forms of learning within a dynamic media ecology that has the participatory andsocial nature of gaming at its core.
It's imperative that forms of learning evolve in order to keep up with the competition for attention from all of these new games that are amazingly detailed and thrill laced. If not then children will find video games to much more rewarding then expanding their knowledge and will resent the education environment, seeing it as torture rather than opportunity
How does gaming act as a point of entry or departure for other forms of knowledge,literacies, and social organization
This is an incredibly important question to consider given that some games are so detail rich and historical acruate. Many children can learn behavior and language previous unknown to them whether for better or worse. Bad examples of this is Red Dead Redemption, Grand Theft Auto, etc. Good examples of are educational games like math heads, troggle trouble, oregon trail, etc.
“Gaming as a Technique of Analysis”
Having grown up with video games since a young age I can attest to the level of critical thinking, situational analysis, and game strategy that is required in order to be competent at interfacing with games. This has given me a one of my most powerful lifelong skills
Although specifi c forms of technology uptake are highly diverse, a generation is growing up in an era where digital media are part of the taken-for-granted social and cultural fabric of learning, play, and social communication.
I think this "taken-for-granted" mentality is what lends so many individuals to being simply users of Digital medias rather than creators and innovators of them
“Well when I fi rst saw the camera I didn’t know what it was for, and [the clubhouse coordinators] didn’t know either, so my friends and me were just doing stuff, like movies making it look like people were going super fast. Then I started getting ideas about like moving things and then taking pictures.”
This demonstrates what happens when a young curious mind is provided access to tools and technology beyond their knowledge. They'll immediately seek to understand it purpose and function, or at least what potential uses they can think of in relation to what they're interested in.
In the video games, there are a few things you can unlock and it’s in the extras, it’s called extras and it shows you the storyboard of how...um...about the scenes in the game. They look pretty much like a comic and no words. They just like show what they are doing and write down what they do.
I think this is a great example of how "games" of today take a significant amount intelligence to play due to the level of strategy required, but also provides so much backstory and media that they educate and inform the player
C o m m u n i t y t e c h n o l o g y c e n t e r s c a n p r o v i d e a n i m p o r t a n t s p a c e f o r y o u t h w i t h l e s s home access, offering multiple opportunities to learn through mentors and material resources (Kafai, Peppler, & Chapman, 2010 ; P e n u e l , e t a l . , 2000 ) . I n o u r s n a p s h o t of Simmons, youth are diligently working on their stop-motion animation skills, tinkering with the timing of their movie soundtracks, and laying down complex beats in the recording studio. Observations of the creative work emerging from environ-ments like the clubhouse raise a host of questions about the learning activities that take place there, how they evolve over time and place, and who is involved.
I feel these types of resource & information centers are vital to providing a safe and unstructured environments were eager students can kindle their curiosity for certain topics without fear of social pressures or the demands of a particular curriculum. The ability to explore concepts under your own self-direction and experimentation builds the foundation for a healthy creative mind
Digital technologies offer children and adolescents rich opportunities to design and create artwork, movies, games, animations, interactive robots, and other artifacts. Online communities that re fl ect “cultures of participa-tion” (Jenkins, 2006, 2009 ) a l l o w c r e a t o r s t o s h a r e t h e i r w o r k , r e c e i v e f e e d b a c k , and expand their social networks.
I think this really puts into perspective how new medias, especially networked medias (where people share and interact e.i. gaming, chatrooms, blogs, virtual spaces, etc.), create unique opportunities to connect individuals from diverse backgrounds allowing them to build from their similarities. I feel the entire online experience of being a user within a interconnected community reflects our own nature as individuals organisms living within the collective consciousness.