Chapter 9

This chapter brings up several ideas relating to how we can improve our schools with “new schools.” I want to point out two things that made me nod my head to its truth.

 

Chapter 9 states that if companies like Amazon and eBay can come up with useful software that “anyone” can use, why can’t an “education company”? I think the reason why schools, and education in general, are having trouble catching up with the technological times is because we are so large. It takes time, as we know, for ideas to make their way around the country to each school district, then to the administration of each school, to the teachers, and then we must invoke inspiration so these teachers actually use them. This may also explain why, for some reason, education has not come very far for the time it has been around.

 

There are short stories in this chapter (highlighted in gray), called “web 2.0 wisdom” that are written by outside authors. The one I became interested in was “Learning from Games” by David Warlick because so many students LOVE video games. How are we supposed to compete with that? Well, we don’t have to! Warlick suggests evaluating the experience of gamin rather than the graphics and sound. What do video games offer students (and adults)? They offer rewards that are valuable to the player (levels rather than grades); players invest so much time and energy that they feel compelled to keep going (I know I can beat this game!); Individuality! Players can often times pick out their character and other things, and this is important to children; and the game is dependable in that it will always be there, and the answer or solution is somewhere in the game.

 

This is an awesome new perspective on integrating learning with gaming. I had never thought of it this way, and I am now inspired to think of some cool games to get my students as close to their fun video games as I can. There are so many options…

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