Playing video games has become so intertwined with our society that some people have a hard time distinguishing between truth and virtual worlds. However this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Imagine being able to reach a student going through a hard time, through a video game, or teaching others how to react to a situation through a video game. This seems to be the next big thing that we have yet to utilize. Children and adults play video games, why not use that outlet to get across educational messages and experiences. Ian Bogost’s, “Rhetoric of Video Games” begins by explaining how playing the game Animal Crossing Community can show somebody how to be apart of a community and care for it.
“Animal Crossing is a game about everyday life in a small town. It is a game about customizing and caring for an environment. It is a game about making friends and about collecting insects.But Animal Crossing is also a game about long-term debt. It is a game about the repetition of mundane work necessary to support contemporary material property ideals. It is a game about the bittersweet consequences of acquiring goods and keeping up with the Joneses.”
A game with those kinds of values could be used to help rehabilitate or encourage a social practice with those who may lack a sense of social confidence. Bogost reiterates this by discussing how Animal Crossing could contribute to a social activity,
“4 In this sense, the people who play video games develop values, strategies, and approaches to the practice of play itself. For example, a large group of Animal Crossing players contribute to an online community called Animal Crossing Community (ACC for short) to discuss the game, share things they’ve made, find strategies, or look up the value of different fish, insects, or furniture.5 Within this community, as in all communities, cultural values develop, both by design and by evolution. For example, ACC offers players the option of “getting adopted.” A veteran “Scout” is assigned to a new member as a “foster buddy” to help the newbie “learn the ropes of ACC . . . They’ll also help you with any of your Animal Crossing questions, and may even give you a free item as a welcoming gift!”6 Venues like ACC show that video game play is a cultural activity”
In one way gaming could be used as a way to reintroduce a soldier into the everyday life in his or her community, like a controlled environment that the solider could rely on to re acclimate him or her to civilian life. Or even be used to monitor their psychological progress once back in their communities. Another way gaming could be used is in our classrooms. We know that video games are used in almost every household, now why not have assigned home work through video games that could be further discussed in the classroom, I can see how such a practice might be a hard transition from the traditional way of thinking about school work, however we need to evolve with the children and reach them by striking their interest.
One of the more interesting things that I think you brought up was reaching out to students through video games. Often the children who fall behind in school are unable to learn effectively through the classroom/desk teaching model. Video games have been around long enough where some generations of adults are familiar with the socialization and learning process that video games present. Most kids in the United States are familiar with video games; it would be narrow minded to not consider teaching through video games. This kind of new teaching model may be able to reach out and help children who struggle with either/both socialization and learning in the classroom who find themselves struggling with traditional teaching models.