I LOOOOOOVE Gaming

Seriously, this was an awesome week for reading. I am a gamer, since I played the olympics on my 286 (LRLRLRLRSpacebar long jumping) when I was 6. That was in 1986. I spent hours playing tetris (aka Nyet) and Final Fantasy (FF) search for that metal slime. I played on a several BBS and made some awesome online friends, who really influenced my life, even though we never met in person. I am a firm believer that games can be good. Not to say that all we should do is play games all day, but I know that it can make a positive difference in people's lives and learning and look forward to incorporating them as I can in my classroom.

Two Mini Gaming Stories
I have a friend who was (and sometimes still is) scared to try new things, because he is afraid of failure. Sometimes I blame this on the culture of schools, but whatever. Anyways, one of the things he is not afraid to try is new games. I think in some ways this is good cause it has boosted his confidence and shown him that he can be good at things. He decided to try guitar and run cross country, two things he had wanted to try before, but just couldn't because of that fear of failure.

Second story is about my roomie in grad school round 1. M and her husband J had lived in Ann Arbor, and she had just finished her first year of grad school when he got laid off and then got a job in Cali. She stayed back the year to finish her degree, and he (a computer game designer) moved, and one way that they used to interact was to play WoW (as well as being a good stress relief after a tough class). Not romantic by most peoples standards, but it gave them a way to be together, even when separated by a continent.

A BIT of personal reflection based on Jane's TED talk

Urgent Optimism
This cracked me up - I am not a sitterbacker - If there is a problem that I think I can help solve, it slays me to have to sit back and not help solve it. Makes me bad in class and life sometimes, but hopefully will help me in the classrooms I work in.

Social Fabric
This has so happened to me in two ways - One, at my last job, the people on my team used to play games at lunch - board games (which I will address below), not video, but it really did help build the team and let us share some 'off' time together, but in a great way. And you still wanted to play against that person who kept beating you, just for the chance to beat them.

Also, I just started playing D&D this past year (you can judge me for that, but it is so fun so :P on your possible anti-gaming prejudices). Some of the guys I play with, I admit that I had some doubts about, but now that we have spent about a dozen sessions playing together, I can see them as at least decent people with some great skills that, while different than me, can be really really useful, which I may not have if I had just thought about them as D&D guys. Additionally the creativity and planning that goes into setting up a session is amazing and makes me think that games can definitely be used for learning.

Also, this makes so much sense - cause have you ever played games with a kids? It isn't so much playing as they know if you play this game, you are gonna devote your time to them for that whole game. Given how little time parents get to spend with kids with jobs and school and all, how great is it that kids figured this out before we did (or at least I just did)

Blissful Productivity and Epic Meaning
When I get a new FF game, I know that it is gonna take me an ungodly amount of hours to finish that sucker. But I never look at it as a chore, but as a mix of gaming and learning and reading a story of a new game. I think that is why I like RPGs most of all - interpreting a story is really meaningful and fun to me, and doing it while killing Red Caps and Lamia is just more fun.

Board Games
There was no mention in the article or the video about learning from games. There have been a number of amazing board games that can help people learn how to solve problems. And not all are super competitive - Pandemic comes to mind where players must all cooperate to stop the spread of a plague, else everyone looses. Plus board games force us to interact in person, building those social skills that people often say can't be learned from gaming.

PS I would be willing to bring in some cool board games for people to check out. Games that all you fun Social Studies people would be able to use in your classes. Ticket to Ride to study the railroad barons or study us cities and their location. Alhambra about city building. Family Business about the Mob (and so quick to learn and so fun to research the mobsters)

PPS Vault of Midnight here on Main St in Ann Arbor has a FABULOUS selection of games and also does game demo nights where you can test drive a new game or try out an old one.