This weekend I’ve had a chance to spend some time with a young cousin of mine who has just recently gotten into the “gaming thing”. As a new gamer she is very serious about what she does and feels that it is very important to get through the stories.
Is this childish enthusiasm? Too much sugar and other excitement related to company? I think that those are factors, but there is something more to it. Between “gamer’s bets” and convincing parents (and all those who will listen) how great the stories are (the original of the game and their own generated from playing) she is really into it.
The kicker for me is that she doesn’t just stop in the game world. She researched about the company, similar games and cheats and hints. This certainly speaks to the powerful motivation of “fun”. Parents may be thinking that it is only fun, but after watching for only a short time, there are a number of lesson ideas that can come out of this “waste of time”. Seeing that there are more sources for “quality time” than the traditional books is something that is difficult for some parents and teachers likely because they were never exposed to it and don’t understand it themselves.
If a teacher wants to use games, they have to sell the parents on it, and to do that it may be as easy as generating an analogue to traditional quality resources and developing challenging activities around the “play”.
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