Gamers can save the world?

James Paul Gee's article, Good Video Games and Good Learning and Jane McGonigal's TED talk really didn't surprise me.  As some of you know, I live with my boyfriend who is a dental student at the University of Michigan.  What most don't know is that he is also a gamer.  He doesn't play World of Warcraft, but he does play games like Call of Duty or Tom Clancy's something something, (I try to learn the names of these games, and I apologize if my lack of title knowledge insults anyone).  He is a really intelligent, probably one of the smartest people I know and I think a lot of it has to deal with video games.  He has played since he was really young, his play time has decreased significantly in comparison to when he was in high school, but when he does play he always finishes in first place on his team by a wide gap of points.  Beyond gaming though, he always amazes me with his ability to strategize, collaborate, trouble shoot, and think critically to reach a specific objective.  Now, I'm not saying that the only reason why he is intelligent is because of video games.  But what I am suggesting is that video games have helped him become more aware of these skills, and have allowed him to practice and refine them.  I'm sure on a metacognitive level, that he realizes that he transfers the skills he learns in video games to reality, because we've talked about it.    

Based off of what we read in Willingham (2009), gamers essentially practice the skills that Gee mentioned to the point of automaticity, especially if they play for as many hours as McGonigal (2010) suggests.  And that's the whole point of McGonigal's talk right?  That we need to use video gamers as a resource to solve our world's problems.  We've seen something like this in movies before, where the gamers or computer techs are the ones who can save the world or ruin it, they're usually the ones who are still capable to function during a nationwide power outage/crisis, etc (I'm pretty much referencing Live Free or Die Hard).  This idea isn't far out there --- it's definitely attainable... right?  

This is where I think one important thing comes into play here: level of difficulty.  In Willingham (2009), we all learned that humans are natural problem solvers.  We love solving problems, our reward is that little release of dopamine ( I can't even imagine the amount that gets released once a gamer accomplishes an epic win).  But, there is one stipulation, the problem cannot be too hard.  Once a problem gets so difficult our brains shuts off, we loose our motivation, and we walk away.  That's why, as Gee mentioned, that video games are appealing when a player can stop and save their progress and return to it later.  But the problems we're facing on a worldwide level are extremely difficult! Are the global issues that we are facing too difficult for us to solve?

The other side of these things is the design aspect.  So much time and research is put into the production of a video game.  I can hardly imagine writing a lesson that has content that balances all of Gee's themes: identity, interaction, production, risk taking, customization, agency, well-order problems, challenge and consolidation, “Just in Time” and “On Demand”, situated meanings,  pleasantly frustrating, system thinking, explore, think laterally, rethink goals, smart tools and distributed knowledge, cross-functional teams, performance before competence.  With these things in mind, a video game is carefully crafted (some more than others).  The key point is crafted --- we did not ensure that our worldwide problems had the proper balance between all these things.  How can gamers solve huge issues if they seem insolvable from more than just he difficulty perspective?


And lastly, the biggest thing for me is that video game creators know the objective they want their players to reach, much like a teacher does with their lesson, but if one person can't solve such a global issue, how can we turn it into a game? [added after I wrote this in a comment]

The benefit here: as teachers, we can definitely utilize the knowledge we have about video games and what goes into them in order to create engaging unit plans.  I'm just excited to see how we can do that, and what aspects of technology we can use to accomplish it.