Don't Bother Me Mom - I'm Learning! is an excellent book for real Digital Immigrants who aren't initiated on the knowledge of computer and video games and who are of the impression that the games are time-wasters and bad for their children.
The types of learning identified include: problem-solving, decision making, hypothesizing, strategizing, cognitive and language growth. Also in games, many things are going on at the same time and kids know how to identify and focus on the most important things and filter out the rest. Perhaps this explains how our learners can be doing more than one thing in class and yet able to follow the lesson. In addition, they learn by trial and error - which is a good thing as they won't grow up being afraid of making mistakes.
For me, whether the kids have really learned from video/computer games is something which I need to see over time, from further research. Meantime, I'm open to Prensky's sharing, willing to try them out because of my own experience (see previous blog) and as reported in the U.S., how a 6-year-old drove his mom's car to school and claimed that he gained those skills from playing video games.
Apart from my need for evidence of sorts, for a start, I can be who Prensky hopes we can be - not to immediately blame games. One thing I'd wholeheartedly support him on is "kids should lead a balanced life" (p. 12). Also, I believe in moderation and that there should be counterbalancing influences (p. 21) so that kids are not skewed towards a particular orientation.
I'm not sure about games being emotional defusers instead of inciters (p. 75). But what about the 17-year-old who killed his parents over Halo? Granted, these could be random cases and other reasons other than the game itself which was the problem.
On keeping my learners engaged - I tried using MSN for ungraded quiz in class a couple of days ago. My students had a lot of fun! A student of mine who plays Massive Multiplayer Online Role-playing Game admits that he keeps his English in check so as not to be looked down by the American players as he has heard them criticizing players speaking in Singapore English.
It'd be great if you could share your viewpoint on this - whether kids do learn from computer/video games and as educators, how we can capitalize on this to engage our learners in class.
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