Skip to main content

Reviews by Pancho @ "What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy" By James Paul Gee. Chapter 7

🎮What Video Games Have to 🎲Teach Us About Learning and Literacy📙


In chapter 7, James Paul Gee discusses how online interactions through video games can help create a learning network for video game players. When video game players are able to communicate with each other worldwide, it causes people to learn new things or solve the trivia of a game as a group. The unified network of gamers can allow those who participate to submit their own ideas on the game. Certain abilities and cheat codes to the game can also be developed as people play within the network. One game that Gee uses to prove this principle is World of Warcraft, an online MMO and RPG game.


The game has a huge audience with people from all around the world logging in to play daily. The author was able to experience on hand just how far playing within a network can help gamers progress through these types of games. He states “But video game players can be part of a powerful network if they so desire and know-how. Their own ineptness need not stop them.



There is the knowledge they can use, if they know how to leverage it, stored in the other people and stored in various tools and technologies.”(Pg 200) After forming a bond with the other Half-Life players, Gee had learned some tips and cheat codes to help him in the game. Further in the paragraph, he writes “I got on the internet, looked up several game sites, and found a cheat code that allowed me to input commands to the game that made me invisible to the flying aliens. This allowed me to jump without being distracted by their firing at me. When I got back onto the cavern's floor, I turned off the cheat code and continued the battle.”(Pg 200) A social mind can always be developed when you are put in front of obstacles with other people. Ideas and contributions help create a learning network within a gaming network. Another online game that relates to the social mind principle is Minecraft.



This is a sandbox game where you can build, design, and establish new environments using blocks and tools. People within this gaming network might contribute tips on what material to build a house with or how to survive at night with crawlers.


Something else that a gamer of Minecraft could learn is where to find the rare objects in the game, for example, diamonds. Learning how to work around a game with other players is a great way of establishing social learning.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Reviews by Pancho @ "Precolonial Black Africa" By Cheikh Anta Diop

  Precolonial Black Africa 𓁃𓀠𓀢𓀧 This mid to large size book, originally written in French, gives readers a gateway into what Africa was like before the colonization. "Precolonial Black Africa" gives readers a detailed outlook on what life was like amongst the earliest Africans. The book sheds light on what the early Africans did for a living, how they saw each other, how they handled conflicts, how they conquered other lands, how they practiced religion, and a number of other things.  Throughout the book, Cheikh Anta Diop divides the text into sections that focus on the different angles of political and social systems.   For example, section 2 or II or the book goes into detail on what the socio-political status of Africa was at the time.   Sections later on in the  text talk about the education levels that was present during precolonial black Africa. The text is well rounded overall and makes the reader(me) feel like they're sitting in an exclusiv...

Covid-19 POV: Pilot Blog

T he STRONGEST pandemic of the 2020 decade. This was going to be an exciting year for EVERYONE! Leading up to January, talks of the town consisted of "I can't believe it's going to be a decade", "What was I doing in 2010??", "Wow a decade already??", and much more. I for 1 can say that  I was very excited for 2020. When I was younger, I would lay around the TV on Friday evenings watching whatever it was that the news channel had to offer. Many times would I indulge in the show that was known as 2020 . From what I can remember, it was great stories of your everyday average people doing amazing things in life. The show covered lives both domestically in the U.S.A and globally around the world. One of the funniest episodes that aired was when this African guy was talking about how the Homosexuals in their country were enjoying the arts of fisting  and eating feces from the anal area. The fact that people were doing that stuff wasn't the humorous ...