Gaming and Virtual Environments May 1, 2007
Posted by libranlibrarian in Uncategorized.trackback
I’ve never been one to play electronic games so I wondered how I’d fare with this week’s assignment. I started with the MSN games and tried a few (eg. Women in Films Trivia, Pop Culture Trivia, TextTwist) which were interesting but not rivetting. I moved on to Web Sudoku and enjoyed the ease of changing numbers without wasting time erasing which I do a lot when I use a pencil. I then tried Diner Dash, one of the recommended games and found it to be not only fun but addictive. I kept saying to myself that surely I can do better than that! That evening, I shared this game with my family. I was intrigued to watch my eleven year old daughter play. She caught on to the game faster than I and played it differently. While I was trying to be very methodical, she let her eye-hand co-ordination take over. I also tried Zuma and bejeweled which were also fun.
I took a look at some of the MUSH games but wasn’t all that interested and certainly not enough to sign up. The MMORPG sites such as FLYFF looked more interesting. I was struck by the amount of collective creativity that must have been invested in developing these sites.
After all this playing and peaking, I wondered how gaming could be used in a meaningful way for library applications . From my brief gaming experience, I found that games required me to: 1. learn some rules, 2. test my knowledge, 3. consider the feedback, 4. try to refine my newly learned skill or knowledge, and 5. increase the challenge once I felt that I had reached the required skill. So it would seem to me that this series of events could be applied to teaching some library skills (eg. using the catalogue).
I believe that gaming has a variety of benefits: keeps the mind active, improves memory, develops eye hand co-ordination, develops logical thinking, and enhances creativity. But it can only go so far in terms of learning as defined in Wikipedia as follows: Learning is the acquisition and development of memories and behaviors, including skills, knowledge, understanding, values, and wisdom
Heya! I’ve got you jotted down for Week 10 (Gaming & Virtual Environments) being complete. Congrats. Just one more week to go!
I found it interesting to read about your comparison between yourself and your daughter playing Diner Dash (and yes, that one IS addictive). Thanks for the insightful comments!
- Kel
I found your comment about how your younger daughter plays very interesting. I think for young children the experience is more naturally instinctual and reflexive. For example, when I play Mowing Maniac, if I listen to classical music, am slightly tired and therefore relaxed, I can easily play this game and get to the top level (20) with a high score. If I try to play concentrating on what I’m doing I become very stressed and usually lose quickly. I find the trick for each game is determining how the game works, developing a strategy, and refining it. However, as I said in my blog post, many players, seem to use cheats to help them win or advance to the next level. This defeats the learning of strategy development, obviously.
Your post was interesting to read.