Games Can Make the World Better

http://www.ted.com/talks/jane_mcgonigal_gaming_can_make_a_better_world

While watching the TED talk video from Jane McGonigal, first impression is that this lady is insane.  When she says that the World is already playing 3 billion hours of games a week but that statistic needs to multiply 7 times to 21 billion hours per week, I almost stopped watching.  In the background, you can hear people laughing at this fact lending to the realization that I was not the only person that thought she was insane. She also mentions this in context of solving the major problems of the world.  When she starts to lend the facts of gaming possibilities, the realization is that she may actually be on to a breakthrough to actually help the problems of the world by combining learning and gaming.  

The first rationalization that she uses to defend her stance is the face of the epic win.  She used an example of a boy that is playing a video game on the verge of making a win of some sort and then her face looking defeated from the everyday problems of the real world.  I looked at both faces and compared them to the faces of the children in my classroom.  I see a lot of smiling faces most of the time, sometimes I see faces of deep thought, sometimes I see the face of defeat, sometimes I see faces of light bulb moments, and not often enough I see faces of problem solvers that just saved the world.  Epic win is the face of a student that has gone beyond what they thought they were capable of doing, worked hard to discover something amazing, something that they will remember for the rest of their life.  

The second rationalization that she uses is that gamers spend over 10,000 hours in their lifetime playing games and at the same time students spend over 10,000 hours going through grade school to high school.  They have become virtuosos, or professionals at something, but what have they become good at?  

Jane gives us four items that gamers are becoming virtuosos of and these include urgent optimism, social fabric, blissful productivity, and epic meaning.  

Urgent optimism is self motivation.  Gamers never think that they can't overcome some obstacle so they keep on working hard at winning.  Social fabric shows that people trust other people they have played games with because they spent their time with them, played by the rules, have the same goals, and stayed until the game was over.  Blissful productivity states that people are more satisfied when they are working and doing something meaningful instead of relaxing.  Epic meaning is the fact that gamers are hooked on the attachment feeling of something great.  All of these together have created people that feel like they can so they do take on the world and won't stop until they have saved the world.  Why can they not transfer that to the real world and actually save the world? 

I know the hesitation.  Just like I have been afraid to put time into my FNDS6223 class because I don't like online games.  I like to put puzzles together and work the crossword but not online games like "World of Warcraft."   Real life obstacles combined with the fear of playing online games have made it easy for me to put off playing "The Game" in my class.  Students that have grown up in the digital age are not afraid of these games and game developers along with educators should take advantage of that fact.  

Jane has created some games that give real world problems and the test gamers have actually put some of the solutions into their everyday activities.  Most third graders now learn their multiplication facts better using game applications.  In 'World without Oil," gamers learn to live without oil by changing their habits.  The habits that were learned in the game carried over to real life.  It may be possible to use games as an educational tool that lends change and solutions to real world problems.  

Instead of laughing at the possibilities of 21 billion hours of gaming, I have started wondering how I can use gaming and project-based learning combined together in my classroom.  Parallel learning may be the key to the question that teachers ask everyday, "How can I keep my students motivated?'