Literacy and technology Colleagues,
I found this interview with literacies educator James Paul Gee quite fascinating.
For example, Gee said:
The human brain devotes only one special function to reading (namely, decoding sounds into letters and vice-versa). Otherwise, all the mental capacities that we use to understand and give meaning to print are the very same ones we use to understand and give meaning to oral language and to the world.
Current work on the mind argues that words gain meaning from experiences we have had in the world. We use our previous experiences to build simulations (images and actions) that we attach to words to assign them contextually appropriate meanings.
In a sense, then, video games are like an external version of the mind. When we understand things and plan actions we run game-like role-playing simulations in our heads. In a sense, our mind is a game engine. We can combine elements from disparate experiences and create fantasies and think through complex problems.
System thinking involves being able to think in terms of complex interacting variables that make a system more than the sum of its parts. We most certainly want to see much of the social and natural world in these terms, since being stupid about systems (e.g., global warming) can lead to nasty unintended consequences.
Video games are complex systems composed of rules that interact. Gamers must think like a designer and form hypotheses about how the rules interact so they can accomplish goals and even bring about emergent results. Thinking like a designer in order to understand systems is a core 21st Century skill.
What is your reaction to this? Do you agree or disagree? Do you think these are important observations for adult literacy education? It seems to me that if Gee is correct this has important implications for how adults learn vocabulary, how they comprehend what they read, whether we accept the "auding" of text fully as "reading" it, the potential importance of serious online games and simulations for adult learning, and other implications, including as Gee suggests perhaps the survival of our species on this planet. Do you agree?
David J. Rosen
djrosen123@gmail.com