In the final chapter of his book, Gee explores the social and collaborative learning endeavours which is perhaps the most fascinating chapter of the book as it explicitly addresses the issue of group / team work that can take place within a given shared task, aim or objective. Although this chapter focuses upon group work within the sphere of playing a video game (either together in one room or remotely); the principles could be applied to any number of discussion boards; mailing lists; Web 2.0 technologies; classrooms; offices and community halls across the world.

Gee favours the term "affinity groups" (Gee, 2007; 2001) to, say, Wenger's (1998) "communities of practice" because:

"it has been given various meanings and because I wish to avoid the romantic notions that seem to accompany the word 'community'; affinity groups can be good, evil, or anything in between." (2007, p. 206)

For Gee, "affinity groups" can be viewed as:

"...groups wherein people primarily orient toward a common set of endeavours and social practices in terms of which they attempt to realize these endeavours. In such groups people orient less towards shared gender, race, culture, or face-to-face relationships, although all of these play a secondary role." (2007, p. 196)

Affinity groups, therefore, allow for shared thinking, knowledge and reasoning to be inherently social and distributed and can, though not necessarily, be augmented by technology - this concept is quite similar in principle to the crowdsourcing or collective intelligence phenomena where nodes and networks of people get together, either physically, though mostly virtually to solve problems or to produce a product, such practices have largely been enabled by the introduction of Web 2.0 type technologies.

In terms of e-learning courses or even traditional face-to-face classrooms this approach to gathering knowledge; solving problems; or completing a task suggests a change in practice as well as changing the power structures of teacher / student in what Gee describes as "reciprocal teaching" (after the work of Ann Brown and Joseph Campione) whereby students take it in turns to teach something that they have learnt or mastered.

Following on from, and extending, the concept of "affinity groups", Gee and Hayes (2009) present a paper that develops the notion that informal learning outside of school seems to fair better than formal learning inside of school. They go on to suggest that "humans seem to learn more deeply, and more equitably ... when they learn outside of school in areas they choose and for which they are motivated" (2009, para. 2). They quickly put to bed the myth that suggests that informal learning does not involve any teaching, arguing that "teaching in informal learning in ... today's popular culture involves three things: design, resources and ... 'affinity spaces'" (2009, para. 7) which they bind together as a form of "public pedagogy". At the centre of Gee and Hayes' paper is their concept of "affinity space" which they describe as "spaces - real world ot virtual world on Internet sites or in virtual worlds like Second Life - where people interact around a common passion" (2009, para. 17).

Unlike the "communities of practice", the "affinity space" does not segregate the "apprentices" from the "masters" - they co-exist. This space also allows for the generation of shared user content and encourages and enables people to:

• gain "individual knowledge" (in their heads);
• contribute to "distributed knowledge" that can be picked up from other people, shared links or materials on a site or via mediating devices;
• use "dispersed knowledge" that can be found on other sites.

Gee and Hayes (2009, para. 19) make the claim that "affinity spaces" are "well-designed spaces that resources and mentor learners, old and new, beginners and masters alike" which can offer learners an identity, knowledge and status as well as encouraging and resourcing critical learning and reflective thinking. In their example, they have used the instance of the Yu-Gi-Oh! collectible card game (CCG) which is heavily supported by other players (face-to-face and online); video games; books; comics; posters; stat sheets; television shows; movies and websites (both official and non-official) which all fuses together in what Jenkins (2006) calls "media convergence" creating an enormous pool of "collective intelligence" and "collective resources".

In his blog post, Henry Keil (2009) discusses Gee and Hayes' paper and asks the pertinent question:

"Are we over-teaching during formal contact hours, and if [so] how can we engage students to learn more informally outside reduced class time?"

References

Gee, J.P. & Hayes, E. (2009). Public Pedagogy through Video Games. Game Based Learning. [online]. Available at: http://www.gamebasedlearning.org.uk/content/view/59/ [Accessed 24 March 2009]

Gee, J.P. (2007). What Video Games Have To Teach Us About Learning And Literacy (Revised and Updated Edition). New York, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.

Gee, J.P. (2001). Identity as an Analytic Lens for Research in Education. Review of Research in Education, 25 (2000-2001), pp 99-125.

Jenkins, H. (2006). Convergence Culture: Where old and new media collide. New York: New York University Press.

Keil, H. (2009). Teaching in Informal Learning. Holyrood Park blog. [online]. Available at: http://holyroodpark.net/hkeil/weblog/1986.html [Accessed 24 March 2009].

Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of Practice: learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge, England; New York: Cambridge University Press.

One of my pet interests is that of identity. Gee not only devotes a whole chapter on idenity (and learning), but also another chapter that looks at identity (and culture). Gee suggests that learning that takes place within, what he describes as "semiotic domains", or as he puts it more plainly: "an area or set of activities where people think, act and value in certain ways" (2007, p. 19) requires the learner to create and take on new identities as well as "forming bridges" between the learner's old identities to their new one (2007, p. 45).

These "semiotic domains" could be a science laboratory, so the learner "thinks and acts" as a scientist; or a kitchen, so the learner "thinks and acts" as a chef. In the realm of the video game, the player either has to construct their character from scratch if it is a role playing game (RPG) or they adopt the identity of the game's main protagonist, be it Mario, Sonic the Hedgehog, Max Payne or Lara Croft; so the "semiotic domains" become a fantastical and improbable world; the rain strewn streets of New York; or an archaeological dig somewhere in the mountains of Peru.

This is where Gee (2007, pp. 48-51) presents his fascinating “tripartite” perspective to identity where three complex and interrelating identities are at play: “real-world” (as “played by” the individual themselves and are imbued with a variety of competing/complementary identities); “virtual” (as “played out” by the individual’s alter-ego or “avatar” which can be seen as aspirational identities that befit a particular role); and “projective” (as “played towards” being a certain type of person / role based upon the individual’s own dispositions). Gee articulates this “tripartite” of identities in the following way:

• student as scientist (real-world identity)
• student as scientist (virtual identity)
• student as scientist (projective identity)

Gee introduces another concept, that of the "psychosocial moratorium" (2007, p, 59), which was first introduced by psychologist Erik Erickson,  which has been used to describe the suspension of responsibility and accountability that allows players to explore alternate identities without the repercussions and dangers that one might face in real life; i.e. a player as a neurosurgeon performing brain surgery.

Gee (2007, pp. 53-54) suggests that the relationship of "player as virtual character" is a powerful one as it:

"...transcends identification with characters in novels or movies, for instance, because it is both active (the player actually does things) and reflexive, in the sense that once the player has made some choices about the virtual character, the virtual character is now developed in a way that sets certain parameters about what the player can now do."

The above statement reminds me of "The Hero with a Thousand Faces"; Campbell's (1993) seminal work featuring the journey of the archetypal hero that can be found in most world mythologies and has been a device adopted by many storytellers including J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" triology and George Lucas' "Star Wars" franchise. Each deals with a "rite of passage" - for the learner, this could be interpreted as a "learning footprint" or "learning trajectory" - that would ultimately result in some kind of sacrifice - for the learner, this could mean supplanting previously held beliefs or knowledge or letting go of some kind of redundant idenity - that would lead to some kind of transformation - again, for the learner, this could mean the assimilation of new beliefs or knowledge or acquiring a new identity.

Blinka (2008) offers an interesting insight between the relationship of the player and their avatar; Blinka's (2008) paper seems to suggest that the younger the player, the more they identify themselves as the avatar and that for all age groups daydreaming and emotional feelings towards their avatar, was found to be important.

In the "Cultural Models" chapter, Gee introduces the idea that players can also play the "bad guy" as well as the "good guy" which means adopting the identity of the "other"; this shadowy arch-nemesis. He states (Gee, 2007, p. 158) that:

"...far more interactively that you could in any novel or movie, you would have experienced the 'other' from the inside ...  since the cultural models built into the game are not yours, you would be able to reflect on them in a more overtly conscious way..."

Depending on the role of the "other", for some of us, this role-reversal may actually be a real eye opener or may take us down very uncomfortable and threatening avenues of inquiry and experience. Uncomfortable questions may be asked of our identities - a real "looking glass" moment that is reflected back to us in all of its most uncomfortable, uncompromising and unflinching reality.

References

Blinka, L. (2008). The Relationship of Players to Their Avatars in MMORPGs: Differences between Adolescents, Emerging Adults and Adults. Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace. 2(1). [online]. Available at: http://cyberpsychology.eu/view.php?cisloclanku=2008060901&article=5 [Accessed 19 March 2009]

Campbell, J. (1993). The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Fontana Press.

Gee, J.P. (2007). What Video Games Have To Teach Us About Learning And Literacy (Revised and Updated Edition). New York, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.

Suler, J. (2002). Identity Management in Cyberspace. The Psychology of Cyberspace. [onlne]. Available at: http://www-usr.rider.edu/~suler/psycyber/identitymanage.html [Accessed 19 March 2009]

Suler, J. (2004). Personality Types in Cyberspace. The Psychology of Cyberspace. [onlne]. Available at: http://www-usr.rider.edu/~suler/psycyber/persontypes.html [Accessed 19 March 2009]

Suler, J. (2007). The Psychology of Avatars and Graphical Space in Multimedia Chat Communities. The Psychology of Cyberspace. [onlne]. Available at: http://www-usr.rider.edu/~suler/psycyber/psyav.html [Accessed 19 March 2009]

I have finally finished reading James Paul Gee's "What Video Games Have To Teach Us About Learning And Literacy" where Gee gives an inspirational treatise on how the Education sector can look to the principles and methods employed by the games industry to get people playing their computer / video games and how the players learn, quite informally, a range of transferable skills and knowledge. Gee (2007, p. 215) reinforces his argument towards the end of the book:

"I have first wanted to argue that good video games build into their very designs good learning principles and that we should use these principles, with or without games, in schools, workplaces or other educational sites. "

This sentiment is shared by Malone (1980, p. 162) 20 years earlier who also felt that "these same ideas can be applied to other educational environments and life situations". The "learning principles" that Gee speaks of are his "36 Learning Principles" (2007, pp. 221-227) that he slowly develops throughout the book.

I can, however, see a number of time poor, resource hungry teachers struggle with some of Gee's suggestions, especially when they have to work with a rather prescriptive curriculum that changes ever-so-often according to the Government's latest "blue skies" thinking or knee-jerk reaction to some kind of educational or societal failure that needs a "policy plaster" to cover it up.

So, for the next few weeks, I would like to post some of my thoughts around some of the themes and issues that had caught my interest whilst reading Gee's book.

Watch this space...

References

Gee, J.P. (2007). What Video Games Have To Teach Us About Learning And Literacy (Revised and Updated Edition). New York, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. 

Malone, T.W. (1980) What Makes Things Fun to Learn? Heuristics for Designing Instructional Computer Games. Proceedings of the 3rd ACM SIGSMALL symposium and the first SIGPC symposium on Small systems table of contents. Palo Alto, California, United States.

Last week, I read a couple of fascinating papers from the early 1980s by Thomas Malone (formerly a research scientist at Xerox PARC, but now the Patrick J. McGovern Professor of Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management) who put forward a "set of heuristics or guidelines for designers of instructional computer games" (Malone, 1980, p. 162) that were largely made up of three core elements:

1. challenge
   • goal
   • uncertain outcome
   • multiple level goals
   • hidden information
   • randomness
   • self-esteem
2. fantasy
   • intrinsic & extrinsic fantasy
   • affective aspects of fantasy
3. curiosity
   • sensory curiosity (e.g audio & visual effects)
   • cognitive curiosity
   • informative feedback

Greenfield would pick up and comment upon Malone's studies (1984, pp. 88-89) a few years later, whilst Gee's 36 Learning Principles (2007, pp. 221-227) wouldn't be a million miles away from Malone's initial ideas. Indeed, much of Malone's early work is echoed in much later works by other games and play theorists and commentators.

Malone goes on to highlight some potential gender differences (1982, p. 64) that game designers would ultimately need to think about if they were going to attract and exploit the potential female games market.

Whilst I suspect Malone wouldn't like to be labelled as a "futurologist", he makes a startling prophecy when he talks about the "different 'personalities' to different parts of a system" like the computer operating system, in short the Graphical User Interface (GUI) which was being pioneered by Xerox PARC at the time and was later adopted by Apple for their Macintosh devices. Malone (1980, p. 67) is quite emphatic when he says that:

"I think fantasies have two important aspects for designing user interfaces: emotions and metaphors." [emphasis are mine]

It has to be said that Malone makes some very astute observations as to the nature of games, games playing and what designers need to think about when developing computer / video games. Whilst the Malone papers are quite short, they do pack an immense number of ideas, suggestions and themes that, I suspect, have influenced the games industry for many years.

Interestingly, like Gee (2007, p. 215) after him, Malone (1980, p. 162) goes on to infer that:

"...these same ideas can be applied to other educational environments and life situations."

References

Gee, J.P. (2007). What Video Games Have To Teach Us About Learning And Literacy (Revised and Updated Edition). New York, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. 

Greenfield, P. M. (1984). Mind and Media: The effects of television, video games, and computers. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. 

Malone, T.W. (1982). Heuristics for Designing Enjoyable User Interfaces: Lessons from Computer Games. Proceedings of the 1982 conference on Human factors in computing systems table of contents. Gaithersburg, Maryland, United States.

Malone, T.W. (1980) What Makes Things Fun to Learn? Heuristics for Designing Instructional Computer Games. Proceedings of the 3rd ACM SIGSMALL symposium and the first SIGPC symposium on Small systems table of contents. Palo Alto, California, United States.

Acknowledgement

Savage, D. (2008). Game of Suspense. Savage Chickens. Available at: http://www.savagechickens.com/2008/11/game-of-suspense.html [Accessed 17 March 2009]

One of the other activities that we have been undertaking has involved the idea of going on a treasure hunt in the Second Life environment. So far, Fiona Littleton has devised two such hunts and has given the players just a brief clue to get them on their way. These being:

1. High above the chapel walls lies the great work of Michelangelo.
2. In an Augustinian garden, play with these laws.

The first one was easy, the Sistine Chapel on Vassar Island. The second was a little harder as it required a little more research outside of Second Life before the treasure hunt could begin; but we would be eventually rewarded once we had worked out that it was Mendel's Garden on Genome Island.

These Second Life treasure hunts had a number of purposes, first of which was to give players the opportunity to become familiar with the Second Life environment; another one, was an opportunity to see the diverse nature of uses, constructs and artefacts within Second Life; finally, there is an opportunity to see how "treasure hunts" in Second Life could be used for creating a learning experience.

One of the of most potent themes to surface from this module is that people like games to have a degree of acceptable challenge-ness, i.e. it shouldn't be too easy and it shouldn't be too hard. The treasure hunt, like the WebQuest, is, for me, an intellectual pursuit to "unlock the puzzle" - it's not about being first or to receive the reward at the end; it is about the "challenge" itself and to succeed in that "challenge" to the best of my abilities - the "challenge" therefore becomes a personal quest to see how well I can perform.

UPDATE - 02.04.2009

The final clue from Fiona is:

1. Find the place where Viola and Sebastian live on

Week 5 of the course saw the teams being given an exercise that involved building a game around the Second Life platform. Team 2 member, Nicholas Palmer, once again, got the ball rolling by providing a useful mind map of the task at hand.

The game was based around the well-worn concept of role playing games (RPG), the format of this type of game is something that I am very familiar during my teenage years as I was an avid player (and sometimes author) of the "Call of Cthulhu" RPG system. Hamish Macleod offered a couple of examples that the teams could use or create something that was of interest to them. Hamish's examples included:

1. An Employment Exit Interview
2. Drama on Drug Action at the Synapse

The team members suggested some ideas that could make a potential RPG. One of my proposals involving a sales pitch by a young team of comedians for an idea of a comedy show to some hard-bitten TV executives was taken by Marie Leadbetter and developed further by basing it upon the BBC TV's "Dragons' Den" format. Marie was kind enough to create a wiki for the team to start fleshing out their ideas. The wiki was broken up into 6 sections:

• Game Description
• Rules
• Characters
• Scenarios
• Platform / Design
• Theory

One of the side-effects of developing this game was that for some of the team, the concept of "Dragons' Den" was not clear to them despite the presence of the rules and links to the BBC show and the Wikipedia article. This suggested to me that we were not using an universal cultural reference point on which to build and, as such, they felt they were not able to make a productive and fruitful contribution to the team project.

One of the issues here, is that teams need to turn around an idea into a fully-fledged "product" within a week. This means that the teams need to "virtually" meet with each other to get the ball rolling. Given that some of the team members are quite geographically and temporally displaced it does mean that they cannot always attend virtual meetings on Skype or Second Life. We can, of course, communicate via the Discussion Boards on WebCT, but again it could sometimes take up to a whole day before a reply is received. Therefore, in order to complete the project, some of the team members will have to "trailblaze" the project forward and having the other team members "piggy back" on when they are able to - this is clearly not an ideal situation as you want team members to have an equitable and democratic experience.

The Dragons' Lair RPG wiki can be accessed here...

Over the last few week on the "Introduction to Digital Game-based Learning" module, we have been given numerous opportunities to look at an assortment of games with a view of developing an insight into how they might help with learning. Not only are we grappling with the nebulous concepts of "play", but also discovering how games could potentially help with the learning process.

One of the outcomes of the module is the opportunity to "play" and make our own connections and synergies between what we experience and that of the games and play literature. The course has offered a number of oppprtunities to play games, such as a treasure hunt in Second Life (I'll have something to say about that in a future post); creating and play games that make use of Google Earth; and developing a role playing game for Second Life (again, a future post will address this). This week is the turn of the WebQuest, which according to Dodge (1995) is:

"...an inquiry-oriented activity in which some or all of the information that learners interact with comes from resources on the internet, optionally supplemented with videoconferencing."

I was first introduced to the concept of WebQuest in the "An Introduction to Digital Environments for Learning" module and got to experience one in the "Effective Course Design for e-Learning" module, where Stuart Easter developed a WebQuest as part of his Learning Event. Stuart's WebQuest went along the lines of finding a "single phrase" that linked the following "names / words / links":

• Circle Line Party
• Dan Hamill
• A link on Google Earth
• Jane's Addiction
• London Pillow Fight

A quick Wikipedia search, would have you discover that the answer is flash mob. Hamish Macleod began his WebQuest by asking us to "to discover what notion, or phenomenon, links (by inclusion or exclusion) the following words or phrases":

• Alice in Wonderland
• Artificial Intelligence
• A lonely girl
• the Bangalore World University
• viral marketing
• a denial
• Michael Douglas

However, the WebQuest wasn't going to be quite as simple as that as "the solution [was] not merely some potential linkage, but [a] specific linkage that [he had] in mind." which added a whole different complexity to the quest, which I personally relish - it's an intellectual pursuit and a battle of wits and minds that have kept the "little grey cells" of humankind engaged since time immemorial.

In many ways the Wiki Paths: The Great Link Race game works on a similar premise of the WebQuest and is part of a genre of games that involves "cracking codes" and "unlocking puzzles" that are in pursuit of "forbidden knowledge". The new Ron Howard film "Angels and Demons", a prequel to "The Da Vinci Code", is currently supported by an online game making use of Photosynth (which in itself is interesting as I will be using Photosynth for my final module assignment) which requires users to try and find clues and symbols to try and unlock the secrets of the Illuminati and shows how Web 2.0 technologies can be used to build engaging and compelling educational games (and not a single person was killed in making these games).

Note: The answer to Hamish's WebQuest is alternate reality game.

References

Dodge, B. (1995). Some thoughts about Webquests. [online]. Available at: http://webquest.sdsu.edu/about_webquests.html [Accessed 6 March 2009].

Reading this week's papers from Pat Kane (2005) amd Brian Sutton-Smith (1997) were a sheer joy and delight compared to the James Newman chapter the other week. I think the issue between these three writers is one of how an argument is being presented to the reader. We start with Sutton-Smith (1997) who sets that scene by explaining that the meaning or definition of "play" is fraught with ambiguity with various philosophers, anthropologists, biologists, psychologists, etc. describing the essence of "play" in different ways that relate to their particular disciplines.

It's astonishing to learn that for such a "simple" concept of "play", or at least perceived by many to be a "simple" concept, has academics from a multitude of disciplines trying to place "play" within some framework or other - indeed, I don't recall any of the theorists mentioned by Sutton-Smith taking an holistic and all-encompassing view of "play"; this is something that Sutton-Smith (1997, p. 6) sees as a weakness and Kane (2005, p. 40) also picks up on when he talks about the "third culture" or polymathism ("Homo Universalis") before the arts and sciences had a parting of the ways. I was also intrigued by Sutton-Smith's view that play "has temporal diversity as well as spatial diversity" when he talks about the likes of the World Cup and the Olympics. Sutton-Smith (1997, p. 9) offers "seven rhetorics", which Kane (2005, p.39) describes as:

"...ways of thinking and talking about play that express a certain vision of human nature and culture, and which can be deployed by everyone from teachers to generals, hackers to CEOs ... [which] imply both a very modern and a very ancient vision of humanity."

The "seven rhetorics" are:

1. The rhetoric of play as progress
2. The rhetoric of play as fate
3. The rhetoric of play as power
4. The rhetoric of play as identity
5. The rhetoric of play as the imaginary
6. The rhetoric of play as the self
7. The rhetoric of play as frivolous

Kane (2005, p. 48) makes an interesting statement whereby he says "the moment of play is identified as a generator of originality, energy and new development" that made me think of Google's European offices in Zurich and the "Homo Ludens" that occupy it.

Kane's "manifesto" is about a lifestyle, an attitude, a state of mind, a way at looking at the world and the people and artifacts in it that strips away the rigidity and drudgery that has been hampered by a mechanistic, industrial mindset of the Victorian age. Education is still built around this hidden curriculum of "preparing people for the workforce".

There's this wonderful allusion to Jean-Dominique Bauby's "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" where Kane (2005, p. 46) quotes surrealist Luis Bunuel: "Somewhere between chance and mystery lies the imagination, the only thing that protects our freedom". Bauby suffered a massive stroke that left him with a condition called locked-in syndrome (the diving bell) and would use his imagination (the butterfly) to escape his biological prison.

Both Sutton-Smith and Kane position play not as a "trivial, frivolous, silly" waste of time; but as a powerful, natural human asset for learning and discovery through highly creative and imaginative interactions with the world and the people who live in it. Whilst the games industry has shown how people can become immersed in the world of games and are developing skills through experimentation, practice and from other players, so now Education needs to look at this phenomena and translate this into practical, everyday use fit for a classroom be it real or virtual.

Update

Have just learnt that Pat Kane is one half of the late 1980s, early 1990s pop duo Hue and Cry and maintains a blog called "The Play Ethic" and is using Twitter to share his thoughts and resources around his concept of the play ethic.

References

Gee, J.P. (2007). What Video Games Have To Teach Us About Learning And Literacy (Revised and Updated Edition). New York, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.

Kane, P. (2005). The Play Ethic: A Manifesto for a different way of living. London: Pan.

Sutton-Smith, B. (1997). The Ambiguity of Play. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

I've been fortunate enough last weekend to have had a go on some of the different games consoles that are currently out on the market without hemorrhaging my wallet or bank balance. A work colleague has a Nintendo Wii and my partner's brother has a Microsoft Xbox.

The Nintendo Wii (or simply "Wii" as the manufacturer prefers to market it) is currently en vogue at the moment with it's unique wireless controller and nunchuk that acts as pointing devicea that senses positions across 3 dimensional space. I got to try out "Mii Maestro" and "Handbell Harmony" minigames from the Wii Music suite and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. The first thing you notice is that the wireless controller is not as difficult to operate as the dual analog controllersof the Xbox and Playstation games consoles. The second thing you notice is that there is still a degree of eye - hand co-ordination going on (something that I am not particularly good at).

Whilst I am very competitive with board and card games, I have found myself not being quite so competitive with the computer / video games as I have wanted the opportunity to test the features of the software and hardware to try and gain a better understanding how it all fits together especially where my wretched eye - hand co-ordination is concerned. The rather nice thing with the Wii was that there was six of us having a go with it - it's the social aspect of gaming that I have always found appealing and it was nice to see it here again with a computer-based game rather than a board game.

Microsoft's Xbox is a more "traditional" games console that uses the dual analog contollers which takes a little getting use to as each button, toggle and trigger performs different functions that tend to come into play simultaneously - which means hand, eyes and brain need to work together (you really begin to appreciate Prensky's (2001) "digital native" concept at this point). My partner's sons, Josh (10) and Nathan (14), opted for Colin McRae Rally 04, F1 2002 and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

The two racing games were very much about eye - hand co-ordination and manoeuvring the cars around the track without crashing them. The game that interested me the most was the Harry Potter game and the situation that arisen from it that reminded me of Gee's (2007) discussion about the social aspect of gaming. Josh is the most dextrous out of myself and Nathan as far as videogaming is concerned and how adroit he is at handling the controls. Josh is well versed with platform games and adventure games.

The Harry Potter games has dozens upon dozens of rooms that contained different types of logical puzzles. Josh would run around in each room like a headless chicken using his wand to smash open boxes, etc whilst completely missing that each room might have a special clue or puzzle that needed solving. This is where Nathan and I would come in to advise / coach / "bossing around" Josh what he needed to do. What struck me was that although neither I nor Nathan had access to the controls we were able to take a full part in the game by collaborating with Josh as to what needed to be done and how to go about it - this for me demonstrated the reflexive and critical elements that Gee (2007) was talking about in terms of learning and understanding along with group collaboration to getting the task completed. Whilst at the beginning Josh was a little irritated by our input, it didn't take long for him to see the value in it as he was able to complete tasks more efficiently and more quickly because the group was working to their strengths to get the tasks done.

References

Gee, J.P. (2007). What Video Games Have To Teach Us About Learning And Literacy (Revised and Updated Edition). New York, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.

Prensky, M. (2001). Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants. On the Horizon, 9(5), NCB University Press. 

I chose Agatha Christie's "Death on the Nile" - the computer game that is, not the book, film, play, an episode from the TV series or, more recently, a graphic novel that have lent itself to the Christie brand - for two simple reasons:

1. I like murder mysteries and this story is very familiar to me;
2. I wanted a "gentle" re-introduction into computer gaming having been out of it for nearly 20 years. 

So, in many ways, I took the approach that Gee (2007) originally adopted and went for something that would "interest" me. If you look at Berens & Howard's (2001, cited in Newman, 2005, p. 12) gaming genres, this game sat firmly in the platforms and puzzles domain - though I would say more puzzles and less platforms. The game is definately not roleplaying, even though you are playing Hercule Poirot and it's definately not a first-person game.

Let me explain. my idea of a roleplaying game involves interacting with the other characters - you don't do this in the game. Firstly, there are short black-and-white silent movie moments where the characters "talk" via text at the bottom of the screen, in other words there are no spoken words. Secondly, the "interviewing" of the suspects also uses this silent movie approach whereby you click on the "next" button to read the "conversation" that is going on. So immediately the game isn't immersive as you are not acting and interacting, you're just reading text from the screen.

The first-person approach allows you to see through the eyes of the character and allows you to interact with objects and people. What the game does offer is 24 rooms with "hidden objects" that you have to find over 14 scenes. You are given 25 minutes per scene to find the objects that appears on the list of things to find. Some will be clues to the murder and others are just thow-away objects. After each scene, there's a more traditional slider-type puzzle to solve. So the game is promoting keen observation skills and logical thinking. I managed to complete the entire game in one sitting that took about 5 hours to complete.

Although I had successfully completed the game, I didn't feel any sense of satisfaction from completing it as I didn't feel that the game particularly challenged me; this well-known story was rather secondary and somewhat superfluous; the characters were non-existant as if they were devoid of any personality - it would have, I think, be different if the characters were allowed to "talk" so that their "personalities" were able to shine through the words that they "spoke" and the "accents" that they used to speak them. It would seem that I wanted some that went a little beyond the "gentle" re-introduction that I thought I needed. The game wasn't animated enough, it has already been documented that action-based games are more engaging that still-based games, however nice the graphics and music should be.

I should say that a couple of years ago I did buy one of those interactive DVD games that you play on the TV. I purchased Agatha Christie's "After the Funeral" which was intersperse with video clips from the TV show, games and puzzles and linked together by David Suchet playing "Hercule Poirot". Whilst this game is not action-based like the computer game, it had the added bonus of the video clips and David Suchet as Hercule Poirot talking directly at you, which gave the impression that you were in the game rather than outside of it. There is definately something to be said for computer games that have animated action sequences rather than still ones.

References

Gee, J.P. (2007). What Video Games Have To Teach Us About Learning And Literacy (Revised and Updated Edition). New York, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.  

Newman, J. (2004). Videogames. London: Routledge.