ETEC 544: Intellectual Production #1: Digital Games and Learning Perspectives

In Cats and Portals: Video Games, Learning, and Play, Gee suggests that games provide pathways for language acquisition and skills development through the necessity of expertise in order to achieve desired in-game outcomes. Games do not need to be “serious” or “educational” in order to see this deep learning and development realized and in fact many commercial games have unintentionally mastered the art of games for learning out of a desire to build engaging entertainment. Learning and achievement in games can open doors to opportunities many may not have had access to previously.

Gee’s position, that children, out of a desire for success in games, learn language at a level far beyond their schooling continues to be shown in studies (Rudis and Postic 2018.) In the wake of significant development in the realm of serious games since writing this article in 2008, without further investigation readers in 2022 would be missing some context in regards to how serious games are being developed as entertaining and engaging learning experiences.

In light of developments in the serious games space, this writer wonders whether Gee would form a more positive opinion of serious games and possibly elevate some of them to the same esteem as the commercial games he views as exceptional learning experiences.

In Games as distributed teaching and learning systems, Gee and Gee suggest that over time, humans have developed many means of interacting with each other and our world, from texts to language to the less obvious ways that our world is trying to “interact” with us through environmental responses. Today, we’ve developed an additional way of interacting, through video games and virtual worlds. Our virtual worlds and the “real” world are more similar than many may like to think, and because the average person does not disassociate their experiences from one another based on the way those experiences were obtained, our experiences and interactions in games and virtual worlds contain as much meaning and importance as our experiences and interactions elsewhere.

Gee tends to avoid the social questions that arise, in particular how inequitable access to the requisite tools and devices may lead to entire groups of people being left behind in the new wave of digital spaces where people connect. That being said, Gee does address that once in these new spaces, opportunities to grow can be equal if managed properly.

Virtual worlds and games continue to evolve at an incredible pace. How much more will our ability to communicate and interact be enhanced in the coming years as AR and VR experiences become the next space we live, work, and play in?

Both articles clearly indicate a world that is changing, with games and virtual worlds increasingly playing a more substantial role in how we live, communicate, interact, and learn. Between 2008 and 2017, Gee has seen the landscape of games and virtual worlds evolve into opportunities for more than just language learning and acquisition into spaces with deeper meaning and purpose.

Gee, J. P. (2008). Cats and portals: Video games, learning, and play. American Journal of Play, 1(2), 229.

Rudis D., & Poštić S. (2018). INFLUENCE OF VIDEO GAMES ON THE ACQUISITION OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. Verbum, 8, 112-128. https://doi.org/10.15388/Verb.2017.8.11354

Gee, E., & Gee, J. P. (2017). Games as distributed teaching and learning systems. Teachers College Record, 119(11).