Engaging VG in Education

I’ve been reading a blog lately by Jenny Levine “The Shifted Librarian.”  (www.theshiftedlibrarian.com) It has been a both a delight and yet an unsettling dismay to see that many public libraries are, or have been, embracing gaming as a new literacy.  Let me clarify the part about the dismay.  The dismay comes from that most of the people that work in public schools that I have come in contact with, just outright dismiss the concept of gaming in schools, and do not want to discuss it further.

On a recent post on the Jenny’s site, I came across this:
”
OECD Five Key Competencies for Life and Learning
- managing self
- relating to others
- thinking
- participating and contributing
- using language symbols and text”

That got me first thinking . .  what in the blazes is OECD?  Well upon doing a little research I found that it stood for the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.  (That is in an international spelling of organization.)  Which is an international organization or 30 member countries.  One of which, is the US.

The Five Key Competencies for Life and Learning above are originally within the OECD report Definition and Selection of Key Competencies: Executive Summary. You can see the paragraph abstract of that report here, or click the name of the report to download the PDF version of it.

As I’m looking at these five key competencies, I can’t help seeing very few of these deal specifically  with “content” like  — When was the war of 1812? and When did the Roman Empire Fall? (476 AD by the way).  But rather is about social constructs, the ability to think and manage, and communication.    When I think to the typical history class topic of WWII, I see the standard of the Teacher lecturing in front of the class, while the students take notes, and memorize facts and dates for the exam.  There is very little real “thinking” going on, let alone relating to others, and any sort of management.  Even having the students create a powerpoint, is not much more than regurgitating facts  from the text.

Take the same topic, WWII.  Now , introduce gaming into the classroom with a game such as Making History: The Calm & The Storm, and watch as students not only learn the “content” but do so while “managing, relating, thinking, participating and contributing, and using symbols and text.”  Now we’re also hitting 21st century skills.  They also provide a great host of instructional materials, including a teacher’s guide, bibliography, history resources, and student handout with assessment and discussion questions.

I can’t help but thinking, that by pushing games like this to the side, that we are do a great disservice to the youth in this country.  And for all those nay-sayers out there —-  you must first download and play the demo, and look at the teaching materials of Making History before making any judgments about the learning that takes place in playing a game like that.

This is the direction we need to look towards.

Till Next Time.

View CC license

Blogged with Flock

This entry was posted on Friday, August 3rd, 2007 at 12:59 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.