps Wired will have more later, but at the moment I’m not impressed by its coverage.
One panel featured Wagner James Au, James Paul Gee, Warren Spector, and Brenda Laurel. What a line-up! I’d also like to have heard what Royal Shakespeare member Tom Piper had to say about a collaboration with MIT.
“…that doesn’t tell me that teachers should join them. It means that they should flunk out…”
Other than the course asking you to play games, I don’t think it’s completely out of line if it’s not disturbing other students. As a teacher, it’s your job to teach everything for the class. But you have to teach for the average. What if I already know what you’re teaching? (this happens in intro level programming a lot) As the teacher, you certainly can’t skip teaching it to the class just because I already know it! There’s a fair amount of wasted time for a student in some classes, particularly lower level ones, because not everyone in the classroom knows the same things.
Dr Jerz, I would personally think that MIT students would probably be lower. No time to play games. :-(
Yes, that statistic is surely out of context. 32% have ever, in their lives, played a game during class? During the whole class, or during roll call? What if the course asks you to play a game? Etc., etc. I imagine Jenkins would have explained the source of that info more fully in his presentation. Certainly the 2/3 figure calling themslves “regular game players” seems plausible (though if he polled MIT students, my guess is their rate is higher than the general public).
Umm…32% play during classes?! Forgive my frankness, but that doesn’t tell me that teachers should join them. It means that they should flunk out. Sheesh. But seriously, I see the point that teachers should tap into student interests, and of course games are educational, but there are probably limits to how teachers should act on this data. Students like to do beer bongs and play football, too…