Gaming to Save the World
Posted June 28th, 2006 by Michael Roy, Middlebury College
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The recent Games for Change Conference was covered on NPR, featuring interviews with the developers of games such as Darfur is Dying and Peacemaker. The premise of these games is that to reach the Net Generation with socially progressive ideas, you need to engage them with their favorite interactive media. Since one of the familiar objectives in many of our campus' strategic plans is to develop the next generation of leaders, and to ensure that our graduates participate effectively in the political process, these new models of developing thoughtful and yet engaging game environments to teach progressive values seem worth paying attention to, both for the lessons they teach, and more generally as models of platforms for thinking about future educational environments.
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Michael Roy. "Gaming to Save the World." Academic Commons Issue Name (Spring 2008): 20 November 2008. <http://www.academiccommons.org/>.Bookmark/Search this post with:
Re: Gaming to Save the World
On July 25th, 2006 Peter Schilling (not verified) said:
Games are also places to test, model, experiment with, etc. behaviors and even identities. That is to say, this is not just about generational differences but about tools to which some are now accustomed to use for sampling behaviors and learning to navigate a society.
Re: Gaming to Save the World
On July 18th, 2006 Christopher Watts, St. Lawrence University said:
I heard this story on NPR as well, and it made me think about many of the same issues. At the end of the day, I have a hard time getting completely on board with Prensky's "digital natives" and Educause's "net generation" rhetoric, because my own experiences suggest that these things do not apply as broadly as we'd like to think.
That being said, I am attracted the idea of using gaming environments to grab the attention of our students who find them truly engaging. I've been thinking a lot about Second Life lately, and have been really excited by the work New Media Consortium is doing there. Anybody else tinkering with this idea? Maybe we could meet "inworld" and talk about it!
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