"**The Game Believes in You**" by Greg Toppo

The Benefits of Gaming

In General:

In the Classroom:

Examples and Anecdotes

Gaming defies easy labels- it has a little something for everyone. Therefore, it can provide benefits for a variety of students. (p. 7)

Observations Leading to the Research of Gaming and Education

Children and adults were no longer reading, creating a generation that could read but chose not to... The effect is similar to all of these people being unable to read
(p. 15)

Coaches in the NFL have used strategies in real games based on experiences playing sports-related games, such as Madden NFL
(p. 18-19)

Some advocates for the use of gaming in education mention the way in which even chalkboards received an "icy reception" initially (p. 23)

Important Advancements in Technology

The first video games were actually hacks- "a project undertaken or a product built not solely to fulfill some constructive goal, but with some wild pleasure taken in mere involvement" (p. 27)

Steve Russell created "Spacewar!" in 1962 (p. 27)

Fellow "hackers" added to the game by adding elements such as a gravitational pull from the sun in the middle of the screen (p. 27)

People would complain of "Spacewar! elbow" before they knew about carpal tunnel syndrome (p. 27)

Moore's Law: (1965): the number of transistors that would fit onto an integrated circuit would double every year (p. 29)

Later, changed to every two years (p. 29)

If automobiles advanced at the same rate, a modern day vehicle would: go 6 million mph, travel on 100,000 miles on a gallon of fuel, and cost $9 (p. 29)

Gaming allows for immediate feedback (p. 30)

Gaming allows slower students to be taught as slowly as possible, with indefinite patience (p. 31)

Gaming can allow for an unlimited number of tries at success (p. 31)

Jim Gee's entry into video games

Played "Pajama Sam" alongside his six year old son and found it to actually be hard (p. 32)

Decided to see how difficult games for adults were and tried "New Adventures of the Time Machine" (p. 32)

Found the games to be challenging and fun: developed a passion for them (p. 33)

Emphasis on standardized testing and scores created a less rounded education (p. 34)

Teachers admit to teaching for the test, which often included only math and literacy units (p. 34)

Pokemon: the best literacy unit?

Pokemon called for children to read, categorize over 700 different types of pokemon, and trade cards with dense, specialized traits (p. 35)

Teachers must be taught how to use technology and gaming within the classroom (p. 35)

Teaching takes a variety of resources (p. 35)

"We don't get rid of pencils because we have a computer" (p. 35)

Constance Steinkuehler, said while studying gaming in the classroom, "I would have laughed at you had you said I would ever be doing this. The problem is that I turned around and actually looked at what kids were doing. And once you look at what kids are doing when they're playing, it's very hard to keep laughing." (p. 36)

Attentional control, emotional regulation, decision making and mental rotation (p. 41)

Humans as "infovores": hungry for information (p. 42)

Humans are rewarded for curiosity: endorphins, dopamine, serotonin, and adrenaline (p. 42)

Successfully taking risks or making predictions that turn out to be right gives humans a shot of dopamine (p. 44)

The greater the risk, the greater the reward (p. 44)

Virtually experiencing something creates a real-life sense of memory surrounding the experience (p. 49)

1991 Box Experiment

Children were shown an empty box and told to imagine a monster inside... In the end, the children often refused to put their hand inside the box (p. 49)

"It's not that they really believed in the monster, it is that the imagined monster takes on such a force in the child's mind that it is felt as if it were real" (p. 49)

Advancements in Designing

Beginning the creation of a game by considering what feeling they want to create in a person (p. 52)

Layering of both visuals and sounds (p. 52)

Flow: a mental state in which a person's abilities match the task at hand so perfectly that the work becomes invisible (p. 53)

People often secretly enjoy failing in a game as much as succeeding (p. 56)

"The Game Layer" or "Gamification" (p. 65-6)

Carefully designed alterations to everyday tasks to make them more exciting (p. 65)

Competition increases motivation and academic achievement (p. 69)

Timonious Downing "gamified" his class (p. 70)

Students could gain XP and HP (p. 71)

With enough XP, students earn special powers, such as the ability to arrive late to class (p. 71)