Great Video

My College Comp 2 class is reading the intro and first chapter of Steven Johnson's Everything Bad is Good for You.

Johnson's intro establishes his thesis: that our modern culture (and its growing sophistication and connectivity) are making us smart, whether we want to admit that or not.

His first chapter analyzes how gaming makes us smart. Now, I'm not a huge gamer, but I know from my ten year addiction to SEGA Genesis and football games (Madden, NES, Tecmo, and College Football). I recall playing College Football (actually, it was the old, classic "Bill Walsh's College Football" from 1994) with my good friends Harry and Curt. I so loved and was engaged in playing the game, that I literally poured dozens of hours into simply analyzing the plays and different formations. Because of this, I knew how to line up in one formation (say, shotgun with four wide receivers) and then audible to another formation (say, a wishbone with two tight ends and three running backs). This allowed me to run the option out of the wishbone with the shotgun personnel. This meant I could have a backfield of my beloved Colorado Buffaloes consisting of Kordel Stewart at qb (the best player in that version of the video game) with Rashaan Salaam at one running back, Rae Caruth at one running back, and Herschell Troutman at another running back. I had a decided advantage. I could pitch to one of my fastest players. When a running back was losing power, I'd switch to this formation and pitch to a wide receiver with full power. Also, I could throw out of the formation too.

Now, how is that learning?

Well, look at all the education concepts I had to master and apply in order to pull that off - memorization, analysis, evaluation, comparison, cause and effect, synthesis, and creation. And I did it gladly.

Yet, how gladly do students do those things in school?

That's the power of gaming.

Also, you get instant feedback. Whenever Curt and Harry would let me play with Colorado (and they often wouldn't because I knew their plays so well . . . and to be truthful Colorado was the most talented team in the game . . . and to be honest I usually lost when I had to play with another team), I would line up in a formation, survey their defense formation, audible to a different offensive formation, see that they were now audibling to a different defensive formation, and audible yet again. One of my decisions immediately resulted in a counter decision on their part. That's feedback. But it didn't end there. I'd run a play and get instant feedback: if the play worked, I gained yards and rubbed it in to Curt or Harry that I could not be stopped. I was given immediate feedback. How often is feedback given immediately in schools?

But to explain it far better than I did in that example, here is a video that one of my students submitted as part of an assignment. It perfectly illustrates how gaming leads to engagement, which leads to learning.

Enjoy. I sure did.