Of, With, & Through - Woohoo! | W10 Q2 | Discussion

Although Salomon and Perkins (2005) consider technology more broadly, their framework can be applied to gaming technologies specifically. They define effects with technology as emerging when there is an intellectual partnership between the individual and the technology (p. 74). In the case of gaming, Gee (2008) argues that individuals learn through experiences, not abstract calculations and manipulations. Instead of working out abstract scenarios in one’s mind, games afford learners the opportunity to experience different manipulations/scenarios and their consequences. In this way, games function to assist cognition – “effects with” technology.

Effects of technology refer to a change in skill mastery that persists even in the absence of the technology’s presence (p. 74). This relates to Stevens, Satwicz, and McCarthy (2008) argument that learners exhibited transfer, evidenced by them actively juxtaposing consequences for actions in-game and in –world (p. 63). This suggests that ideas learned in the game persisted in some manner outside of the game (although I think applying a strategy from the game to real life or taking on identities of characters would be stronger evidence).

Effects through technology don’t just enhance performance, they reorganize it. Gee’s (2008) discussion of motivation and ownership points out several ways games have the potential to reorganize learning (e.g., restarting after failure, situations that support competition against the game, yet collaboration between players). The fact that games surpass traditional schooling in motivating and engaging students and do so differently (as supported by neuroscience) suggests gaming does reorganize the learning experience – an effect through technology.