I really really wish I was a gamer! Having an older brother who didn’t like to share made me a reader instead! I am however very tempted to buy one of the Civilization games off of the App Store, maybe once I get some assignments out of the way! Unlike some of my classmates, I am on the fence about using games (by which I mean Computer or Video Games) in the classroom as educational tools. I feel like there are certain games that would work, such as the one Robert used in his presentation Viking Quest, but games like Call of Duty or those that are meant to be for entertainment purposes would not. I enjoyed our discussion yesterday, but in a sense I found it irrelevant to me personally because it focused more on teaching methods and not research methods. I do not feel a game at the level in which my classmates and I are at would be beneficial for the level of understanding we require in history. I agree that there are good games out there that can help students to learn but I feel like they are the ones specifically designed for the purpose of education, such as the Tecumseh Lies Here game. Although Compeau and MacDougall make a valid argument in their article, I feel the game they are discussing is in fact meant to be a fun and educational game. Like Melanie and Dave mentioned in class, I too would become frustrated playing this game because it requires the input and contributions of other people and I don’t always play well with others due to my lack of patience! I think that Tecumseh Lies Here would work best in a classroom or with members of a class at home and for marks. I found the discussion between Rockwell and Kee to be very interesting because I had never really thought about the design of games in relation to their purpose. I understand Kee’s main point that games can be used for education but like I said only if they are designed for that purpose. I guess this leads us to wonder once again if games can be both fun and educational. Who then do we get to design these?
I really did not like Peters article entitled World of Borecraft because I feel like he simply had not done his research on gaming theory as well as education. I also wondered how much time he had spent in a classroom (regardless of the level of education) in the last 5 years because he would see how influential games are to students both in and out of the classroom. As for Bogost, I have no idea what he was trying to say in the chapter we read from Persuasive Gaming, I sort of understood that he was trying to define gaming but seemed to butcher what games are and the notion of gaming.
This week’s digital tool, Devonthink looks like a fairly useful tool, however I declined to download it because in a sense I feel like I simply have too many organizational tools at the current moment. Maybe once I actually transfer all my old files onto my Mac and decide to clean/organize my mess of a MacBook it will be useful for me to use!
I’ve decided I really love Twitter and updating random tweets, not that I feel anyone actually reads/takes my tweets seriously however its just a nice way to briefly socially connect with people. I was really surprised that there are as many medievalists and organizations on it! As I mentioned in my last blog post, MedievalArchive offers today in history tweets but I think it would be awesome if they tweeted about late Medieval too! I also just found out about a digital conference on historical fiction at the end of November that might be neat to partake in! Check it out here: http://ihrconference.wordpress.com/
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