Immersing gaming & other technological skills

Jane McGonigal is an incredibly persuasive speaker. Although I still have my doubts about pushing individuals to play games even MORE, she made me think twice about the arguments against gaming. She stated that gamers are "super empowered hopeful individuals" who have the following four traits:

1) urgent optimism, where they desire to tackle an obstacle with success

2) social fabric, where they tend to like people better after playing a game with them

3) blissful productivity, where they are actually happier working hard at playing games than relaxing and hanging out

4) epic meaning, where they create these epic resources such as the World of Warcraft Wiki.

I mean, honestly, who would think video games really have that much going for them, except for the fact that there is a lot of problem solving and quick thinking involved.

Linking these games to the 21st century digital era is the idea of collaboration and critical thinking. We do need to teach 21st century skills. Weigal, James, and Gartner's article argues that when you immerse technology such as social networking tools, multiplayer games, and fan communities into classrooms, you offer highly active and social learning experiences. You also provide ways to engage with each other, with information, and with the world. If we are to prepare students to be active, knowledgeable citizens in the workplace, they need to be able to use these technological skills even if they are basics. Gaming may not be necessarily the way to do it all the way, but I have definitely learned some positives about allowing teenagers to play games to a certain extent.

This newly way of thinking about technology reminds me of my cousins. They are constantly on the computer all day playing games. Even during family gatherings without computers they have their itouch or iphone doing something. Yet despite the fact that they are literally looking on the screen all day, their ability to multitask is impressive and their grade scores are still tremendously high. They can access anything they want to on the internet and can easily unlock a code or trouble shoot anything we ask. Despite not being the best at things like drawing or cooking, they have these technological skills that I believe will help them in the real world. Even when we talk about politics or news, their critical thinking skills are incredible!