Gaming can make the world a better place

Using one the many tools available for digital reflection (Blog, Youtube video, Cinch, etc), offer some initial impressions of this talk and how it might impact your approach to designing games for learning.



You may choose to consider the following questions:
Can play and learning be combined?
What role does acknowledging progress play in successful gaming and is their transfer to education?
What do you think MacGonigal's thought about paralell tracks of education (school/games)?
Reflect on Jane's 4 things that games do to make us "virtuosos": Urgent Optimism, Social Fabric, Blissful Productivity, Epic Meaning.

Playing is learning! We begin playing from birth, whether as babies learning that our rattle makes noise or ancient civilizations learning the arts of survival from role playing what they observed their parents doing. I use games in my classroom for most lessons, though they are play party games and not video games. Games are great review, especially at the beginning of the year when we tend to go back to square one. We begin by experiencing the overall concept in game form: high/low, fast/slow, loud/soft, short/long, pulse, tone sets...Kids are great at translating their progression through games to their progression in classroom learning, and are able to make connections between the game and concepts in past and present lessons.

Urgent optimism and Blissful Productivity speak to me most as I feel I've lived them. Staying up till 4 AM just so I could hit 80 with Discordeia, experiencing as many quest lines as possible both in WoW and Dragon Age. Even now I feel blissfully productive working through Game Maker and Game Lab, working to create my own games and quest lines even if the games look like pac man. I will have that epic meaningful experience later when they evolve into something cooler.