Gaming, Second Life and Virtual Worlds...

Brown, John Seely. "New Learning Environments for the 21st Century."
Comments:
This article is important for teachers at all levles of education to read. From elementary teachers to graduate school professors, it is clear that all education profesionals must re-evaluate the ways in which they reach out to their students. The shift in education from "learning about something" to "learning to be" has occured as professors shift away from straight lecture format to in-class hands on activities. Even in the first grade classroom of my mother-in-law, students are enthralled with the whiteboard (Go 3M!) and seem to have a longer attention span when content is presented in a mulitmedia fashion. The same can be said for all ages of learners, the flashier the better.
But, a fundamental change has also occurred in the way students today learn and process information, just as the ways in which they seek information differ from the era in which their teachers attended school.

Teachers must look into the questions Brown presents: "How do they learn? How do they like to learn? How do they solve problems? And most importantly,what creates meaning for them and helps them to constmct their sense of self?"
Each student will have a different level of exposure to video games, but the basic sentiment in this article is that video games today present opportunities for education. Many games present opportunites for higher level thinking, problem solving and decision making in a format that is appealing to students.

Brown writes that,"the gaming generation tums out to very bottom-line oriented.
They want their performance to he measured. They want to learn and, without metrics, they can't tell if and how much they are learning. Surprising as it may sound, many gamers say that if they're not leaming, it isn't fun! It tums out that using excellent pedagogical principles in constructing a game—for instance, requiring
tbat players tackle challenges that get increasingly more demanding, but at just the right pace—makes for great play."

Students are not just wasting their time on video games, they are actually learning something, expanding their brains, and even interacting with other people online! Who would have thought we'd go from Tetris to such intense online gaming!

Lifelong learning is important now more than ever. Teachers must learn how to best teach students in the digital age, while continuing to instill the skills necessary for students to be able to learn and adapt the envirnoment as it continues to change around them.