Miguel Guhlin, after reading my long essay yesterday on video games, recorded a conversation with his seven-year-old son about his video gaming experience. Although the conversation is highly military in nature, which is a bit disturbing, the complexity of this seven year old’s explanations and the obvious depth of learning is astounding.
You don’t really need to listen to all of it, but this is an amazing demonstration of the power of video games as a learning engine.
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Very interesting. I remember watching a BBC programme called \’Child of our Time\’ (see below for access details) in which a well known UK scientist (Robert Winston) looked at how young children engaged with digital media. There was one 5 year old boy who played Halo on the PS2. He was found to have heightened problem-solving skills for someone of that age. Another girl who was a gamer was also found to have a similar heightened skill set. They were also very adept at explaining/teaching how one should approach the games they played. James Paul Gee talks about semiotic domains and how we need to raise awareness of and value these. Schools could do very well to embrace these domains and exploit the developing skill sets that are embedded within them.
For three years I taught video game design to 3rd, 4th and 5th graders using GameMaker (www.gamemaker.nl) and found the experience really placed the emphasis on explicit instruction and writing. Even the simplest game we created, called “Catch the Clown,” involved importing images, setting up objects that employ those images, giving those objects rules to work within, setting up a game room, importing sounds, music and backgrounds, and writing instructions for the game. Even in the short time we were together, the students excelled at trying to get their games just right.