Sitting here in a beautiful spot overlooking lake Monona and listening to James Paul Gee deliver the opening Keynote address at the Games+Learning+Society. Its similar to past presentations I've heard him give, but interesting and thought-provoking none-the-less.
Golden nuggets thus far: He discussed the supposed education/learning gap that exists between rich and poor students - noting insightfully, that the poor tend to get bad grades for knowing nothing, but more disturbingly, the rich tend to get good grades for knowing nothing, i.e., they lack the ability to apply the things they've supposedly learned in any meaningful way.
He then went on to discuss the way that learning happens in games, pointing out along the way that dirty capitalists often trust our children and their capacity to learn and master information more than our schools. The gamer motto, according to Gee: "Fail early, fail often." Learning in gaming comes from failure and transgression and this flys in the face of the way things are done in most schools.
Some additional comments:
Playing games involves/evolves into building them. Gaming is about design.
Newbies and masters often play in the same space.
Race/gender and other factors that tend to define us in the "real world" can be used strategicially by players when, and if, they choose to divulge that information - they are not defined by who they are
There are many different routes to participation and status (not like middle school where there's only a few routes to status and stiff hierarchy thus results)
Now on to the next session!
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