prensky ripples

Interesting discussion about the significance of Prensky by Seb, Pete and Mike from the PowerHouse Museum . I think they have all made valid points, here is rough attempt at summary:

seb: a lot of what is developed (games, whatever) has modern capitalism / consumerism / market as an underlying driving force and ought to be critiqued from that perspective

pete: engagement is essential starting point, worthwhile learning is fun, push is in decline - we need shared learning, mutual respect, "consumer" co-creation

mike: "universal truths" are suspect, why should reading (Emma) be priviledged over film (Clueless) - digitial immigrants may emotionally privilege reading over everything else but there is no logical justification for this

my comments:
As well as reading books we ask students to write
As well as watching film we ask students to make film
As well as playing games we ought to ask students to learn programming and make games
(prensky seemed to be not clear about this)

Digital immigrants (like me) will continue to be fuzzy about the real significance of games -and not be able to do critical analysis - because not being a very skilled game player means that it's not up close - just like any other immigrant

With regard to the changing meaning of literacy I'd recommend a book by James Gee: What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy

Here are some of my blog entries that relate to this discussion:
http://billkerr.blogspot.com/2006/03/literacy-wars.html
http://billkerr.blogspot.com/2006/03/value-of-game-playing.html
http://billkerr.blogspot.com/2005/04/beyond-print-literacy.html
http://billkerr.blogspot.com/2005/07/problem-of-content.html

Tags:

• prensky
• games