I really enjoyed the talk we got to go to last Thursday, The Civic Potential of Video Games, by Dr. Joseph Kahne. When it comes to the cliché'd admonition to not throw the baby out with the bathwater, I thought he eloquently expressed the case for the baby.
I feel like I've heard so much negativity and fear whenever a new technology captures the time and attention of people, that I can't justify jumping on that boat. Yeah, sure, video games can be violent, but not all of them. To focus on their negative aspects is to negate any benefits or usefulness inherent in the technology.
The tools at our disposal continue to grow in number and quality, but seem slow to be picked up in education. Why? Well, some people will say that they need to see a track record of usefulness in order to engage the stakeholder buy-in. But if the track record is only in violent games, then those stakeholders won't see the track record of usefulness. This violent track record is, I believe, given to us by sensationalist media eyes (google the negative effects of video games for more references). Cooperation and puzzle-solving aren't newsworthy. Killing your fellow-students is an internationally newsworthy story. We see what we are given to see and ignore the benefits.
Yes. There are bad aspects to pretty much everything. We might as well protest about humans and ban ourselves if we want to take things to their logical conclusion. Just look around you. But humans span the vast spectrum of human nature, which encompasses both good and evil. Likewise, videogames (along with many technologies which humans use) span the spectrum of human nature.
What we need to focus on is not how bad they are, but on how useful they could be. We don't have to call it education, but as Shakespear said, "a rose by any other name would smell as sweet."
To what use can we use them in a way that fosters cooperation, critical thinking, civic involvement, and a great number of other things that could be educational?
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I definitely agree. If all we do is focus on the negative aspects of new ideas we'll never move forward. You could lump all the violent movies together and make a case of how they promote societal anarchy...but then you look at an amazing motion picture piece of art and things are different.
ReplyDeleteSesame Street vs Sopranos (which I love, but it's not exactly how I want my future children to learn their 4-letter words).
So long as we're smart about how we promote these technologies, I think we'll go far.
No product is invented to create negative effects on the kids or adults or society in general, in my opinion. It is how people take this product, use it, and whether there is guidance when the product is being used. Modern day medias are more interested in sensationalizing news or non-news for the sake of "rating," I almost feel like there is no good source of fair, objective and true information any more.
ReplyDeleteIt is also easier to blame others when we are faced with a problem that we can't fix. If there is proper guidance when the games are played, whether the game itself is violent or not will not be as big of a deal. Do all kids who play those violent games turn violent? I doubt it...When will we learn to face our own demons rather than blaming others?