Gaming and Learning

While I'm not sure I completely buy Gee's argument, there's a lot of interesting stuff in it. He states that digital games can be used to teach different things in different ways. Instead of focusing on the "trivia" type games - games that encourage memorization of facts and concepts, Gee instead "seek[s] to use games for the creation of deeper conceptual understandings and for problem-solving abilities that go beyond being able to pass paper-and-pencil tests" (65). In here, Gee makes an argument that gaming can promote different ways to approach problems, leading to a deeper complexity.

Gee then goes on to present six properties of digital games that "achieve powerful learning effects" (66) Combining these properties I find a general sense of Gee's argument to be that video games teach this sort of intricate problem solving by modeling an avatar around a set of experiences - which may or may not apply directly to "the real world" - that the player then adopts into his or her own working knowledge.

A quick reflection on this.