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Book Review – Good Video Games + Good Learning: Collected essays on video games, learning and literacy

2007; Athabasca University Press; Volume: 8; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.19173/irrodl.v8i3.498

1492-3831

Sharon Stoerger,

Literacy, Media, and Education

Teachers teach that knowledge waits.Bob Dylan, It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding) The perfect is the enemy of the good.Voltaire A common 'technology' associated with traditional educational environments is the chalkboard.The teacher stands in front of it and lectures to the students sitting in the classroom.Today's students, though, are experiential learners who multitask and prefer to learn by "seeking, sieving, and synthesizing" (Dede, 2005, p. 7) rather than passively listening.In other words, these individuals learn by doing and are actively seeking out the cognitive challenges presented in video games (Steinkuehler, 2005).Because these students have been exposed to technologies, like video games, educational theories that worked in the past may not in a technology-focused world (Prenksy, 2001).James Paul Gee could have used Good Video Games + Good Learning as a vehicle to examine educational games or the serious game movement.Instead, he concentrates on well-designed games and the ways in which they can become a context for learning.Gee also examines the lessons that can be learned from video games, including violent ones like Mortal Kombat or Doom.While the media often focus on the violence in these games, Gee argues that they are just like any other technology -alone they are neither good nor bad.Moreover, he asserts, "Effects (good or bad) flow not from the game but from game + context" (p.3).In this collection of essays that range in topic from pleasure and learning to the human mind to 'being a professional', Gee's intention is not to suggest that video games can, or should, replace books and teachers.In fact, he believes that the immersive experiences touted by liberal education are not enough; guidance is needed otherwise the learner is "simply left to an infinity of choices with no good way to tell them apart" (p.79).This is not to say that Gee is advocating for a conservative education approach -one that focuses on the acquisition of facts and standardized tests.Rather, Gee contends that good video games are ones that are challenging yet doable, and through guidance can help learners "prepare for action" (p.80).