The Gee article was very interesting to me because it presented ideas that seemed like they should be obvious through an unexpected, but very relatable, template. Normally, most people don’t connect video games and education. Video games are more likely to be viewed as a hinderance to education than a model. Students sitting in front a screen day after day, not doing work, frustrates and concerns many. However, it also proves the point that, to a lot of people, video games are driving, even addictive. Since most teachers would probably love it if students found their classes driving and addictive, why not examine the principles that make video games this way?

What I find interesting is that these principles–interactiveness, understanding, customization, and so on–seem so basic, so self-explanatory. Of course we should be making lessons with these considerations. Reading them, I think back to one of the first things I read for an education class, an essay in which Freire condemns the “Banking System” in schools. Gee points out that video games–where the user is actively participating and making decisions, not just taking in the directions and information the game has to offer. I’m not making an argument that everything in schools should become virtual, by any means. I just think that he makes a very good point about what we could take from the way games are designed. I remember in elementary school and middle school, we did these sort of historical role-play units where we’d have to go down the Oregon Trail or come on a ship to Plymouth or something. I don’t think we really learned a lot with these because most of the game actions were based on luck (a die roll, for instance), and most of the “assignments” involved drawing pictures, but the idea behind them, of a game acted out in real life, was good, and we all loved them. If they could be redesigned to actually feel relative to students and teach important concepts, I think they’d be a really interesting tool and embody the ideas Gee proposes.

To fulfill this week’s assignment of playing a video game or doing an interview, I tried playing the game Portal at a friend’s house. Now, video games are a little out of my realm. I loved computer games as a kid, but only the ones that let me creatively design and customize thing–I liked kid pix, and I liked all the “tycoon” games, where you would design and run a zoo, or an amusement park, or something. I didn’t really care about Sims once the virtual people came to life, but I loved choosing their appearance and designing dream houses for them to live in. I think this makes sense, because I always liked creative projects, and the games let me pursue them on a much larger scale than I could in reality, since my mother had no desire to fulfill my dream of painting every wall a different color. So, I wasn’t really expecting to like Portal. But it was actually really interesting. The game is essentially a series of puzzle that you must get through by blasting portals–one to enter, one to exit–into the walls. You go into it knowing nothing, and must retain knowledge about what has worked in the past, and well as basic principles of gravity and physics. The levels become progressively harder–I got through about half of them before deciding it was time to stop replaying a dead-end and do other work. Another interesting component of the game is that throughout it, a female voice on an intercom is giving you false instructions and trying to discourage you, only to praise you when you solve the puzzles anyway. Before you begin, she will say the the puzzle has been proven impossible, they are sorry, and you should give up now. Then, if you succeed, she says that the previous statement was a lie, and well done. I don’t think this is something we should bring into the classroom. However, I do think it is interesting in that it shows how much people want to prove themselves. When confronted with a supposedly impossible task, we want to solve it. So, the idea could be toned down for the classroom–students should not be told they will fail, but they should be given interesting tasks and challenged to find ways to complete them.

Overall, I think this article really made me look at video games in a new way–it helped me see them not just as distractions or stress-busters, but  as successful learning devices. If we can bring the same inventiveness, involvement, and forward momentum to classroom lessons, we could surely achieve our own version of that success.