Traveling to Microworlds Part 7 “Conclusion & References”

Conclusion

In this paper, I have explored what specific quality of video games makes them suitable for educational purposes and argued that their ability to let players travel to other frames of mind or microworlds is exactly that quality. This specific ability exceeds and goes beyond any educational value a game might have, although it can be used to create successful educational games that focus on very specific qualities, as Shaffer points out when he talks about epistemologies. Gee considers games to offer a set of semiotic domains. Learning abilities in one domain might be useful even when doing work in another. Abilities and experiences can be ‘carried over’, so to speak. In comparing a commercial and an epistemic wargame, it seems that both games take players to similar semiotic domains or frames of mind. This means that a game does not need to be designed as educational nor has to stress certain values in order to let a player experience a world outside their own. It is of course exactly this quality that Shaffer, but also the U.S. Read more

Traveling to Microworlds Part 6 “Case in point: waging war as frame of mind”

Case in point: waging war as frame of mind

In Digital Game-Based Learning, one of the chapters is about ‘true believers’ in the educational value of games. Marc Prensky says that the United States military “gets it” big time. As Prensky points out, “The military training mission is a daunting one. It has to train 2.4 million men and women in four services (Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines) plus almost another million civilian employees, to work as individuals, as teams, as units, and in combination to meet all sorts of unforeseen and difficult objectives around the world under very high -pressure conditions.”[1] The U.S. Military has experimented with virtual environments and video game-like software as training tools for years now, offering simulations in titles such as Joint Force Employment for officers, Saving Private Pabletti for foot soldiers and virtual training facilities like SIMNET, in which participants “…do everything from learning to drive their vehicle to re-enacting entire virtual battles, such as those from the Gulf War. The modern version of SIMNET is JSIMS, which involves literally thousands of pilots, tank commanders, ships, submarines, and various levels of officers linked by T1 and T3 lines all playing out the war ‘at 1-foot levels of granularity.’”[2] Read more

Traveling to Microworlds Part 5 “Homo Ludens”

Homo Ludens

Comparing this with Dutch historian Johan Huizinga’s view on play and games in his 1938 essay Homo Ludens, which has been so influential in contemporary game studies, we see something interesting. According to Huizinga, games in human society are always superfluous. We play because we have the need. “…all play is a voluntary activity. Play to order is no longer play: it could at best be but a forcible imitation of it. By this quality of freedom alone, play marks itself off from the course of the natural process. It is something added thereto and spread out over it like a flowering, an ornament, a garment.”[1] Read more

Traveling to Microworlds Part 4 Semiotic domains and their similarity to travel

Semiotic domains and their similarity to travel

An earlier book and one that Shaffer possibly got his inspiration from, is What Video Games Have to Teach Us about Learning and Literacy by James Paul Gee, another scholar from the University of Madison in Wisconsin. In the book, Gee points out a question many teachers, parents and other people ask themselves when it comes to video games. Are they a waste of time? Is it even possible to learn from them? Read more

Traveling to Microworlds Part 2 “Broadening your horizons”

Broadening your horizons

In his 2002 book De verweesde samenleving (‘The orphaned society’), the late Dutch scholar and politician Pim Fortuyn (1948-2002) talks about certain core values of western society. In the second chapter of the book, he gives reasons why the typical Dutch system of verzuiling (‘pillarization’) came to an end. Read more

Traveling to Microworlds Part 1 “The Introduction”

Exploring the frames of mind video games can offer

Abstract

In this paper, I argue that the qualities that authors David W. Shaffer and James Paul Gee call epistemologies and semiotic domains respectively allow video games not only to be used as compelling learning devices, but as microworlds offering players a journey to other frames of mind than their own. Read more