Crack Cocaine
Back in December a commentary by Father Raymond De Souza appeared in the National Post in Canada comparing video games to crack cocaine. (The title of the piece was “The crack cocaine of the electronic world.”) It seems De Souza played too much Tetris as a young man, and concluded that video games are an evil addiction.
The arguments in the piece are fairly predictable–and flawed in many of the ways you might expect–and raised the fairly predictable responses from gamers and the gaming community. I was going to wade in too, but realized that my colleagues and peers had already said many of the things I would say. (In fact, just reading the comments on the Father’s article online covers much of the ground.)
I did want to point out one thing about the piece that I’ve found myself thinking about a lot lately as I watch my kids play.
David Williamson Shaffer speaks on NPR
In 2008, David participated in a broadcast about video game research on National Public Radio (NPR)’s The Infinite Mind program. In this episode, “Taking Games Seriously”, he speaks about epistemic games and how they can be used to prepare children for competition in our global economy. Later in the program, Epistemic Games group members Gina Navoa Svarovsky and Padraig Nash were joined by a student who has played the epistemic games Digital Zoo and Urban Science to talk about the games’ design, what it is like to play the games, how they are different from traditional videogames, and the benefits gained by playing them.
If you haven’t already installed Real Player, get it here.
A Comparison of Simulation-Based and Conventional Training Methods
I came across an interesting article with this title the other day. (It was actually a white paper by a company, Experience Builders, that develops simulation-based training.) The paper is a quick read, and provides an overview of the benefits and processes of simulation based training–as well as some useful statistics about the use of simulations in professional training.
Those familiar with How Computer Games Help Children Learn already know my take on the distinction between games and simulations: that every game has at its core a simulated world, and that what makes a simulation into a game is when players have roles in the simulation, and rules to follow based on those roles. So I expect that in this sense many of the simulations that Experience Builders build are used as games–which shouldn’t be surprising, since many of the arguments they make in their paper apply to both.
Videoludica Book review
For those of you who read Italian, a recent review by Matteo Bittanti of How Computer Games Help Children Learn.
Nueva Publicacion
In the realm of EXPERIENCIAS QUE INSPIRAN, I published my first paper in Spanish since dropping out of Spanish class in middle school. (For the record, I chose Latin instead, and have made few less intelligent decisions in my academic career.)
The translation is courtesy of Enlaces, the Centro de Education y Technological in Chile.
