Watch the video (40 mins — you can finish it for prep) of Steven Johnson speaking about computer games last year at a conference in London. Follow his argument as he explores why he thinks games are complex and challenging. He talks about his book, Everything Bad is Good for You (a number of Paulines have read this and enjoyed it a lot), in which he talks about probing (discovering rules by experimentation) and telescoping (an idea that draws on the work of James Paul Gee). 

Here are some other key terms or ideas he talks about: learning without realising; the sleeper curve; complex systems Probing: discovering the rules by experimentation; nesting; attention; participation — active vs passive; electric speed.

In class next lesson you'll discuss his arguments and ideas.

Prep: finish the video in your own time and then think about the questions at the start of the next lesson (see next), making some notes for a discussion next time. You could re-read the Douglas Adams piece referred to there and watch the other video, too.  Here are two other very useful links for you to look at: Wikipedia's entry on Everything Bad Is Good for You; Steven Johnson writing in the New York Times in 2005, Watching TV Makes You Smarter.

Discussion of Steven Johnson video.  Did you find his talk interesting?  Convincing?  Thought-provoking?  Do his ideas fit in at all with your experiences of playing games?  What did you read earlier in the course by Douglas Adams which talked about the difference between passive and participatory culture?  (See the prep for Lesson 6 and re-read that Adams piece.)  What video did you see a while back which makes the same point as Steven Johnson about what he calls 'electric speed'?  (See Lesson 16.)  What is Steven Johnson's fundamental argument about the changing nature of recent popular culture?

Here are a few slides* about games, drawing upon recent research and images: the first slide is self-explanatory; slides 2–8 draw from the Pew Internet & American Life Project 2008 survey** (a nationally representative sample of 1,102 12 to 17 year-olds and their parents in continental US telephone households) about computer games; what do the photo in slide 9 and the PowerPoint slide in 10 suggest about the near future?; slides 11–18 are shots of the front covers of books about games and gaming — did you know that there is a substantial, sophisticated body of criticism focused on games?; and the last set of slides show a small slice of the intelligent discussion that goes on, in blogs and papers and talks, about games.

Now it's your turn — if you have one more ICT lesson left this term (lesson 33).  (If you don't, you'll be able to talk about games you play and why in the last part of this lesson.)  For next lesson, prepare a short talk of 2 minutes at most about a game you like, explaining why you play it and what you think you get out of it — and what criticisms you have of it.

*  Credits and links for the slideshow: 

Slide 1:             http://microsoft.blognewschannel.com/archives/2008/05/13/links-for-may-13-2008/ ; http://www.aol.com.au/games/story/Sales-of-Grand-Theft-Auto-IV-video-game-top-%24500-million-in-1st-week/440811/index.html

Slides 11–18:   Amazon images

Slides 19–24:   http://www.gamasutra.com/ ; http://www.brainygamer.com/; http://infovore.org/talks/if-gamers-ran-the-world/ ; http://www.toastkid.com/ ; http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2008/dec/02/gameculture ; http://www.wonderlandblog.com/

      

** There's an excellent overview of, and response to, this survey here: Video Games Myths Revisited: New Pew Study Tells Us About Games and Youth.