Salomon & Perkins describe “effects with technology” as enhanced cognition that arises from the interacting with a piece of technology that supports the development of complex processes by either reducing distraction or mental barriers (ie. calculators) or by providing sets of features that enables users to engage in fluid and dynamic explorations. Salomon & Perkins raise the example of spreadsheets, which allow professionals to engage in exploration, alternative scenarios, and develop models in a streamlined environment (p. 75). Similarly, gaming can produce a similar type of “effects with” cognitive enhancement. Salen and Gee cite the Glenberg et al. study as an example of how learning can be enhanced through simulations. Gaming simulations can provide learners with “embodied experiences” that allow learners to manipulate and see the relationships between concepts, actors, etc. within a bounded context. The “effects of” gaming technologies are evident through the enhanced visual processes and perceptual task processing abilities of avid gamers and non-gamers who received training in video games in Green & Bavelier’s (2003) experimental study.
Salomon & Perkins define “effects through” technology as when a piece of technology significantly reshapes an activity in a way that reorganizes learners’ processes/performances. While video games certainly reshape learning activities, it is unclear whether or not cognitive processes/performances being are reorganized. “Effects through” technology tends to be broad and difficult to gauge— which processes are being reorganized? Does this “reorganized performance/process” extend beyond the activity or is this reorganized pattern of processes only engaged in response to the specific to the demands of the game? Lastly, can these “reorganizations of practice/performance” occur with alternative technologies?
Hi Marissa,
I agree with your hesitancy to confer the “effects through technology” title upon games. However, I am curious as to what you think the next decade or two holds for the potential of games to reorganize performances/processes to an extent that could be considered effects through technology. It seems to me that games may never reach this level. While they do offer a very useful medium in which to create new forms of interactions and make learning more effective there would have to be a paradigm shift in the mentality of educators in order to engender the type of systemic change which would place games at the center of education. I am quite skeptical of this. What are your thoughts?
Hi Marissa, I agree with your questioning of the effects “through” technology in gaming. Your points reminded me Salen’s (2007) discussion of the potential of game-learning compared to the reality of its slow implementation: “[D]espite our desire to change the way kids think and learn, we are bound constantly by old tensions—tensions in distinction between the real and the virtual, in school and out of school, formal and informal, learning and teaching, knowing and being. . . We are bound by believing that to understand the meanings of game play we can simply look at the rules when we, in fact, need to look at players’ performance and understand their understandings of them” (p. 15). Until we understand gamers’ cognitive processes, can we determine what effects through technology have taken place?
Hi Marissa! I struggled accepting “effects through” technology as well, but I was entertaining the idea that evidence of reorganization of learners’ processes/performances might be found when considering motivation. For example, Gee (2008) argues that games have some features that traditional learning situations do not (or at least they are much more easily supported in gaming environments compared to traditional environments). One of these unique features is that games simultaneously support competition (against the game) and collaboration (between players). Gee (2008) suggests this feature uniquely supports motivation and affect. Do you think the fact that games have the potential to be more motivating than traditional learning situations is evidence for “effects through” or not?
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