From the Notebook

 

             I must admit I do not usually play video games, because I don’t have time.  But I know that they can be very fun, and can be even addictive, yet I think they would not provide me with much valuable experiences. 

 

            This is the common consensus.  Video games are ordinarily considered as entertainment, so they are not expected to have any other values.  But do they have to be this way?

 

            I don’t suggest that everyone has to be productive all the time, and I don’t think that having fun without other purposes have to be avoided at all costs.  What I am suggesting here is that maybe video games can do more than just being fun.

 

            Now I like to share the experiences of watching nature lives on TV.  I often see young animals playing.  It seems that young animals don’t have schools to go to, but they grown up and seem to know what they need to know. 

 

            Of course animal lives appear to be much simpler than human lives.  There are no math quiz and recitals of poems.  But we also see from children playing that they might be more purposeful than we thought. 

 

            Parents often complain that new expensive toys are often forgotten while the children would go back to some made-up toys of their choices.  After children established the gender role distinctions, they will often confine to their roles. 

 

            What do these tell us?  The so called fun plays might be more purposeful than we thought.  The fun plays are often parts of the process to explore and understand the world, in attempt to be able to respond to the world, and establish personal footprints in the world.

 

            For adults, playing for fun may have different meaning and function than for children.  For adults, it often means diversions for work, but for children, it often relates to learning process.  It is not so rare that children playing with fire trucks or airplanes want to be firefighters or pilots, and children playing with dolls, dresses, and houses, would long for motherhood, fashion, and homemaking.    

 

            In United States, most of the children are provided with systematic educations.  However, for many children, the problems seem to be lack of interests in formal educations.  If children often express interests to learn while playing, then we ought to ask whether the problems with education are related to the fact that the methods of educations need improvements. 

 

            Many people would say that children that are not interested in formal education because they are distracted by TV, movies, and video games.  There are varies problems related to over exposures to entertainment in young people (especially the problem of identity crisis, I will write about it in later post).  But I like to point that the method of entertainment has improved dramatically, while the method of education has not changed much.  Kids now do not need to imagine being someone, they can basically be someone in the video games.

 

            The skills and imaginations demonstrated by many animation films and video games are astonishing.  But the quantity and quality of the educational films and video games are not very impressive. 

 

            One reason related to this problem is that there are disconnections between the entertainment field and educational field, and another related problem is that people seems to think that entertainment is only for fun, and education has to be boring. 

 

            But it is not truth that education has to be boring.  In fact, most people who made signification contributions in their fields because they are very interested in learning about their fields first, then they are interested in working in the fields as well.

 

            This leads to another problem in the entertainment field, especially in the video game field.  The problem is that while the scale of the imaginations might be very impressive, the scopes of the imagination are often limited. 

 

            For example, in the action movies and most of the video games, the focus is often on speed and blood.  As the trick of entertainment is to provide something new, with the focus on speed and blood, it is predictable that more and more violence will be the results.

 

            The problem with video game in particular is that most people interpret the word game too literarily.  They interpret the word “game” only as the format that someone had to lose, and some had to win.   At least only this kind is believed to be the most profitable, thus we have drag races or killing maniacs filling the video game space.

 

            But the word game should be interpreted broadly.  To illustrate the point, I will use a female role play game, with dolls and houses.  Certainly nothing is for real, thus it is a game.  But there are no winners and losers, you can let the imagination run wild, but do not need to compete with anyone, or anything.

 

            Even the competitive games do not have to be about speed or blood.  Nintendo Wii is a very good example.  By expending the way of interaction, the scope of competitions is expended, not the intensity of the competitions.  The success of it proves that consumers will immediate embrace original creativities. 

 

            Many people often make excuses for their actions, blaming on market demands.  But the excuses are only excuses for not willing to go out of the comfort zone, and it may also have something to do the personnel compositions in the creative and management teams.  If just the same groups of people talking among themselves, then it is likely that no real new ideas will come out often.  This means diversity is needed in all field, including in business and creative teams. 

 

            Going back to educational video games, there are different goals in education programs, thus different types of games can be created.  The all over goals of education can be divided into obtaining knowledge, obtaining skills, and hopefully inspiring creativities.   

 

            The trick for obtaining knowledge is first to remember it.  The generally accepted facts are that association and repetition will help to establish memories.   And, in a broader sense, if you are interested in the subject, you are most likely to spend more time to try to know about it and remember it, and the more you know, the more you might have interest in it, and more easy to remember them. 

 

            The problem with human knowledge system that relates to learning is that human knowledge system includes collections of other people’s experiences.  Other people’s experiences and the ways to recording and conveying the experiences could be very foreign to most people who do not have similar direct experiences. 

 

            Games in broader sense involve the participations of activities related to hypothetical situations, thus could be very helpful to help people try to be familiar with and know about various subjects in the knowledge system.  In a video game setting, the sound and visual signals create environments that are often inviting, thus reduce the intimidation of the unfamiliar environment, and may present a sense of adventure. 

 

            Generally speaking, teaching a subject through books is to require the students to provide their own imaginations for the subject, as the students that start with the subject know nothing about the subject, the task could be overwhelming.  Thus many may feel intimidated, and lost interests. 

 

            The visual and sound signals in the video games can be provided to present the knowledge so that it will not only help the students to memorize the knowledge through repetition and association, it also reduce the burden on the students to use their imaginations when they know very little about the subject thus difficult to do so.

 

            Artistic expressions are very suitable to provide and enforce concepts and rules through repetitions.  Through the imagination of the artists, the environments according to the artists are created, and usually the environments are created according to principles that would illustrate or enforce certain concepts and rules, and to lead the recipients to recognize and accept the concepts and rules.

 

            In short, the goal of artistic creations is to teach people to learn about certain concepts or rules, or illustrated the flaws of certain concepts or rules.  There are imaginary creations that merely repeat certain existing concepts and rules, these are often called entertainment.  In this case, there is nothing new with the end, but the means are new, so the participates simply enjoy the ride for one reason or another.   

 

            Currently, established trainings on the students’ abilities such as analytical skills are lacking.  Generally speaking, analytical skills are not exactly mysteries.  They most involved pattern recognization, and practicing recognizing logical patterns in various applications through gradual enhancement is a reliable process to improve the skills.  

 

            At this point, I think it should be obvious that video games are a very suitable tool to teach children in all subjects of educations, but apparently not very many games are created, and the quality of the existing games usually cannot compete with their entertainment counterparts. 

 

            It seems to me that this situation should be changed, and could be changed without much difficulties.  What is needed is realizing the benefits and possibilities of using video games as educational tools.  Then, we will have new businesses, and better educated, able new generations. 

  

**Please look for my later posts regarding the arts, entertainment, education, and human knowledge system, about discussions related to issues in this post.

 

**Permission is needed to use contents of this blog.  All rights reserved.

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