Children rejoice! Video games trump textbooks. | W10 Q2 | Discussion

Although there is much still to understand about gaming-to-learn, it’s clear that games “make us smarter.”

In Salomon and Perkin’s (2005) framework, learning “with” technology occurs when tech carries some cognitive load, freeing mental resources to increase performance (p. 74). Squire (2006) describes such effects: “Games are an important site of a shift toward a culture of simulation, whereby digital technologies make it possible to construct, investigate, and interrogate hypothetical worlds” (p. 19). Games facilitate higher levels of engagement by enabling learning through “doing and being” (p. 19).

The active participation in games’ alternative worlds also relates to Salomon and Perkin’s effects “of” technology, or the persisting impacts of the tech post-usage (p. 77). As Gee (2008) discusses, games promote situated meaning-making, including appropriate context, practice of application, and therefore increased transfer (p. 36). The situated learning taking place while gaming is more likely to extend into real life than a traditional textbook lesson.

The final piece of Salomon and Perkin’s framework is the effects “through” technology, which address long-term, societal reformations (p. 79). While video games are clearly reshaping life/learning for youth, the extent of these effects remains unknown. It’s too soon to draw conclusions, but as Stevens, Satwicz, and McCarthy (2007) hint, “[While gaming, kids] figure out and create learning and teaching arrangements that work for them. . . [Y]oung people across our study are presenting us with their implicit theory of learning in game play— . . . that games are learnable and we (i.e., they) need only figure out how to learn them.” (p. 58-9).