Homo Ludens

In “Play,” Daniel Pink argues that laughing, video games, and humor cultivate right-brain thinking. Laughing clubs sound strange, which Pink admits, but I wonder if they could be useful in the classroom. Would it do any good to encourage today’s adolescents to be able to laugh for no reason? I think so, but students would be breaking so many adolescent social taboos that only the very brave would be willing to try it. In general, I don’t completely agree with Pink’s laughing for better productivity. I would participate in a laughing circle to see what it’s like, and I do enjoy laughing for no particular reason, but there is a difference between spontaneous and planned laughing.

Pink argues that video games have already eclipsed films in terms of popularity and that they may become the literature of the twenty first century. As opposed to traditional literacy, in video games facts are connected and manipulated, not just memorized (from Gee 193). In fact, the merging of science and art in the video game medium enables players to use both logic and aesthetic: “a whole new mind” (196). Pink does acknowledge that some games are “utter time-wasters” (194), yet he does not say which games these are or what distinguishes time-waster play and functional play.

I agree with Pink that humor is one of our highest forms of intelligence (198), and it should be acknowledged more in the classroom, for example. However, I do not think it is possible to see humor as anything but entertainment first and all other functions second. Could many a truth be said in jest if humor’s primary function were not to entertain? I guess my concern here is similar to the one I have about planned laughing. Enjoying what one does is important in order to engage in work and be productive, but do we really need “’corporate jesters’” (188)? Also, how neurologists determine the function of humor was not convincing to me. The punch-line quiz on page 196 did not seem like an accurate scale for determining someone’s humor ability. At first, I thought it was a trick question. Ironically, it reminded me of one of those meaningless regents questions. I’ve always been told that I have a strange sense of humor, but does that mean I have brain damage? Of course it does.

Some questions:
Is it true that people rarely succeed in anything unless they are having fun doing it?
Would you participate in a laughing club?
Could your class benefit from a laughing club?
Are video games not respected as much as literature, or even film, because the medium is not as complex? The medium is still very young and is still considered juvenile?
Will video games become the literature of the 21st century?
Was the neuroscience study on humor convincing(196-7)? Is it really a good measure of a person’ s ability to comprehend humor?

Movie Project Reflections

WOOOOO!! It is done! My entire weekend was devoted to editing. I consider it a special torture that I was never able to see my film in real time until I had posted on the YouTube. Yes, it is there. It is not perfect, but it is on the internet! That is so cool!

Okay, I had to get that out.

The process: First, I filmed everything on my Canon A530 digital camera. My film took up less than 1 GB of memory. All my footage transfered easily to my old PC through Windows XP Movie Maker. I saved my progress often to my PC and additional 1 GB memory stick. Movie Maker was very easy to work with. When I finally finished editing, I saved my film to a CD. It took about 5 hours for my film to be recorded. Finally, I uploaded my video from the CD to YouTube, which took about an hour. I still cannot believe it worked so well.


Complaints: Coming up with a story, writing a screenplay, and filming takes a lot of time and preparation. I am pleased with my results, but I felt very rushed. Providing students with class-time five days a week will be advantageous when I teach a secondary class to make movies. Having updated technology is crucial to timely completion of the editing process. In my situation, I was never able to see my editing progress in anything more than still images. It was ardouos to sequence video and audio the way I wanted.

Having said that, the finished product is sequeced better than I expected. I found editing to be highly addictive, but also very stressful. The most rewarding aspect of the movie project was being able to make my work available on the internet without any problems. Friedman's talk on the connectivety of software is very exciting, but witnessing it first hand is even more powerful.

I hope you all view my film, and do not be afraid to comment here or on YouTube.