This is a topic that came up over the weekend at a BBQ, when my brother was asking about HDMI, thinking about the XBox 360 Elite and Halo 3 being almost on us here. As the conversation moved along, it followed much the same path that Ed’s post on gaming had – who has time for these big games anymore? Who can afford to drop $500 on something that is essentially going to be used for only one groundbreaking title? What sense does it make if the rest of the family can’t enjoy it – if the significant others can’t play? Well, on the point of the later, the Escapist has an article this week.
Hardcore or even “hobby” gaming may be dying because there are so many demands on people’s time (I’m sure that this is not a new phenomena, but being the first generation of gamers to become “responsible adults”, it’s certainly new to us). Is this similar to what is happening to continuing ed or even education for students past about grade 8? How logical is it to really sit there and dedicate years to learn general concepts that will likely never be used by the majority of people who are forced to sit through it. Granted, there are many great arguments for enriching young minds with an appreciation of geography and the like, but can’t that be done earlier in life and then start routing kids into trades or specialization earlier? Life in the “developed” world is getting faster and more expensive and there are an ever increasing range of occupations that are being created. Faced with this relentless force of one upping, our young students are working, practicing and taking care of family responsibilities while juggling school that is becoming less relevant all the time (or so it would seem – like really when have most of us ever really needed to use anything of what we learned about conics?). Once post secondary ed hits, this is the case all over again for many students.
So it for these students that I’m thinking, should we not try to develop companion resources for those students who need casual learning as well as for those students who have the time or the money to commit fully to being a student? For continuing ed, this is a no brainer, this will likely be very well received.
More on this later, but I’ve got a meeting coming up.
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