“He doesn’t speak French at all – he just learned the words,” his close friend Liz Fagerlund told the New Zealand Herald. “He won’t know what they mean, wouldn’t be able to carry out a conversation in French, I wouldn’t think.”
This quote reminds me of the potential harm in forcing kids to learn correct spelling and grammar, over focusing on understanding and context builders. Someone may have perfect form or skill, but that doesn't mean they are actually literate.
However, if we want to take video games seriously as a family of semioticdomains in which one can learn to be literate, we face an immediate problem.Many people who don’t play video games, especially older people, are sure tosay that playing video games is “a waste of time.”
The waste of time arguement reminds me a lot of people who used to say graphic novels are a waste of time or not real reading. I think this mindset negates the many benefits of different types of media, just because they don't fit perfectly into traditional views.
What do we want to say of someone, for instance, whocan understand and even compose rap songs (words and music), but cannotread or write language or musical notation?
I think this is a really interesting predicament. I think this shows that typical definitions don't always put everything in nice, black and white categories.
All these claims are pretty obvious. It is, thus, fascinating that they are sooften ignored in schools. In school, many times children are expected to readtexts with little or no knowledge about any social practices within which thosetexts are used.
I think this is really important to consider when thinking about ways we can support students with life experiences that don't fit the mainstream. For example, a student that is an immigrant will likely lack the context to answer standard social studies questions, even if they are able to read and understand the text.
Practically speaking, however, I will grade without penalty (for graded assessments) and provide feedback on (for all assessments) any assessmentthat is turned in by the timeI begin looking over that assessment.
I really like this policy- it seems very fair. I've had other professors who take points off even if they don't grade the assignments until days/weeks later.
This is not a course on game designor on technical skills, so you will not be assessed on whether your game is technically impressive(or even fun).
This is really reassuring for me, since I don't consider myself to be super creative!
This course examines video, board, and roleplaying games as activities that involve literacy practices.
I'm excited to learn more specifically about video games! So many of the kids we have coming into the library are obsessed!