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Well I wouldn't call myself an expert, although I _have_ looked at this issue several times before with students. The usual elements are here: very small sample size, heavily controlled experiment, undefined categories ("low," "mild"), and murky description of the results (although that could definitely be the fault of the journalist reporting the findings, too). However, these are all possible issues with any social science experiment. There are some other things that often come with media effects specifically. If you haven't seen David Gauntlett's "Ten Things Wrong with Media Effects Research," it's worth a look: concise but packed with criticism (and easy to use in class). http://www.theory.org.uk/david/effects.htm Otherwise, to me this sounds like the same Research that occasionally comes out about games and violence, and has been so for at least a decade. The new wrinkle here could be the MRI readings, and I'll admit I'm no expert there either. But given the limited degree to which science really understands the relationships between thought, behavior, and brain activity, I'm not sure the correlations they're showing in the evidence are all that helpful either.

Sure... compare with reading a book, or doing an experiment. It takes contextualization and reflection, which can be done by a learner (autodictat) or school (pedagogy).

It's also a higher level of learning that's difficult to quantify. Student A and B take History 101. Student A is given a book on US History after 1870. Gets test on same topic. If he read the book, does pretty well. Student B plays a history game, explains outcome, and compares with actual historical events. Certainly more impressive, but if given the standard 101 exam, would he do better? I think games are likely to get the short end of the stick with most standardized assessments.

I don't know -- it has much to do with the way the prof articulates her objectives. For us (who use games regularly), we can/will shape our objectives at least somewhat around existing titles (just as others do so around existing texts), or augment those games with other content that they don't cover (as others do with inadequate texts). So it seems the issue is more about trying to articulate why games could be useful to *others*, who don't yet use them. Trying to persuade our colleagues to try games when they've been using texts with which they're familiar to accomplish pedagogical objectives they've been using for years is going to be hard, and that's where identifying games that more directly support traditional objectives becomes a boon.

I wonder if we could develop a few talking points tying games to Bloom's taxonomy (updated version), making clear that like all pedagogical tools, games address some student needs better than others. And, of course, that not all games address the same type of developmental tasks, just as all texts, A/V materials, classroom techniques do not address the same tasks. The computer/radio analogy is a good one. Expecting computers and/or games to replace some other educational and entertainment resource is missing the point - they are their own thing.

Ed, I feel like such a set of points might already exist and/or have been publicly expressed by game critics/designers, especially from the serious games side of things. But that shouldn't stop us from discussing whether they might be in need of update/reworking/extension. :) I'm interested -- could/should we try to look at some existing texts/posts and then come together in a conference call or something?

I'm thinking something specific to liberal arts educators. We could brainstorm with an etherpad clone (e.g. ietherpad.com) or asynchronously via a google doc.

Ed, would you object if I took that Bloom's approach in a forthcoming paper? "augment those games with other content that they don't cover (as others do with inadequate texts)" - nicely said, Brett.