Table Of Content67
Good Video Games and Good Learning
presents James Paul Gee’s most important
essays devoted to the ways in which good
G
video games enable good learning. The o
o
chapters in this book argue that good d
n V
games teach through well-designed
i
d
problem-solving experiences. They also e
o
o affi rm that game-based learning must G
a
involve more than software and technology
m
and contribute to the design of passionate- e
i
s
affi nity spaces where people mentor +
t
each other’s learning and engagement. G
o
In the end, the book offers a model of o
d
i
collaborative, interactive, and embodied L
e
d learning centered on problem solving, a a
r
model that can be enhanced by games and
n
E can be accomplished in many different in
g
ways.
James Paul Gee is the Mary Lou Fulton 2ND
d Presidential Professor of Literacy Studies at Edition
Arizona State University. A linguist by training, he
currently works in the area of digital media and
J
n learning. He is the author of What Video Games A
M
Have to Teach Us about Literacy and Learning and E
S
The Anti-Education Era, among other books.
P
o A
U
L
G
E
c E
www.peterlang.com
P
e E
T
E
R
L
A
N
S G
67
Good Video Games and Good Learning
presents James Paul Gee’s most important
essays devoted to the ways in which good
G
video games enable good learning. The o
o
chapters in this book argue that good d
n V
games teach through well-designed
i
d
problem-solving experiences. They also e
o
o affi rm that game-based learning must G
a
involve more than software and technology
m
and contribute to the design of passionate- e
i
s
affi nity spaces where people mentor +
t
each other’s learning and engagement. G
o
In the end, the book offers a model of o
d
i
collaborative, interactive, and embodied L
e
d learning centered on problem solving, a a
r
model that can be enhanced by games and
n
E can be accomplished in many different in
g
ways.
James Paul Gee is the Mary Lou Fulton 2ND
d Presidential Professor of Literacy Studies at Edition
Arizona State University. A linguist by training, he
currently works in the area of digital media and
J
n learning. He is the author of What Video Games A
M
Have to Teach Us about Literacy and Learning and E
S
The Anti-Education Era, among other books.
P
o A
U
L
G
E
c E
www.peterlang.com
P
e E
T
E
R
L
A
N
S G
Good Video Games
+ Good Learning
Colin Lankshear and Michele Knobel
General Editors
Vol. 67
The New Literacies and Digital Epistemologies series
is part of the Peter Lang Education list.
Every volume is peer reviewed and meets
the highest quality standards for content and production.
PETER LANG
New York Washington, D.C./Baltimore Bern
Frankfurt Berlin Brussels Vienna Oxford
James Paul Gee
Good Video Games
+ Good Learning
Collected Essays on Video
Games, Learning and Literacy
Second Edition
PETER LANG
New York Washington, D.C./Baltimore Bern
Frankfurt Berlin Brussels Vienna Oxford
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gee, James Paul.
Good video games and good learning:
collected essays on video games, learning and literacy / James Paul Gee.
pages cm. — (New literacies and digital epistemologies vol. 67)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Video games—Psychological aspects. 2. Computer games—Psychological aspects.
3. Learning, Psychology of. 4. Visual literacy. 5. Video games and children. I. Title.
GV1469.3.G438 794.8—dc23 2013019067
ISBN 978-1-4331-2393-1 (paperback)
ISBN 978-1-4539-1162-4 (e-book)
ISSN 1523-9543
Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek.
Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the ‘‘Deutsche
Nationalbibliografie’’; detailed bibliographic data is available
on the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de/.
Cover design by Clear Point Designs
The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability
of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity
of the Council of Library Resources.
© 2013 Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., New York
29 Broadway, 18th floor, New York, NY 10006
www.peterlang.com
All rights reserved.
Reprint or reproduction, even partially, in all forms such as microfilm,
xerography, microfiche, microcard, and offset strictly prohibited.
Printed in the United States of America
Contents
Chapter 1 Games and Learning: An Interview Overview
(with Elisabeth Hayes and Henry Jenkins) 1
Chapter 2 Good Video Games, the Human Mind, and Good Learning 15
Chapter 3 Pleasure and Being a Professional: Learning
and Video Games 37
Chapter 4 Stories, Probes, and Games 53
Chapter 5 The Old and the New in the New Digital Literacies 59
Chapter 6 Can Technology-rich Learning Close
the Digital Participation Gap? 63
Chapter 7 Looking Where the Light Is Bad:
Video Games and the Future of Assessment
(with David Williamson Shaffer) 69
Chapter 8 Affinity Spaces: From Age of Mythology to Today’s Schools 87
Chapter 9 Nurturing Affinity Spaces and Game-Based Learning
(with Elisabeth Hayes) 103
Chapter 10 Our New Out-of-School “Schools of Choice and Passion” 125
Chapter 11 “Surmise the Possibilities”: Portal to a Game-Based
Theory of Learning for the 21st Century 141
References 157
Index 165
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Chapter 1
Games and Learning
An Interview Overview
James Gee, elisabeth hayes, and henry Jenkins
henry Jenkins: We’ve been involved in thinking about games and learning
for the better part of a decade. What do you see as the most significant break-
throughs that have occurred over this time?
James Gee: The breakthroughs have been slower in coming than I had hoped.
Like many new ideas, the idea of games for learning (better, “games as learning”)
has been often co-opted by entrenched paradigms and interests, rather than truly
transforming them. We see now a great many skill-and-drill games, games that do
in a more entertaining fashion what we already do in school. We see games being
recruited in workplaces—and lots of other instances of “gamification”—simply to
make the current structures of exploitation and traditional relationships of power
more palatable. We will see the data-mining capacities of games and digital media
in general recruited for supervision, rather than development. The purpose of games
as learning (and other game-like forms of learning) should be to make every learner
a proactive, collaborative, reflective, critical, creative, and innovative problem solver;
a producer with technology and not just a consumer; and a fully engaged partici-
pant and not just a spectator in civic life and the public sphere.
In general there are two “great divides” in the games and learning arena. The
two divides are based on the learning theories underlying proposals about games
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2 | Good Video Games + Good learning
for learning. The first divide is this: On the one hand, there are games based on a
“break everything into bits and practice each bit in its proper sequence” theory of
learning, a theory long popular in instructional technology. Let’s call this the “drill
and practice theory.” On the other hand, there are games based on a “practice the bits
inside larger and motivating goal-based activities of which they are integral parts”
theory. Let’s call this the “problem-and-goals-centered theory.” I espouse one ver-
sion of this theory, but, unfortunately, there are two versions of it. And this is the
second divide: On the one hand, there is a “mindless progressive theory” that says
just turn learners loose to immerse themselves in rich activities under the steam of
their own goals. This version of progressivism (and progressivism in Dewey’s hands
was not “mindless”) has been around a great many years and is popular among
“mindless” educational liberals. On the other hand, the other version of the “prob-
lem-and-goals-centered theory” claims that deep learning is achieved when learn-
ers are focused on well-designed, well-ordered, and well-mentored problem solving
with shared goals, that is, goals shared with mentors and a learning community.
Like so many other areas of our lives today, the conservative version (drill and
practice) and the liberal version (mindless progressivism) are both wrong. The real
solution does not lie in the middle but outside the space carved up by political debates.
henry Jenkins: What do you think remain the biggest misunderstandings or
disagreements in this space?
James Gee: Much of what I discussed above is really not about misunder-
standings, but about disagreements and different beliefs and value systems, or, in
some cases, different political, economic, or cultural vested interests. The biggest
misunderstanding in the case of my own work has been people saying that my work
espouses games for learning. It does not and never has. It espouses “situated embod-
ied learning,” that is, learning by participation in well-designed and well-mentored
experiences with clear goals; lots of formative feedback; performance before compe-
tence; language and texts “just in time” and “on demand”; and lots of talk and inter-
action around strategies, critique, planning, and production within a “passionate
affinity space” (a type of interest-driven group) built to sustain and extend the game
or other curriculum. Games are one good way to do this. There are many others.
The biggest misunderstanding in general is that technologies (like games, tele-
vision, movies, and books) are good or bad. They are neither. They are good, bad,
or indifferent based on how they are used in the contexts in which they are used. By
themselves they are inert, though they do have certain affordances. Games for learn-
ing work pretty much the same way as books for learning. Kids learn with books or
games (or television or computers or movies or pencils) when they are engaged in
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