Video Games: My Personal History and Recollections

Do you advocate playing video games in education? We should talk more about our own life experiences as part of this conversation. I have been reflecting on my video game playing past and finding it interesting to try and remember what was played and when. I thought I would share this with you in the hope that others would post or comment with their own personal histories in respect to video-gaming. I have a favourite books page above, so this post is... Read More

Civilization Revolution: Learning & Games

Do you play video games? Lucy (7) and I are playing Civilization Revolution (CivRev) on PS3 with great gusto. Sarah (4) plays this same game on the iPad and we all enjoy each others company in the family room. Here’s the opening to the game for those not familiar with Sid Meier‘s Civilization franchise: A friend, who is not a teacher, once said to me that, ‘it does not matter too much about the content at all, it is how one... Read More

The Endless Ocean, Situated Learning & James Gee

Holiday Fun At the beginning of the school holidays I asked Miss 4 and Miss 6 what we could do together for fun. Quite a list emerged, including - ride the bikes, play ’Cinderella’,  take photos, see Toy Story 3, play soccer in the backyard, tease Mum and go to websites –  and ‘Dad, can you fix the Wii’? The Wii is now fixed and we had fun playing Endless Ocean this morning. Here’s a brief trailer, for... Read More

Will videogames become better than life?

The title of David Perry’s TED talk on videogames instantly reminded me of that Red Dwarf episode and novel, ‘Better Than Life’. Enjoy this amusing and sometimes challenging presentation.  Read More