Chapter One:
Introduction
36 Ways to Learn a Video Game
Christine Tulley
As Gee concludes this chapter, "The key is finding ways to make hard things life enhancing so that people keep going and don't fall back on learning and thinking only what is simple and easy" (6). This review is one such project that enables The University of Findlay English web writing students to use these skills to demonstrate what Gee would consider critical literacy. Digital learning requires the blend of psychological and visual literacy skills not often found in other types of projects, and chapter one introduces Gee's own learning process as he struggles to unveil the engagement factor that "hooks" students better than other types of learning.
This same engagement factor was clearly evident in the web writing that went into this review by Findlay students. After teaching students how to use Front Page and deciding as a class how to break up the actual writing of the review, students wrote the first parts of their projects individually, but in the lab together where they could review each other's work and offer feedback. As the instructor, I could see firsthand how, on web writing days, students were waiting outside the door for class to begin to be able to use precious time with computers and stayed late tinkering with font size and arrangement of information. Because these were upper-level students with several traditional writing courses under their belts, they enjoyed the completely visual nature of the project and the way digital spaces change writing. Many came away from the course thinking differently about writing.
That being said, there are some limitations to the text that might prove troublesome for a researcher aiming to examine the link between video games and learning more in depth. The text draws on Gee's own experiences with video games and his son, but lacks links to previous research in the field (a literature review may have helped here) and a specific sense of how often higher level thinking skills such as application and synthesis are called for in video game play.
What the text lacks in theoretical research, is often made up for by the questions it raises, rather than those it fails to address. The text is one of the first to view video games as a potential tool for learning, rather than the enemy (and is written from a different perspective than Marc Prensky's Game-Based Learning, one of the only other full-scale texts on video games and learning). Gee's project is also ambitious in scope and the 36 skills he discusses do offer insights into areas where video game research might be further developed.