StigmergicWeb

Will Wright, the creator of The Sims, SimCity and many other wonderful Sim- games has an article in which he asserts that games are unleashing the imagination. I would argue that games always have unleashed the imagination, but he is arguing from the point of view of electronic games. Fair enough, but we shouldn’t forget that there were games that fired up people’s imaginations before the computer game era (any other D and D players out there - IMHO, real games are played with paper and dice). Here’s the article link: Dream Machines

Here’s the pithy quotation - there’s an implication in his article about the upcoming clash between the learning styles of the gaming generation and the teaching styles of traditional schools:

In an era of structured education and standardized testing, this generational difference might not yet be evident. But the gamers’ mindset - the fact that they are learning in a totally new way - means they’ll treat the world as a place for creation, not consumption. This is the true impact videogames will have on our culture.

I would say that blogging, podcasting, and the whole read-write web thingy also trains participants to be creators of media. Gaming is perhaps a particularly well-defined facet of this, and something that has a wide participant base. It also offers some great possibilities for learning as well (I’d love to get SimEarth running for my Biology 20 class, but I don’t think it would run on our school’s Linux terminals). A major shift will be required in our ideas about assessment in order to make this fit in with school-based learning.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 21st, 2006 at 14:26 and is filed under education, computer technology. 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.