Learning and Games: Cut The Crap! November 12, 2009
Posted by johnnyjounce in Uncategorized.Tags: bio, corn, GM foods, Tacos
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James Paul Gee, thank you for writing an article for gamers, by a gamer. Now, please don’t ever do it again. Gamers are not academics. Some people, my professor included, will try to tell me this is not true. But it is. Any gamer who was attending a higher-education institution dropped out with the release of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. It’s true, I wouldn’t make this stuff up.
I really liked your main point, James, but I had to drag it out of the quick-sand of self-made vocabulary. Games vs. games? Big ‘G’, little ‘g’? Why, James, why? Situated learning matrix? Identity? NPC’s? “Designed” and “goal-driven” problem spaces? WTF, James!
Look, I am not going to lie, my eyes perked up a bit when you talked about Tony Hawk’s skateboarding games–I like those–but honestly, you may as well have called the article: “Look ma, I told you I’d make a living off these things someday!”
For crying outloud! Not everyone is a gamer. I felt like you were acting as the Roger Ebert of video gaming here. I felt like you were giving me a list of all the things you did in highschool, instead of going to the dances and football games. I’m not knocking you, James, god knows I spent too many hours in my garage between the ages of sixteen and twenty, far away from girls, with my controller in my hands–no pun intended–but come on, keep the geek-speak at a minimum, or there’s no way I’m gonna finish your article in time to post about it for my class!
That being said, I think that this article raises one of the most important points facing educators of the modern era: What do video-games have that schools don’t?
I really like James’ point about the role of failure in learning. In school, there is nothing to be gained from failure. (Unless you consider being grounded or smacked around a gain.) In games, there is. As James points out, when a person “loses a life” in a game–fails–they learn what strategies work, and what strategies do not, increasing the likelihood of future sucesses. This is one point I wish the public education system would embrace. Perhaps they could institute a new policy: No child left behind without extra quarters.
New Media Literacy in the Classroom October 15, 2009
Posted by johnnyjounce in Uncategorized.Tags: Education, Modern, Postman, Technology
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The best thing, to me, about new media literacy in the classroom, is all the pictures and graphs and tables (oh, my!) that students can incorporate into what used to be a boring gig. Teaching used to be so black and white. Now it has color. Thank you, Microsoft Word.
But, according to postman and Selber, new media literacy is not about simply “dressing up” the old way of doing things with fancy color schemes and fonts; it is about incorporating technology in the classroom that will provide students with the ability to function well in a new and changing technologically driven world. It is about teaching children to learn withthe use of technology, not just because of it.
Selber warns that the modern educational atmosphere is struggling to find use for the technology it is so eager to incorporate. Schools are buying computer labs, but not hiring, or promoting teachers with the know how to make sensible use of them. As a result, children are learning how to change case, or add flare to their reports; but they are not learning how and why technology is impacting the world around them, or what the implications of these impacts on the future of America, and the world at large, will be.
As Postman says, we’d be better off “…making certain children have enough to eat, and warm clothes to wear” (Selber, 5).
He’s right, because if American education cannot foresee the technology driven future well enough to prepare its students for the modern world, it should begin preparing them for the welfare office now; or at least teach them hunting skills, so they can eat deer when the American economy falls and we are all reduced to gathering berries for sustenance.
Postman is absolutely correct when he says that technology education is a branch of the humanities (Selber, 1). Students have to consider not only the applications of technology to their lives, but the implications as well.
It is not enough to show students how to use computers and technology, we must aid them in discovering why they need to use them. If modern education cannot implement the debate about the future consequences and contributions of technology, it is leaving students with the hammer, but giving them no nails to strike; let alone the wood in which to strike them into. 
I <3 Technology! October 8, 2009
Posted by johnnyjounce in Uncategorized.Tags: i-phone, Kids, Myspace, New Media
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New Media makes me happy. I could live in a cave, so long as I had an internet-enabled phone with satellite WIFI access and a GPS in case I ever wanted to track the bears that were trying to eat me.
I’m not tech-saavy. Actually, I am. I just can’t afford to be tech-saavy.
About a year ago–exactly–I was camping in Yosemite. It was beautiful. Tall, sheer granite cliffs surround you as white snow drifts lazily through the air, landing, without a sound, on everything, coating the whole wilderness in a beautiful white. At least, that’s how I imagined it. We were inside a tent watching Dave Chappell on a friends i-phone.
Now, I’m not fond of the idea of being tethered to the internet. I don’t like being weighed down by my car keys, let alone the myriad of available gadgetry and various techy toys that plague our pockets in today’s modern world. But, once you go Mac, baby, you ain’t ever goin’ back.
It’s time to get with the future. The kids of course, are already here.
Todays children were born half-robot. They are borg. They already live in a world of “LOL”‘s and colons followed by a particular 
parenthesis. They speak the language of now. You had the Ed Sullivan show and the Beatles, they have something called “The Hills”, and Myspace. That’s just the way it is. You can’t take Lauren away from them anymore than your parents could’ve gotten the Ringo posters off your bedroom wall.
Let the kids be kids. That’s what we’ve always said. But we still watch them carefully from our cars, as they careen off to “makeout hill.” It’s okay to spy on your kids, and myspace makes it easier to do so. Just make a fake profile of someone that’s into what your kid’s into. Name yourself “Miley Cyrus Fan 2043” and let the bonding begin!
Ofcourse, I jest. No one should have to spy on their children. But, in todays modern cyber-world, is there a better way?
The experts say yes. Danah Boyd, in her article “Why Youth ❤ social networking sites”, says that social networking sites are areas where kids can “write communities into being”.(Boyd, 14). So kids are searching for community. Community is important to kids. Who knew?
Your job as a parent then is to find your way into their community. This doesn’t mean being the “cool” mom or dad that invades their life waith pathetic attempts at vicarious youth; it means being a part of their community. Talk to your kids about myspace; spend just a few minutes with your kids each day. Eat dinner together. Whatever you, as a parent, can do to include your child in your community, will help them to include you in theirs. Then you can open a dialogue about their online activity–if you’ve allowed them internet access; that’s one of your privelages as a parent.
Kids and technology love eachother. They always have…ever since Donkey Kong threw his first barrell at Mario. So, let it be, like Ringo said, “It’s an Octopus’ garden, in the sun.” Imagine how your parents felt when they heard you listen to crap like that.
(Authors note: I am a Beatles fan. Just wanted it to be clear.) 🙂
Re-imagining Literacy October 1, 2009
Posted by johnnyjounce in Uncategorized.Tags: computer literacy, Computers, english, literacy, media studies
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The funny thing about modern technology is that it really isn’t modern at all. Though technology is constantly evolving and becoming more integrated into our lives, it certainly didn’t happen overnight. I have been using word processing programs, in particular Microsoft’s Word, since 1992. But the modern application of technology has certainly surpassed it’s now ancient applications. We have gone from using it to produce reports in school that would impress our teachers–Wow! Is this typed?–to using it in virtually every faucet of our busy, technology driven lives. Nowadays (did I just say, nowaday? I must be getting older.) technology is such a part of daily communication and experience that to be unable to function in a digital context really leaves people in the dust as far as being socially viable is concerned. In short, being computer-literate is as detrimental in today’s world as simple reading and writing skills were thirty years ago.
It used to be that illiteracy was a failure of the system–either a student was pushed along without much instruction, or a person never learned the basic skills of reading and writing early on when they should have. Those basic skills are still necessary, (even more so, since we couldn’t use computers or most modern digital technology without them), but now being illiterate has taken on new meanings. One can be digitally-illiterate, unable to operate cameras or phones, thusly finding it difficult to communicate in todays digital-media laden world. One can be computer-illiterate–but they aren’t reading this blog, so we’ll just skip them. Just kidding.
The inability to use a computer–for communication or commerce, or even for personal enjoyment–can severely limit one’s ability to function in today’s world. In short, being illiterate has to do with lacking communication skills, and those skills are no longer limited to reading and writing.
In Stuart A. Selber’s “Re-imagining the Functional Side of Computer Literacy”, Selber defines computer literacy as an aspect of “functional literacy.” Functional literacy is the ability to function according to the requirements of particular situational environments. An Amish person might be functionally literate if they can read, write, and raise a barn (Again, a generalization, but they aren’t reading this, so…). Whereas, to be functional in a University setting one may need fundamental know-how in a variety of digital media and applications (power-point, anyone?), as well as with the particular rhetoric of their chosen discipline. In short, literacy is both functional, and critical, and even environment specific.
“computer literacy is a vexing and ongoing problem even
for those teachers of writing and communication who are aware of and interested
in computer literacy. Indeed, for more than two decades the discipline
has attempted to make some sense—in social, political, historical, professional,
pedagogical, and functional terms—of computers not as computational machines
but as literacy environments, environments that leave very few activities,
individuals, or structures entirely unaffected” (Selber, Re-imagining, p. 471)
Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants September 25, 2009
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The future is now. If you are over 35 you should get out of the way. Technology is a language, honey, and you’ll always have that damn foreign accent. You’ll always drive on the wrong side of the road, and you’ll always wear your waist pouch, like a good tourist. You will never learn to cut and paste, use keyboard shortcuts, send url’s, text e-mails, or program your D.V.R. According to Marc Prensky you are an immigrant to this new age and always will be.
Prensky is correct when he says that younger people have an advantage when it comes to incorporating technology into their lives. The same way a young child playing golf with dad at age five grows up to be Tiger Woods, many young people today are growing up utilizing technology early on, thus increasing their tech-savvy abilities.
But let’s not forget, there’s room enough on the tour for Tiger and Vijay and even a few others who don’t shoot five under par.
Technology is a tool. It may be a complicated tool, but it’s still just a tool; and as it becomes more and more incorporated into every nook and cranny of our lives, (digital underwear, anyone?), it will become vastly easier to use. Even at its current stage–a sort of lung-fish in the grand scale of technological evolution– it is accessible to anyone who takes the time to learn how to use it. Like any tool, it just takes time to master. So before you brand yourself a digi-age dino, let’s discuss a few issues about technology.
First: Technology can be learned. It can be mastered. It doesn’t help to label yourself as an immigrant. This is not a land we are trying to traverse, it’s a tool, and anyone can learn to use digital tools as well as a wrench or a pair of pliers. It just takes guts, perseverance, and patience with the technology and ourselves.
Second: Not even the brightest ten-year-old in the world today could cut loose and operate the worlds first super-computer. It would simply be too vastly different from his experience with todays computers. So understanding technology has nothing to do with brightness or intelligence, it has to do with experience. Here’s the problem: before anyone can become experienced with an operating system or a computer interface, the technology becomes outdated and something new comes out. Experienced users demand identical interfaces. People who use word won’t switch to correll, and vice versa. The products may be similar, but they aren’t the same, and that makes users uncomfortable. Even Prensky has said that when new, supposedly better engineering software came out, employees wouldn’t touch it because the interface had too steep of a learning curve. It’s as if a new hammer were invented that could drive nails in one easy swing, but before it could operate, the user had to punch in a series of codes, then tap it three times, and turn a few dials correctly, and…before you know it, carpenters would be back using their trusty old manual hammers. The industry knows this and steps are being taken even now as you read this to incorporate computers into our lives so seamlessly that we won’t even know we are using them.
The microsoft home, for instance–Bill Gates owns one–uses computer processors to control everything from the lighting and television ambiance, to the toilet and garage door. When asked about the home and how it works, Bill said that eventually computers will be so integrated into our lives we won’t know they are there.
He spoke at a recent keynote convention about the role of microsoft in integrating technology across platforms and about making technology more universal and user friendly: …”An enviroment where people want to do things across multiple devices with many different people. Delivering on connected experiences, where people are productive…”
As technology advances, becomes cheaper, and becomes more integrated into society it may not matter whether or not you came to it’s shores or were born there. We are all immigrants to the future. To lose our accents we must accept that learning never ends, that we can’t afford to be static in a changing world; in short we can’t become Prensky’s old folks who grouse about the “good old days”.
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