Undercover Literacy

This was posted on my psmonline post (found in a previous blog of mine.) This is what the user freespace21 said: "we started a club. we played Unreal Tournament: Game of the Year Edition. one of the new teachers last year had started it. we played after school every wednesday. it was extremely fun, the teacher actually played with us. he was really good, too. (headshots galore) unfortunately, there was a combination of two things that brought it to an end. the admin at school disliked it because it was violent. they just needed a reason to come down on us. their wish was granted when there were reports of people playing during school in one of the classes. they outlawed it and we were no longer allowed to play. it only takes one person to screw everybody else. there was an underground movement that started towards the end of the year though. several of us met in a different class room. somehow someone transfered the game to a drive that isn't checked out by the security program. with it there, we could play with each other. fragfests insued."

Students will play video games whether the administration allows it our not.

Video Games as Texts and Art

All video games that can function as textbooks (that I know of) fall into the simulation genre, as opposed to the games I discuss as art, which are within the adventure and RPG genres. There are flight simulators, sports game simulators, life simulators (The Sims Series), and history simulators (SimCity, SimEarth). Sid Meier’s Civilization Series is the best history simulation I can think of. Oregon Trail also falls into the category of history simulation. Check out Kurt Squire’s article, “Cultural Framing of Computer/Video Games”which addresses the push for educational gaming.

Aside from background knowledge, what is the point of using text books in high school English? Do we need the big Prentice Hall books or the vocabulary workbooks? I’m not sure if the video game format of these textbooks could prove to be more engaging or meaningful to the individual grammatical needs of students. However, maybe a video game based on Professor Masselink's grammar lessons would work? Root Words?

Incidentally, there’s a new game by Rockstar (the makers of the Grand Theft Auto Series) called Bully. Initially, I thought it was about a kid who goes around bullying others, but it’s actually about a kid who deals with getting bullied at a prep school. There are even classroom mini-games, which include a grammar test. At the very least, I’m interested in seeing how the most popular video game developer, Rockstar, portrays schoolwork.

As I have said before, my interest in video games pertains almost exclusively to “non academic” video games played at home on the computer or video game console. If I am to use video games in the classroom, I intend to use games that students are willing to play outside of the classroom.