Mini-Essay Nine

Celia Pearce’s book “Communities of Play: Emergent Cultures in Multiplayer Games and Virtual Worlds” is an interesting addition to our reading. While Gee focused on the pedagogical aspects of games, and Bogost examined the procedurality of games, Pearce is particularly interested in the cultures that have evolved around digital networks (both within the digital world and in the “real” world). She begins the first section by explaining that virtual worlds can be studied anthropologically, just as “real” worlds are studied, because communities are formed in these worlds. Though these communities are formed by choice, they have similar qualities to communities that exist because of actual location, race, etc.

Because her book contains so much information in a small space, it would be impossible to touch on every aspect of gaming that she discusses, so I will focus on a general overarching theme I found within the text that, of course, includes the ideas of these communities. Gaming communities are formed among groups of avatars, which Pearce explains are “a player’s representation in a virtual world” (21). Pearce notes that these avatars are often considered to be representations of the “true self”; therefore, it seems that her study of gaming communities would lend itself to a unique insight—some people don’t act like their true selves in any given situation, and the fact that an anthropologist is watching them certainly wouldn’t help the matter.

Pearce’s third chapter “Emergence in Cultures, Games, and Virtual Worlds” is primarily interested in the fact that such virtual cultures are coming into being, especially in terms of how these communities are “spilling over” into non-virtual life. She provides the example of eBay auctions, which Gee also discussed briefly (the $2000 sell).

This first section seems to be a laying-out of the ways in which Pearce studied the virtual Uru world. The fourth chapter “Reading, Writing, and Playing Cultures” is the chapter in which I am most interested, perhaps because she explains the ways in which non-virtual studies can be grafted onto the virtual world. Pearce notes that her study of the Uru relies heavily on the idea of ethnography, or the scientific description of the customs of peoples and cultures. This is particularly interesting because her’s is a study of a virtual community—a community within a larger community, or many larger communities. This leads to what I imagine will be a very diverse culture to study. Pearce discusses this concern by listing some questions that may arise from studies such as these: “what is real, and what is virtual, what is fiction and what is fact” (54). Because this type of study is actually very different from “real-life” ethnography, Pearce explains that there is a particular type of ethnography suited to this situation: virtual ethnography; however, she prefers the term “cyberethnography” because of the baggage that “virtual” carries with it. One of the interesting aspects of cyberethnography, as Christine Hine explains, is “the ways in which users creatively appropriate and interpret the technologies which are made available to them” (56).

Pearce explains that she uses a multi-sited ethnography in her study of communities of play (this concept belongs to someone whom she refers to as Marcus, but I can’t locate this person’s first name). This multi-sited method of ethnography has three main approaches: Follow the People, Follow the Thing, and Follow the Story. Pearce notes that she will make use of all of these in her study of the Uru Diaspora.

Toward the end of this chapter, Pearce describes the performative nature of the virtual world—the nature that she will be studying because, as she notes,  “virtual worlds present us with a unique context for ethnographic research because they are inherently performative spaces” (59). This harkens back to her idea about the avatar being the true self. Players are performing their true selves; however, they are also doing that in a space that allows for “occasioned” behavior, or behavior that “might not ordinarily be sanctioned” (59). An example of this behavior, going back to her discussion of the avatar, could be the idea of trans-gender play. Men and women are allowed to paly one another in these games without the possibility of being shunned. In fact, most of these people are probably not transgender in the “real” world.

Finally, Pearce discusses the idea of feminist ethnography, which is often disregarded in “real” anthropology. However, Pearce points out that in feminist ethnography “community is seen not merely as an object to be externally described, but as a realm intimately inhabited” (61-62). This type of ethnography is particularly useful in gaming because one must take on the role (create an avatar, for example) of a gamer in order to study this virtual world. In this sense, the researcher is not only constructed by the subjects of the study, but by the entire study itself.

Questions:

1. Pearce makes a number of comments about the roles girls and women have in games. At one point she describes female armor as “kombat lingerie” and in another section she says that some games are created as a “rehearsal for motherhood”. In what ways are these ideas changing? In what ways are they staying the same?

2. On a personal note, how involved do you become with your avatars during play?

3. How do you feel about an anthropological study being done on virtual worlds? Do you think this is a good idea or a waste of time? 

Mini-Essay Eight

Throughout my reading of Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Videogames, there were a number of times when I questioned the topics that Bogost discussed. There were points where I felt he was talking about videogames, but to be honest, there were other points where I felt like he was writing just for the sake of making his book longer. Despite this fact, I think that his last chapter explains the reasoning behind his writing style. It seems to me that Bogost has attempted to frame the idea of procedurality within the context of the videogame, rather than discussing the idea of procedural videogames. (This is similar, I suppose, to the way Gee discussed pedagogy through the lens of videogames.) On that note, a quote from the last page of Bogost’s book seems to sum up the motivation for his writing style. He writes that “[a]s players of videogames and other computational artifacts, we should recognize procedural rhetoric as a new way to interrogate our world, to comment on it, to disrupt and challenge it” (340). This, I think, is the context in which we should read Bogost’s book—not as a book about videogames, but a book about procedurality that can be understood a bit better through videogames.

The final section of Bogost’s book discusses learning, though I feel that these categories in which he attempted to fit his chapters are a little limiting because so much of the section seems to have little to do with learning. Anyhow, Bogost first discusses Procedural Literacy. He beings by asking “[a]re videogames educational?” (233). He then finds it necessary to explain different kinds of education, focusing primarily on behaviorism and constructivism. He defines the behaviorist view of learning by stating that “learning is about reinforcement” (233). He notes that behaviorism is often objected to because it ignores thoughts and feelings—behaviorism is all about conditioning. Constructivism, on the other hand, acknowledges the learning that is inherent in experiences. Bogost then describes the traditional classroom: one that Gee worked to correct through his game-related pedagogy. Bogost attempts to apply these two learning styles onto videogames. Behaviorist videogames “simulate the actual dynamics of the material world” (236). Opposition to videogames arise from this type of belief because one must question whether videogames are teaching positive or negative behaviors—many would, considering today’s videogames, assume that those outcomes are negative. Bogost notes, however, that there is a simulation gap or “the breach between the game’s procedural representation of a topic and the player’s interpretation of it” (238-239). Bogost then goes on to discuss Gee’s What Videogames Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy in which he describes Gee’s understanding of embodied learning. Bogost says that “I do not want to suggest that Gee’s position is invalid, but rather that it is not strong enough. Videogames do not just offer situated meaning and embodied experiences of real and imagined worlds and relationships; they offer meaning and experiences of particular worlds and particular relationships” (241). I, in this case, have to disagree with Bogost. I feel that Gee’s argument for embodied experience makes much more sense. (I also disagree that rhetorical positions are particular positions and that one does not argue to express in the abstract—isn’t that exactly what Socrates did?) Bogost doesn’t agree that videogames teach abstract knowledge, but rather the processes of particular activities. I believe that played in the correct way, videogames most certainly can and do teach abstract thinking. Otherwise, it seems that educational games would be skill-and-drill just like traditional learning, and we don’t need any more of that.

Gee next discusses values and aspirations and how these can be learned and taught through videogames. Here he discusses the difference between being schooled and being educated. He notes that the way school occurs today teaches consumption rather than allowing for knowledge acquisition. Then, of course, he goes on to point out that videogames such as the Sims teach consumption as well. Perhaps the Sims could teach consumption if the player weren’t putting any thought into the game at all, but I think that is a very bleak outlook. Also, if videogames were used in educational settings, even games that taught something as “negative” as consumption could be used for learning as long as there was a facilitator there (the teacher) to ask questions that would help the students form their own opinions about such topics. Bogost writes that he “understand[s] educational games not as videogames that end up being used in schools or workplaces, but as games that use procedural rhetorics to spur consideration about the aspects of the world they represent” (264). If that’s the case (that games spur this consideration) then I think they most certainly do have a place in the classroom.

Bogost’s last section discusses exercise, which I find very unusual in a section about learning. Unfortunately, I don’t actually have the space to discuss this topic; however, I feel that the inclusion of such a topic in the learning section leads to an interesting rhetoric in itself.

Questions:

1. How does exercise and exergames fit into the section about learning?

2. I felt that these last few chapters included a lot of biases. In what ways could/do biases influence our views of videogames?

3. Who’s view of education do you most agree with: Gee or Bogost? How can the two be combined to further our understanding of education? 

Mini-Essay Seven

As I predicted, Bogost’s section on advertising had a decidedly political bent, which isn’t shocking considering that so much of advertising is grounded in politics (particularly the politics of Big Business, as Bogost points out throughout the chapters). His first chapter of the section, “Advertising Logic” is primarily concerned with three types of advertising, which Bogost lists as demonstrative, illustrative, and associative advertising. He continues to flesh-out these types of advertising in the other two chapters that comprise this section. He briefly defines these types of advertising:

1.     Demonstrative advertising provides direct information,

2.     Illustrative advertising communicates indirect information, and

3.     Associative advertising communicates indirect information, focusing specifically on the intangibles of a product. (153-154)

Though these types of advertising can be defined simply, Bogost continues his explanation of the types throughout the section, providing a number of interesting examples (many of which relate directly to the political messages we saw in the previous section, such as the different ways McDonalds is portrayed in games). Bogost seems to privilege demonstrative games, which he describes as “most closely [relating to] the procedural properties of the videogame medium” (158). Bogost focuses on an aspect of gaming that even I (a non-gamer) would recognize: the power-up. In his example of Mountain Dew Skateboarding, he notes that these power-ups closely resemble demonstrative advertising, as long as the product being used as a power-up can actually provide some source of energy/power/boost/etc. in the real world. Mountain Dew, widely known as the most caffeinated of all sodas, obviously can provide the energy needed to perform skateboarding tricks. (Though Bogost doesn’t mention it—at least from what I remember—the game also includes an underlying message: the energy from Mountain Dew is short-lived and the consumer eventually crashes).

One of the aspects most apparent in Bogost’s discussion of advertising in gaming seems to be the same argument he had in his section on the political aspects of gaming. Though he didn’t reuse the terminology, it seems that many games “skin” previously created games—by placing a product in an almost random part of the game. This idea directly ties into the second chapter of the section, entitled “Licensing and Product Placement.” Bogost explains the importance of this chapter: “I want to suggest that videogames offer a mode of engagement with products and services that can activate critical perspectives on consumption. But to do so, advertising must reconnect with the fundamental property of videogames, procedurality” (173). Unfortunately, Bogost doesn’t seem to be especially satisfied or impressed with the ways games are used to advertise at this point (e.g. skinning). Because so many advertisement videogames are basically skinned versions of other games, it becomes difficult for these games to create an embodied experience that is a useful advertising strategy—shooting French fries, for example, no more makes the person want to buy a particular brand of fries than shooting terrorists from a George Bush head makes you want to vote for Bush. Rather than participating simply in product placement (though I agree that it probably does make for a more real life situation in some games), the games that attempt to be “good” advertising tools need to involve the player in using the product—the Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow’s use of the cell phones and PDAs is a good example. This allows the products to be “simulated and integrated into the gameplay” (197).

Bogost ends his section on advertising with a discussion of advergames which “refer to any game created specifically to host a procedural rhetoric about the claims of a product or service . . . [m]ore succinctly put, advergames are simulations of products and services” (200). He devotes much time to the discussion of games that include “direct purchase incentive” (203). To get the game, one must collect proofs-of-purchase and send them in (sometimes including cash). The game will then be sent in the mail. Interestingly enough, it appears as though the non-game advertising has already worked—the consumer has bought enough of a product to buy the game, which, one can only assume, will then attempt to get the consumer to buy more of the product. Though the purchases have already been made, “what is important is the game’s success in creating an open space in which the player might consider the seller’s product claims in a simulated, embodied experience” (206). Despite the fact that Bogost spends a considerable amount of time discussing the problems and arguments against advertising in games, it comes down to the ability of the player to have an embodied experience. Games, whether used for advertising or, as we discovered through reading Gee, pedagogy, videogames can be invaluable tools in creating embodied experiences.

Questions:

1. For me, the first part of the section was extremely difficult to read/understand. What do you think Bogost is talking about in this section when he discusses things like the media being more real than reality?

2. Once you’ve figured out what the first section means, how does this apply to advertising in games?

3. Much of this section seemed to imply that advertising in games is a negative thing. What do you think?

Mini-Essay Six

Not surprisingly, I’d never  really connected politics and videogames until reading Ian Bogost’s section on Politics, despite the fact that almost every argument made about videogames has been political. Bogost, of course, is discussing politics and videogames from a totally different perspective: the political processes that can be understood best (or better) through video games, and how many so-called political videogames fail to take this into account. Bogost first begins his discussion with a fairly long retelling of the events of Hurricane Katrina and the problems that arose during such a disaster. At first, I was completely unaware of how such natural disasters and our complete lack of helpful resources could have anything to do with videogames, until Bogost pointed out that certain commission reports on the failures of our response to natural disasters occurred because of lack of imagination and initiative. Of course videogames make perfect sense when one is  attempting to come up with more imaginative ways to handle political problems.

Unfortunately, according to Bogost, the videogames that have arisen in the political arena have been greatly lacking in imagination, partly because of their lack of procedurality. Many of these so-called political games attempt to re-work “non-political” games, (“skinning” them, as Bogost puts it) but they haven’t taken into account what needs to be done to make a good political game. In his discussion of ideology, Bogost notes that “Western philosophy generally follows this trend of valuing the ideal over the material” (73). This seems to be the case in many political games because the creator has assumed that the ideals are already in place (and the most important), therefore the material (the game) doesn’t really matter. Bogost then explains that political videogames “use procedural rhetoric to expose how political structures opperate, or how they fail to operate, or how they should operate” (75). Unfortunately most of the videogames he uses as examples fail to do this. They fail because they aren’t using procedural rhetoric, it seems.

One of the most interesting aspects of Bogost’s political section was the idea of failure in videogames. It hasn’t made sense to me that some videogames have no end point or are unwinnable; however, in the context of political games it makes perfect sense. Because politics are so often an “unwinnable” themselves, the games that portray them should be unwinnable in some cases. One of the games he brought up, which we discussed a number of times in class, is September 12. This game seems to be unwinnable because as you attempt to kill terrorists, you’re accidently killing civilians and, thus, turning their loved ones into terrorists. Despite this, as Dr. H told us in class, one can almost win in this game by not playing at all. If you don’t shoot at the terrorists, they eventually turn back into civilians. This is a paradox because to win the game, one must not play it. This seems to have many implications in the political/ real world.

Bogost’s next chapter discusses the idea of political discourse as it’s seen through the videogames, taking into account that verbal rhetoric often occurs in digital rhetoric/visual rhetoric/procedural rhetoric (which he mentioned in chapter one but it didn’t register at the time). Through a study of videogames and the effects they have (if designed correctly), the idea presented by Lakoff that “citezens tend to assume that language and its carriers—from politicians to news media—are netural” (119) is definitely called into question. For the people who believe that videogames are a waste of time, seeing how political rhetoric is used within the games can certainly be an eye-opener.

Finally, in Bogost’s last chapter directly involving politics (though I imagine politics has a great bearing on the rest of his chapters as well) entitled “Digital Democracy,” there is a turn to the procedural rhetoric that makes “good” political videogames useful. When describing 9-11 Survivor, he discusses the importance of "embodied experience" in procedural interactions. I find that this embodied experience is one of the most important aspects of procedurality. I found his discussion of his own political game to be extremely informative, especially since he described both the “good” game and the “bad” game he created. The difference between the two games is, of course, procedural rhetoric. In the first Howard Dean for Iowa Game, there were a few superficial lessons to be learned—for example, politics (especially for the grassroots members) can involve menial and repetitive tasks. However, PopMatters.com reviewer Sean Trundle explained the problem best when he noted that the game didn’t distinguish Dean’s political ideology from anyone else's—the first game seemed merely an attempt to make politics more interesting—and thus, it failed in the way that so many other political games failed. Though the games are fun and entertaining, they just aren’t what we would describe as “good” games” because they haven’t accurately represented the semiotic domain of politics.

Questions:

1. How does Gee’s semiotic domain principle play into political games?

2. Which of the political games presented do you find to be most interesting and why?

3. In his discussion of GTA, Bogost notes that race and class play a role in the game. How do race and class possibly play a role in America’s Army game? Are the stakes the same? 

Mini-Essay Five: Excuse the Rant

Bogost's Avatar

The first striking difference between Gee’s “What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy” and Ian Bogost’s “Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Videogames” is the readability, but there is also a difference between the topics of each book. While Gee was interested in the pedagogical aspects of video games, Bogost’s book focuses on the rhetoric of videogames—how videogames make arguments.

Bogost’s preface discusses the fact that videogames still struggle to be taken seriously in almost all realms—not just as persuasive tools. He then moves on to explain the topic of his first chapter, procedural rhetoric, which he defines as “the art of persuasion through rule-based representations and interactions rather than the spoken word, writing, images, or moving pictures” (ix). Similarly to Gee, Bogost writes that “videogames can also disrupt and change fundamental attitudes and beliefs about the world” (xi), which Gee discussed in the context of the cultural model. I imagine that this sentence is particularly important to Bogost’s argument for videogames as rhetorical, especially since he spends a large portion of the first chapter giving a brief history of rhetoric.

Bogost begins by admitting that rhetoric often invokes negative connotations—especially since our definition comes from the definition used to describe the Sophists’ ability to “make the worst argument the better.” This, however, is only one aspect of rhetoric. Bogost informs readers that “[r]hetoric in ancient Greece—and by extension classical rhetoric in general—meant public speaking for civic purposes” (15), and gives the example of Plato’s Apology. (I find this to be an interesting example because Plato explicitly argues that he should not be put to death because he is not a Sophist—he doesn’t attempt to make the worst argument the better, but rather engages in the Elenctic method, thus leading to aporia on the part of the other interlocutor.) In the next section, “Rhetoric Beyond Oratory,” Bogost explains that “[i]n discursive rhetoric, persuasion is not necessarily so teleological” (19), which is a point Gee tried to make throughout his text—videogames don’t necessarily have to have an end result, or at least not an end result that involves “winning” the game.

In his discussion of visual rhetoric, Bogost writes that “[t]he preferential treatment afforded to verbal rhetoric underscores the continued privilege of speech over writing, and writing over images. Philosopher Jacques Derrida argued against the hierarchy of forms of language, giving the name logocentrism to the view that speech is central to language because it is closer to thought” (23). Interestingly, this is a topic I discussed in one of my first blogs. Though this idea is discussed briefly in “Visual Rhetoric,” I believe that it is central to the arguments that videogames can make because they don’t often rely primarily on language, though videogames today do seem to include language as an important part of playing.

After what I consider to be a number of (helpful) tangents, Bogost returns to the idea of procedural rhetoric, which he defines anew as “the practice of using processes persuasively, just as verbal rhetoric is the practice of using oratory persuasively and visual rhetoric is the practice of using images persuasively” (28). His choices of games to use as examples are interesting, especially in light of Gee’s book and our discussion in class of “bad games”. Bogost finds that the games he mentions are bad because of their lack of procedurality, but I find that they are bad in so many other ways. I find his example of Freaky Flakes to be an especially bad one, considering that both he and Gee think that videogames can “disrupt and change fundamental attitudes and beliefs about the world” (ix). Freaky Flakes, Bogost notes, is incrementally more procedural than such games as Retouch—despite this fact, I still think that it’s a bad game and that Bogost actually seems to buy into the thing that makes it a bad game in the first place. Though this is certainly a tangent, I think that it’s very important to make note of the fact that Bogost criticizes Freaky Flakes for being less procedural by saying that “[t]he user creates a cereal box, but every box yields the same result (even combining the superhero and the princess ring yields the congratulatory message, ‘Your box looks great!)” (34). I think that Bogost would benefit from reading Gee’s chapter on cultural models and taking into consideration his idea that superheroes and princess rings can’t be enjoyed by the same (male or female) child.

This, of course, is not the point of the first chapter of Bogost’s book (it’s merely a point that I couldn’t ignore). Rather, Bogost’s first chapter discusses the ways in which videogames can be used as rhetorical models and continue to be both serious and playful (which we have learned are not mutually exclusive) and finally, persuasive.

Questions:

1. Bogost writes that “educational games translate existing pedagogical goals into videogame form” (57). Having read Gee, do you believe this is true? If it’s true, are video games being used to their greatest potential?

2. Taking into consideration Gee and Bogost, what do you think is wrong with Fogg’s list of persuasive technology tools (on page 60)?

3. Which examples from this book are good examples of what we should include in our Second Life game? Which are bad? 

Mini-Essay Four

I found that chapter seven of Gee’s book, entitled “The Social Mind: How Do You Get Your Corpse Back After You’ve Died,” was a perfect culmination of the information that Gee has presented thus far. (The conclusion, of course, really ties together all the information in the book, but it was written for the second edition and not originally included in the book.) Gee begins this chapter by explaining that, despite popular belief, learning does not take place primarily in the individual mind and body (nor does knowledge necessarily have to reside within the individual). Of course, learning can and does take place within an individual, but, Gee argues, “learning, even in these individualistic terms, is very much a matter of being situated in a material, social, and cultural world” (179). This idea is evident in many of Gee’s 36 Learning Principles, including, for example the Semiotic and Semiotic Domains Principles and the “Material Intelligence” Principle. (In fact, semiotics and semiotic domains couldn’t exist without a social aspect, and the cultural models they form are obviously social.)

Within his discussion of the Social Mind, Gee returns to his idea of material intelligence, which he defines in his 36 Principles: “thinking, problem solving, and knowledge are ‘stored’ in tools, technologies, material objects, and the environment” (224). He further explores the idea of material intelligence, expanding the storage of knowledge to include other people. In his discussion of the 15-year-old EverQuest player, he explains that the knowledge the young man has of the game is distributed. He writes that the knowledge “exists in [the boy’s] own head and body . . . but some of it exists in other people on whom he can call for help” (187). Gee’s example includes the boy’s avatar dying and being resurrected and the boy telling his father to “get the hell off the phone” (184). (On a side note, this action reminds me of Gee’s discussion of Cultural Models in chapter six, in which he discusses the rude teenager and the cultural model that is applied to that teenager: is the teenager normal or abnormal according to your cultural model?) I discussed briefly in a previous blog this material intelligence and it’s effects on our idea of cheating, and we talked about it in terms of plagiarism in class. Gee brings up an interesting point in this chapter, which I believe related directly to that discussion. He writes that “schools still isolate children from such powerful [material intelligence] networks—for example, a network built around some branch of science—and test and assess them as isolated individuals, apart from other people and apart from tools and technologies that they could leverage to powerful ends” (188). The fact that schools operate this way goes directly against the idea of the Social Mind and socially situated cognition, which cognitive psychology is finding to be particularly important in today’s society.

One of the most interesting aspects of chapter seven was the discussion of patterned thinking. I found this to be interesting because it seems that humans are innate stereotype-ers. Gee explains that our use of patterned thinking has a two-fold effect. On the one hand, he explains, “we could not survive and function if we did not engage in such pattern thinking” (191). Then, back to the idea of stereotypes, he writes that “such pattern thinking can lead not only to good predictions in many cases but to prejudices or stereotypes in other situations” (191). I found his example of the Black female physics teacher to be especially helpful. Though we have these stereotypes, it appears that games (or learning situations similar to games) would be the best tools in which to break this habit because we are able to play as both sides, exploring different cultural models and the stereotypes that particular model ascribes to. Then players are able to reassess their previous beliefs and adjust them accordingly—hopefully moving beyond the stereotypes of each group. Gee, of course, then returns to the idea of the social mind: “patterns are in our heads, but they become meaningful (‘right’ or ‘wrong’) only from the perspective of the workings of social groups that ‘enforce’ certain patterns as ideal norms . . .” (196).

The conclusion of the book was particularly interesting to me, if only because many readers apparently have gotten a completely different sense of the book than I have. Gee says that he knows “that many people who have read this book take it to be an argument for using games in schools or other educational settings” (216). Following his own model, Gee has included a conclusion to explain why this isn’t the case. Readers have been given time to read the book and form their own opinions—now Gee is providing an extra piece of information at the perfect time. It’s up to readers to decide what value the book has for them. Personally, I think this book will be a great addition to the formation of my teaching philosophy.

Questions:

1. On page 204, Gee explains that in Brown and Campione’s teaching models, “each member plays the role of researcher, student, and teacher in different configurations and contexts.” Could this work in an English 103 classroom?

2. Agency, ownership, and control are particularly important to gamers. Which of the 36 Principles directly relates to these three aspects of gaming?

3. Gee describes games as pleasantly frustrating. In what way is this true for you? 

Mini-Essay Three

Gee begins his discussion in chapter five, “Telling and Doing: Why Doesn’t Lara Croft Obey Professor Von Croy?” with a section called “Overt Information and Immersion In Practice,” which I believe is, in part, a summation of the discussion we’ve had in class, as well as the information provided in the last few chapters. The idea of immersion as an important part of education seems to be the crux of the problem Gee is discussing: simply put, the difference between “education” and “schooling.” Schooling, on the one hand, involves the type of learning that we’ve been calling “skill-and-drill” while true education embodies a different set of premises all together—one that does not find the students’ ability to memorize facts as the most important skill. In this chapter we find that neither “typical” schooling (skill-and-drill) nor radical “teaching” (such as forcing students to be totally immersed without providing any guidance) are the best forms of pedagogy. Gee explains that “educators tend to polarize the debate by stressing one thing (telling or immersion) over the other and not discussing effective ways to integrate the two” (114). It is this integration of both telling and immersion that Gee finds to be most helpful, and which is, of course, evident in all “good” games.

The problem with the polarization of telling and immersion is that learners cannot work with an abundance of information that a teacher has provided them “outside the context of immersion in actual practice;” neither can students “learn without some overt information; they cannot discover everything for themselves” (120). Going back to the previous chapters in which Gee discussed the need for students to create projective identities that fit with the given situation (e.g. science students forming a type of identity they want as science students), it is through pedagogy that immolates video games that creates a situation where learning comes naturally. In this model, the learner/student begins to juxtapose his or her real-world identity with that of the virtual identity. At this point, Gee makes an interesting observation—one that I believe is at the forefront of the entire book. He writes that real learning is a “refashioning of the self” (121). Of course this makes sense in terms of virtual vs. real-world identities: the real-world identity begins to take on characteristics of the virtual identity (and vice versa).

Following up this notion of true learning as the refashioning of the self, Gee begins his discussion of cultural models. He begins by noting that video games allow players to take on various identities. Often these identities have completely opposing viewpoints. Gee says that this has a two-fold effect: it can either reinforce a players presupposed perspectives on the world or it can challenge a players views about the world. He writes that “when you act in (or think in terms of) the role of someone else . . . this involves not merely taking on a new identity but sometimes thinking and valuing from a perspective that you or others may think ‘wrong’” (149). (Though this is perhaps getting away from the Gee’s intent, it seems clear to me that the idea of the cultural model occurring in video games would be an interesting way to teach philosophy—particularly a course on ethical relativism. ) Of course, this text is interested in pedagogy, so Gee eventually acknowledges the ways in which these cultural models appear in the classroom; however, he questions the validity of some of the cultural models we hold about learning. (Though, as Gee mentioned, cultural models aren’t right or wrong—they’re simply ways of viewing the world or the classroom.) In the cultural model most evident in classrooms today, the goal or final outcome is the most important aspect of learning. Considering this final outcome is usually a good grade, this model of teaching leads to the decontextualized skill-and-drill model Gee has worked to discredit. One other cultural model Gee held about learning was that “good” learners were able to solve problems quickly and with few (if any) mistakes. We’ve discussed this in class and Gee discusses it in previous chapters. While we may superficially believe that a “good” learner solves problems without making mistakes, we also know that these mistakes are, perhaps, the best learning tools. Video games are, of course, a great example of the benefits of mistakes because the player is allowed to make mistakes in a less high-stakes environment through his or her projective identity. Finally, before reiterating his learning principles, Gee ends the chapter with a radical idea: “[w]ouldn’t it be great if we could say to children in school, when they were struggling mightily with hard problems: ‘Aren’t you luck you have the time and opportunity to learn’ and have them smile and nod?” (175-176).

Questions:

1. What cultural models do you hold about learning that have been challenged by this book?

2. How is learning a refashioning of the self?

3. How has our class’s use of videogames such as Second Life follow the idea of immersion?