Double Entry Journal #1 EDUC 6814 Game Design & Learning

Human societies get better through history at building technologies that more closely capture some of what the human mind can do and getting these technologies to do mental work publicly.  Writing, digital computers, and networks each allow us to externalize some functions of the mind.  Though they are not commonly thought of in these terms, video games are a new technology in this same line.

This quote made me question if I agreed with this statement or disagreed and thought the author was putting too much importance to video games.  I decided that I agree that video games are an evolving technology that does help the human mind practice certain skills.  I agree with the author that video games require the player to figure out the rules, the patterns and also to set and obtain goals within the game.  I think that video games give the mind practice in problem solving and a feeling of accomplishment when goals are achieved by conquering the different tasks or levels.  In FACS goal setting, decision making and personal satisfaction from achieving a goal successfully is a big part of the overall message so this is an important factor to me.

You build your simulations to understand and make sense of things, but also to help you prepare for action in the world.  You can act in the simulation and test out what consequences follow, before you act in the real world.  You can role-play another person in the simulation and try to see what motivates their actions or might follow from them before you respond in the real world.

I think this is a real benefit and a good reason to use video games in education.  I think there is a great benefit from trying different approaches to obtain a desired outcome.  In education role playing has been an acceptable teaching method and now with the use of technology role playing can be expanded.  The video game is programmed to react to each player depending on their actions; the feedback is immediate in the form of defeat or success.  The player can try different roles in the game without permanent penalty and will help the player to develop acceptable behavior or actions that they can relate in real world situations.

The view of the mind I have sketched argues, as far as I am concerned, that the mind works rather like a video game.  For humans, effective thinking is more like running a simulation in our heads within which we have a surrogate actor than it is about forming abstract generalizations cut off from experiential realities. 

I agree that the human mind is always thinking about a situation and running a series possibilities of how to react.  Our mind does this so fast that we do not always recognize what is happening.  Think of a time when you reacted to a situation and after you did thought about how you could have reacted differently and run over the events over in your head.  When we are playing as a first person in the video world the player reacts to situations by making decisions in the form of moves trying to achieve the desired result the same as our mind goes over the facts and decide what actions to take after playing different possibilities in our mind.

Here are two links to youtube videos that I think reinforces the use of video games in the classroom and how they support learning.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNfPdaKYOPI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=AH5RKwB8wRQ