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Some interesting videos with James Paul Gee et al. discussing issues related to video games and learning. Videos are under 5 minutes each.

Some interesting videos with James Paul Gee et al. discussing issues related to video games and learning. Videos are under 5 minutes each. What do you think about what they have to say?

Games as constant assessment, and textbooks as tools for problem-solving

This is a classic example of "gee whiz - it's magic" journalism about technology in education

It's intersting to think about what sorts of journalists get handed these kinds of stories. Should this be the education beat? The technology beat? This particular journalist doesn't seem to bring expertise of either kind. (It seems like it's just a Metro desk story.) Mostly he comes across as a shill for Apple.

The financial struggles of print media have led to the substitution of "piecework" journalists, often with no credentials for the story, for qualified professionals with strong backgrounds. Poor articles are the result...

What if, instead of seeing school the way we've known it, we saw it for what our children dreamed it might be: a big, delicious video game?

Fantastic piece on transforming higher education--love his framework.

To what extent should videogames be used in classrooms, and what is the research support for this?

Note the author characterizes the National Educational Technology Plan as a "manifesto." Quoting this article, "... in March, Arne Duncan, the secretary of education, released a draft National Educational Technology Plan that reads a bit like a manifesto for change, proposing among other things that the full force of technology be leveraged to meet "aggressive goals" and "grand" challenges, including increasing the percentage of the population that graduates from college to 60 percent from 39 percent in the next 10 years. What it takes to get there, the report suggests, is a "new kind of R.& D."

A bunch of especially interesting quotes toward the end: "This concept is something that Will Wright, who is best known for designing the Sims game franchise...refers to as 'failure-based learning,' in which failure is brief, surmountable, often exciting and therefore not scary... According to Ntiedo Etuk, the chief executive of Tabula Digita...children who persist in playing a game are demonstrating a valuable educational ideal.... 'They'll fail until they win.' He adds: 'Failure in an academic environment is depressing. Failure in a video game is pleasant. It's completely aspirational.' It is also, says James Paul Gee, antithetical to the governing reality of today's public schools. 'If you think about kids in school - especially in our testing regime - both the teacher and the student think that failure will lead to disaster,' he says. 'That's pretty much a guarantee that you'll never get to truly deep learning.'"

Definitely want to read some of the books mentioned in this Q&A.