Prensky's terminology has been much discussed on the board so I will only allude to it here, of more interest to me is his underlying theme of using games for learning. This seems to be his ultimate raison d'etre allthough google Prensky's name and the 'immigrant' v 'native' debate is what is thrown up, more from a fortuitous choice of vocabulary - that were to become buzz words for an assumed divide - rather than from an original theory based on research. Anyway, Prensky on games:
A frequent objection I hear from Digital Immigrant educators is “this approach is great for facts, but it wouldn't work for "my subject.” Nonsense. This is just rationalization and lack of imagination. In my talks I now include “thought experiments” where I invite professors and teachers to suggest a subject or topic, and I attempt– on the spot – to invent a game or other Digital Native method for learning it. Classical philosophy? Create a game in which the philosophers debate and the learners have to pick out what each would say. The Holocaust? Create a simulation where students role-play the meeting at Wannsee, or one where they can experience the true horror of the camps, as opposed to the films like Schindler’s List.
The holocaust reference jumped out at me as a really tacky way to make a point, so I googled it - and you know what?
Eternity's Child Creator Attempts to Tackle the Holocaust
Yes, somebody did, and for educational purposes too:
Luc Bernard, the mind behind the upcoming Wii-Ware title Eternity's Child is already hard at work on a new and what is sure to be a very controversial game or the DS. Imagination Is The Only Escape is the story of a young Jewish boy living in France during the occupation by the Nazis in World War II. In order to escape the horrors around him, he imagines a fantasy land that becomes the basis of the game's world. The adventure platformer will attempt to educate players on the atrocities experienced by many children during the time of the Holocaust.
Here is a screen shot of the game:
Not that this validates Prensky's argument, or makes his parlour trick, I'm sorry, 'thought experiment' more impressive. It just surprised me that the concept of a holocaust game, which struck me as a (rarely) inappropriate use of a game in education was actually on the market for that very purpose. Maybe Bernard read Presnky.
Who did Prensky read? John Perry Barlow's A Declaration of Independance of Cyberspace (1996) maybe?
You are terrified of your own children, since they are natives in a world where you will always be immigrants [my italics]. Because you fear them, you entrust your bureaucracies with the parental responsibilities you are too cowardly to confront yourselves. In our world, all the sentiments and expressions of humanity, from the debasing to the angelic, are parts of a seamless whole, the global conversation of bits. We cannot separate the air that chokes from the air upon which wings beat.
How long has this face-off between impotent un-plugged adults (parents, teachers) and potent wired kids been going on? Since the 60's? Or did it all begin with Oedipus Rex?
Anyway, I am not going to accept the label of immigrant (and I am certainly too old to be a native) because almost all of my experience with technology in learning and teaching has shown me that you cannot measure technological skill against a demographic like age, social class or even economic background, it is too complex. Rodger's (now rather dated) Innovation / Adoption curve is more meaningful in explaining those who embrace and those who are repelled by web technologies in an educational context, and explains why many 'immigrant' aged educator / innovators embrace what 'native' aged student / laggards avoid.
Turning 'it' (learning) into a game has been the bread and butter of EFL teachers for at least 20 years. But often the aim has been no more ambitious than to motivate students to remain engaged through for the duration of a single lesson, rather than the kind of Weschean 'pervasive' engagement we touched upon in our Second Life chat, edited extracts below:
Hirondelle Sciarri: I suppose the interactive aspect of web 2.0 is key to engagement
Dagma Kiranov: 'the narrative must become pervasive in the learning environment' Welsch
Klara Otsuka: Again i think we need to think about we use a word like "enagement" - we're not just saying activity, we're saying really committing (as Dagma said very much earlier) to something
Hirondelle Sciarri: yes, engaging.... meaning contributing, buying in, negotiating content
Klara Otsuka: also - that kind of engaging usually has a social element - which I think we can draw even from our own course is quite key at times to learning!
Marieiram Dubrovna: i really liked the concept of the students then taking over with their learning, even covering topics outside his knowledge
Marieiram Dubrovna: and him being in a wondefully awkward place
Klara Otsuka: So - if we had appropriate support, and engaging, meaningful, technologically appropriate materials - would it matter if our students were "native" or "digital"?
Allowing ourselves as educators to divide our intention to inspire into 60 minute game filled chunks is just as much of a crime as digital (illegal?) immigrancy - and, from my frequent observations of the EFL classroom, far more commonplace. What is the purpose of the games, role-plays and simulations that Prensky proposes? Are they to enable our students to discover or create content for themselves? Or tools to glam up rote learning and memorisation of facts? Even with simulation and role play allowing for some student creativity games, unless supported by a holistic and fully realised (by the teacher and student) learning purpose, are often merely useful accessories.
In my centre just gave our students a questionnaire to gather feedback on a variety of areas, from classroom management to use of technology. Feedback has been, on the whole, positive - however our students score us consistently poorly on two points: 'The lessons on the course link together well', and 'I am making progress on the course'. This I feel is because we approach our teaching from a discrete lesson to discrete lesson perspective. I would guess that it is our focus on materials and activities that is behind this. We create fun and motivating lessons as opposed to enabling fun and motivating learning.
Back to Prensky:
It's just dumb (and lazy) of educators – not to mention ineffective – to presume that (despite their traditions) the Digital Immigrant way is the only way to teach, and that the Digital Native's “language” is not as capable as their own of encompassing any and every idea.
Other than suggesting web2.0 inspired activities, games and speaking 'their' language and the "just do it" language of mass marketing (Nike? Please, that's immigrant footwear I am sure) Prensky highlights a divide and yet seems at a loss as to which methodology will breach it. The point Prensky misses is that passion for the "subject" combined with a willingness to experiment and take risks (with web2.0 technologies or whatever) with our students is what makes inspirational educators like Michael Wesch so successful. Wesch's world simulation doesn't work because it is a game, or because Wesch has learnt the lingo (and the gizmos) of his 'native' students. It works because he is passionate; he has worked to understand his learners' holistic needs and developed a personal "anti-teaching" methodology accordingly. He experiments and learns with them - in a world of digital pirates he is the pirate king. Web2.0 technologies, the supposed tools of the digital native (though developed by immigrants), with their focus on interaction and collaboration, user generated content and continual revision, process over product are a means of bridging the gap between teacher and learner - such a combination render the boundaries (temporal and spacial) in the native / immigrant divide meaningless.
Keywords: IDEL08, Prensky, Second Life, web2.0, Wesch
Comments
Oh, that Holocaust game is a bit weird.
The problem with games that work in embedding learning is that they're going to have to be quite obviously educational (my thinking being if the learning is too covert it'll not be transferrable outside of the game) and so may not necessarily have the appeal that people like Prensky seem to think they will; I think you said it in a previous blog post (but I can't find it!) that in practice students are suspicious of this kind of approach anyway. Not so much 'you are an immigrant and have no business here' but 'games are for fun, get out of here with your educational intentions!'
Have you seen 'The Wire'? It's really really good, and I don't think i'm spoling anything when I tell you that in season 3 it's focussed around the school system in a Baltimore neighbourhood that has a serious drug problem. The teacher tries the whole 'you set off from home at 10pm in a car travelling at 30 miles per hour' thing and gets nowhere. The kids are all 'where am i going? why do i want to go there? am i picking up a package?' So to get the point across, speaks their language and finds out where they want to go, what they want to do when they get there and builds the maths puzzle around that. However, switching it all back to maths; removing the narrative and proving the learning, was still a struggle. I was thinking about this in terms of people knowing incredible amounts of detail about Pokemon powers, which move will beat which Pokemon; which gun you need in Halo or whatever to shoot at different ranges - all essentially logic problems. Thing is, you need a Wesch to bring that learning out and give the mental flexibility to apply it everywhere, I think.
Tracy
Have you taken a look a 4 second flash games. These are designed to hard wire reactions into your brain. Some call them Braingames.. Cooking mama/ wario touched. These Games I feel have value, the Nintendo DS, if you get a chance, is designed to use 3d space, sound, light and touch. The game designs for these are great. Nintendogs teaches a digital dog to obey it's RL master, but what it also does is teach the user how to care and train a dog, be it on a very basic level.
I guess GTA could train you on stealing cars and getting away with it.
I just tried the 4 second games... I have never had my ears and nose bleed at the same time before. It was like, you lose, you lose, you lose, you lose - before I could even see what I was losing lol
maybe I am an immigrant after all! :D
Hi Tracy
What jumped out for me with the “A frequent objection …” quote was Prensky’s assumption that “This is just rationalization and lack of imagination.” rather than say a pedagogical preference or even that it may be pedagogically more effective to *not* use digital games. (Why would games be the answer to all learning problems?)
“Who did Prensky read?” - well his references section (or lack thereof) would suggest no-one J
As for Barlow – it’s worth noting his intended audience was “Governments of the Industrial World” – is he drawing out differences between organisations rather than individuals, setting up a tension between the authoritarian, top-down approach of f2f organisations and the collaborative co-production of users working together (even though we should note he wrote pre-web2.0). Btw, as a 52 year old at the time he wrote, are you slipping in to the label trap by putting him in opposition to the “impotent un-plugged adults”?
“… almost all of my experience with technology in learning and teaching has shown me that you cannot measure technological skill against a demographic like age, social class or even economic background, it is too complex.”
Hurrah! Yes, I concur totally. And like you, I think it is the features of games-based learning, not the actual game itself, that has pedagogical use and has been employed in this way long before Prensky started proselytizing on the matter.
…our students score us consistently poorly on two points: 'The lessons on the course link together well', and 'I am making progress on the course'. This I feel is because we approach our teaching from a discrete lesson to discrete lesson perspective. I would guess that it is our focus on materials and activities that is behind this. We create fun and motivating lessons as opposed to enabling fun and motivating learning.
A very powerful point here Tracy – that links back to Wesch’s article about significance and about having an overall course goal rather than just lesson goals.
“…such a combination render the boundaries (temporal and spacial) in the native / immigrant divide meaningless.”
In which case, piracy no longer exists either :P
To Marie’s point about “…games that work in embedding learning is that they're going to have to be quite obviously educational (my thinking being if the learning is too covert it'll not be transferrable outside of the game)” – I think it’s important to get away from thinking about “games” per se, to think about what works in games and why. Wesch’s world simulation is games-based (or “game-informed” depending on whose theory you sign up to), but clearly has applicability beyond the classroom.
For something completely different to 4 seconds of nosebleeds – try http://www.halfbakedsoftware.com/quandary/version_2/examples/
C.
Thanks for sharing this great post, Tracy!
With regards to the digital divide, I would still agree with Prensky that we may never think quite the same way natives do: "Digital natives, digital immigrants Part II" (Prensky 2001) - IDGBL module - gives explanations from neuroscience to that. Bransford et al (2000) mention those findings too. It has to do with the way our brain structures are created during our childhood.
These findings also highlight the fact that our brain continue to develop later in life according to our learning trajectory but the impacts don't always seem the same.
For instance, although I mostly identify with the native category and tend to look for a specific information when I need it, I very often find myself willing to have a more structured knowledge by reading a book giving more details about that information.
I wonder whether that means I'm somewhere between the immigrants and the natives?
Another reason that would make me agree with that part of Prensky's argument is that the digital divide is mainly a matter of willingness: the divide also exist because many people don't feel like they need to use computers when they could use books, etc. And therefore, will never try changing their habits. For those who are curious about new technologies, they may be able to close most of the gap.
But I agree with the fact Prensky may sometimes be too enthuiastic when it comes to games.
What do you think?