the Australian article
[email protected]
I don't have the reference. It was sent to me whole from someone who got
it whole. Sorry.
I would have just left a link and respected copyright and all, but I don't
have a link and Google won't find something that came out today. I'll see if I
can find it from the icon address, but in the meantime, here it is (AND I
don't know the name of the article). (Thanks, Susan, for sending it to me.)
By David Stonehouse
August 27, 2005
<http://smh.com.au/technology/icon/>Icon
Page Tools
It was an awakening for American writer Steven Johnson - just a hint of the
educational power of video games. Johnson was whizzing his seven-year-old
nephew through a tour of SimCity 2000, a top-selling game that allows
players to build virtual cities on their computers.
It was just a 20-minute introduction - a chance for Johnson to show off
what he had achieved in building an urban empire. But when he expressed
frustration at not being able to revive a dilapidated industrial area, the
youngster's reply astounded him: "I think you need to lower your industrial
tax rates."
Reflecting on that years later, Johnson could not help but think that if
his nephew had been in some urban studies class instead, he would have been
nodding off. If there was a moment that helped convince him video games can
enrich young minds, this was one. "He was learning in spite of himself,"
Johnson says.
<http://www.stevenberlinjohnson.com/>Johnson went on to write a book that
dares to suggest that video games are actually good for your kids. Recently
released in Australia, Everything Bad Is Good for You: How Today's Popular
Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter contends that not only is gaming
beneficial but so is popular television.
AdvertisementAdvertisement
"The most debased forms of mass diversion - video games and violent
television dramas and juvenile sitcoms - turn out to be nutritional after
all," Johnson says in the book.
The writer, who lives in New York, rejects the notion that his beliefs have
made him public enemy No.1 with parents. "I've had a lot of parents come up
to me and say, 'I appreciate this because one of my favourite memories in
the last couple of years with my kids is sitting around playing Legends of
Zelda or Sims together for a couple of weeks and it was a really great. It
was amazing how good they were at the game - and I learned what it is they
were doing."
In the book, and in a piece he wrote for the July issue of the science
magazine <http://www.discover.com/>Discover, he presents the evidence as to
why video games are not such a bad influence.
He proffers scientific studies carried out over the past decade that show
gamers can be faster at visual recognition, can condition their brains to
use less energy and can even be more social, confident and comfortable in
problem-solving than those who don't play.
Johnson is such a believer in the enriching powers of video games that he'd
like to see them come with a "cognitive challenge" rating alongside ratings
for violence and language so parents are advised on their mental stimulation.
Video games have come under intense scrutiny after a gamer discovered the
popular title Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas contains hidden sex scenes.
However, these are only accessible after downloading and installing
separate computer code. The episode led to
<
http://smh.com.au/news/breaking/popular-game-pulled-from-sale/2005/07/29/1122144013522.html>an
outright ban of the sale of the game in Australia and an adults-only R
rating in the US.
The game was already well known for its crime-and-prostitution-riddled
themes and for the violence that pervades its scenes. But Johnson dismisses
the debate over games inciting violence and aggression among young people
by arguing they have led to a decrease in violent juvenile crime.
As evidence, he cites the Child Well-Being Index prepared by sociologists
at Duke University in North Carolina. The latest index, released in March,
shows violent crime amongst teens and adolescents in the US has plunged by
almost two-thirds since 1975 - to less than 10 juveniles per 1000 people.
"If you look just at something like Grand Theft Auto - the primary crime
you commit in GTA is car jacking, right? You run in and throw somebody out
of their car and you jump in their car. And since Grand Theft Auto came
out, car jacking has dropped in half," he says.
"We talk about crimes like car jacking as thrill crimes, right? People are
doing it not because they have any kind of dire economic need but because
they are showing off - jumping into a car and intimidating someone and
throwing them out and racing around in a car. And it is entirely possible
that kids now get those thrills from video games.
"They don't need to actually carjack people the way that they needed to 10
or 15 years ago because the games are so accurate in their simulations. So
it may well be that video games function as a kind of a safety valve - they
let kids who would otherwise be doing violent things for the thrill of it
get out those kind of feelings sitting at home at a screen."
Jane Healy, an educational psychologist in Colorado, is much more wary.
Healy isn't against video games but she is concerned about overuse and an
increasing reliance on computers in schools. The author of Failure to
Connect: How Computers Affect Our Children's Minds, she argues that
children have to be supervised properly both at home and at school to make
sure they are, indeed, learning and don't fall into dangerous territory.
"The bottom line is parents have to be on top of this. This is not a benign
technology. You are sending your kids out into what is a potentially bad
neighbourhood when you let them use a computer, and it is up to you to make
sure they don't wander into the wrong places and do the wrong things," she
says.
"These are questions that have never before been considered by parents.
Today's parents are the pioneers. The kids are the ones that are going to
suffer the outcome. There is a cardinal rule to be developed here: it's to
be cautious - this could be dangerous stuff; it can also be useful. It is
up to you to try to draw the line."
The problem for avid believers such as Johnson is that the research has yet
to be done to support his theory or look at what other benefits games and
simulations can bring to youngsters. "This is this wonderful, mostly
unexplored area of research: are the lessons learned carried over into the
real world?" says Mark Pesce, a lecturer of interactive media at the
Australian Film Television and Radio School and author of
<http://playfulworld.com/>The Playful World: How Technology is Transforming
Our Imagination.
"We train pilots in simulations so they can carry those lessons over into
the real world. We even train army personnel in simulations so they can
carry those lessons over to the real world. Are our children carrying those
lessons over into the real world? That's an open question. I don't think
anybody knows the answer to that."
James Paul Gee, a pioneer in video-game research at the University of
Wisconsin, says the field is still so new nobody can prove anything. "It
shows that games can improve your problem solving. There is well-known
research that they improve surgeons' hand-eye co-ordination and skills in
surgery," he says.
"There is research that we have collected that it is good for language
acquisition early in school because so many of the games, especially games
like Pokemon, involve very complex language." The author of What Video
Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy adds: "But it is a new
field so proof right now is a very strong word - nobody can prove anything."
Still, the ideas are moving forward. Since 2002, researchers at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology have been spearheading an effort
dubbed Education Arcade to study the educational benefits of games and to
develop games for schools.
As well as looking at the education use of popular games such as The Sims
and Civilization, the group has developed its own games to test on
middle-school students - science games with names such as Virus and
Supercharged!
Eric Klopfer, one of the researchers, was not sure the students would be
able to grasp the science lessons within the games but "the fact that it is
through a video game makes it a bit more accessible to them and a little
bit more eager for them to try out."
Elyssebeth Leigh, a senior lecturer at the University of Technology,
Sydney, believes in the power of video games, too. She says they teach
children how to interact with technology. And they can help children
experiment with the world around them in a safe way - and learn about
choices, strategy, risks and consequences without leaving the living room.
Leigh, who is also general secretary of the International Simulation and
Gaming Association (www.isaga.info), says parents should take the time to
talk to their children about the games they choose and why they choose them.
Wired for school
Video games, aka computer simulations, are widely used at
<http://www.cherrybrok-h.schools.nsw.edu.au>Cherrybrook Technology High
School, in northern Sydney. Students use simulations to learn about
everything from how a plane flies to the intricacies of artificial
intelligence.
It is not an unusual sight to walk into a classroom and see them engaged in
a flight simulator, a chess game or even programming a computer to bring to
life gaming concepts from their own imaginations.
James Laird, head of IT at the school, says learning through the computer
is a natural fit for students today. "There is an ease of learning and
degree of comfort that they get out of it. Given that this is a tool in the
environment that they live with these days, it is not something they have
to think about - they just do it," he says.
But just because the students are engaged in simulations at school doesn't
mean the lessons are all fun and games. The students are expected to study
the theories and details behind what is unfolding on the screen.
In the chess game they are expected to study the strategies of chess and
deduce whether the computer is relying on textbook moves in its matches
against human players or acting on its own.
"They are having a look at artificial intelligence: is the computer really
thinking or is the computer responding using predefined strategies?" Laird
says.
"Is it adapting to the game, finding out one strategy isn't working and
switching over to another strategy to counter what you are doing?"
Laird says that other schools are catching on to simulations as teaching
tools as well.
Infofile
The first known graphics-based computer game was invented in 1952 at the
University of Cambridge. A man named A.S. Douglas created a computerised
version of tic-tac-toe called OXO as part of his thesis on human-computer
interaction.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
it whole. Sorry.
I would have just left a link and respected copyright and all, but I don't
have a link and Google won't find something that came out today. I'll see if I
can find it from the icon address, but in the meantime, here it is (AND I
don't know the name of the article). (Thanks, Susan, for sending it to me.)
By David Stonehouse
August 27, 2005
<http://smh.com.au/technology/icon/>Icon
Page Tools
It was an awakening for American writer Steven Johnson - just a hint of the
educational power of video games. Johnson was whizzing his seven-year-old
nephew through a tour of SimCity 2000, a top-selling game that allows
players to build virtual cities on their computers.
It was just a 20-minute introduction - a chance for Johnson to show off
what he had achieved in building an urban empire. But when he expressed
frustration at not being able to revive a dilapidated industrial area, the
youngster's reply astounded him: "I think you need to lower your industrial
tax rates."
Reflecting on that years later, Johnson could not help but think that if
his nephew had been in some urban studies class instead, he would have been
nodding off. If there was a moment that helped convince him video games can
enrich young minds, this was one. "He was learning in spite of himself,"
Johnson says.
<http://www.stevenberlinjohnson.com/>Johnson went on to write a book that
dares to suggest that video games are actually good for your kids. Recently
released in Australia, Everything Bad Is Good for You: How Today's Popular
Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter contends that not only is gaming
beneficial but so is popular television.
AdvertisementAdvertisement
"The most debased forms of mass diversion - video games and violent
television dramas and juvenile sitcoms - turn out to be nutritional after
all," Johnson says in the book.
The writer, who lives in New York, rejects the notion that his beliefs have
made him public enemy No.1 with parents. "I've had a lot of parents come up
to me and say, 'I appreciate this because one of my favourite memories in
the last couple of years with my kids is sitting around playing Legends of
Zelda or Sims together for a couple of weeks and it was a really great. It
was amazing how good they were at the game - and I learned what it is they
were doing."
In the book, and in a piece he wrote for the July issue of the science
magazine <http://www.discover.com/>Discover, he presents the evidence as to
why video games are not such a bad influence.
He proffers scientific studies carried out over the past decade that show
gamers can be faster at visual recognition, can condition their brains to
use less energy and can even be more social, confident and comfortable in
problem-solving than those who don't play.
Johnson is such a believer in the enriching powers of video games that he'd
like to see them come with a "cognitive challenge" rating alongside ratings
for violence and language so parents are advised on their mental stimulation.
Video games have come under intense scrutiny after a gamer discovered the
popular title Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas contains hidden sex scenes.
However, these are only accessible after downloading and installing
separate computer code. The episode led to
<
http://smh.com.au/news/breaking/popular-game-pulled-from-sale/2005/07/29/1122144013522.html>an
outright ban of the sale of the game in Australia and an adults-only R
rating in the US.
The game was already well known for its crime-and-prostitution-riddled
themes and for the violence that pervades its scenes. But Johnson dismisses
the debate over games inciting violence and aggression among young people
by arguing they have led to a decrease in violent juvenile crime.
As evidence, he cites the Child Well-Being Index prepared by sociologists
at Duke University in North Carolina. The latest index, released in March,
shows violent crime amongst teens and adolescents in the US has plunged by
almost two-thirds since 1975 - to less than 10 juveniles per 1000 people.
"If you look just at something like Grand Theft Auto - the primary crime
you commit in GTA is car jacking, right? You run in and throw somebody out
of their car and you jump in their car. And since Grand Theft Auto came
out, car jacking has dropped in half," he says.
"We talk about crimes like car jacking as thrill crimes, right? People are
doing it not because they have any kind of dire economic need but because
they are showing off - jumping into a car and intimidating someone and
throwing them out and racing around in a car. And it is entirely possible
that kids now get those thrills from video games.
"They don't need to actually carjack people the way that they needed to 10
or 15 years ago because the games are so accurate in their simulations. So
it may well be that video games function as a kind of a safety valve - they
let kids who would otherwise be doing violent things for the thrill of it
get out those kind of feelings sitting at home at a screen."
Jane Healy, an educational psychologist in Colorado, is much more wary.
Healy isn't against video games but she is concerned about overuse and an
increasing reliance on computers in schools. The author of Failure to
Connect: How Computers Affect Our Children's Minds, she argues that
children have to be supervised properly both at home and at school to make
sure they are, indeed, learning and don't fall into dangerous territory.
"The bottom line is parents have to be on top of this. This is not a benign
technology. You are sending your kids out into what is a potentially bad
neighbourhood when you let them use a computer, and it is up to you to make
sure they don't wander into the wrong places and do the wrong things," she
says.
"These are questions that have never before been considered by parents.
Today's parents are the pioneers. The kids are the ones that are going to
suffer the outcome. There is a cardinal rule to be developed here: it's to
be cautious - this could be dangerous stuff; it can also be useful. It is
up to you to try to draw the line."
The problem for avid believers such as Johnson is that the research has yet
to be done to support his theory or look at what other benefits games and
simulations can bring to youngsters. "This is this wonderful, mostly
unexplored area of research: are the lessons learned carried over into the
real world?" says Mark Pesce, a lecturer of interactive media at the
Australian Film Television and Radio School and author of
<http://playfulworld.com/>The Playful World: How Technology is Transforming
Our Imagination.
"We train pilots in simulations so they can carry those lessons over into
the real world. We even train army personnel in simulations so they can
carry those lessons over to the real world. Are our children carrying those
lessons over into the real world? That's an open question. I don't think
anybody knows the answer to that."
James Paul Gee, a pioneer in video-game research at the University of
Wisconsin, says the field is still so new nobody can prove anything. "It
shows that games can improve your problem solving. There is well-known
research that they improve surgeons' hand-eye co-ordination and skills in
surgery," he says.
"There is research that we have collected that it is good for language
acquisition early in school because so many of the games, especially games
like Pokemon, involve very complex language." The author of What Video
Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy adds: "But it is a new
field so proof right now is a very strong word - nobody can prove anything."
Still, the ideas are moving forward. Since 2002, researchers at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology have been spearheading an effort
dubbed Education Arcade to study the educational benefits of games and to
develop games for schools.
As well as looking at the education use of popular games such as The Sims
and Civilization, the group has developed its own games to test on
middle-school students - science games with names such as Virus and
Supercharged!
Eric Klopfer, one of the researchers, was not sure the students would be
able to grasp the science lessons within the games but "the fact that it is
through a video game makes it a bit more accessible to them and a little
bit more eager for them to try out."
Elyssebeth Leigh, a senior lecturer at the University of Technology,
Sydney, believes in the power of video games, too. She says they teach
children how to interact with technology. And they can help children
experiment with the world around them in a safe way - and learn about
choices, strategy, risks and consequences without leaving the living room.
Leigh, who is also general secretary of the International Simulation and
Gaming Association (www.isaga.info), says parents should take the time to
talk to their children about the games they choose and why they choose them.
Wired for school
Video games, aka computer simulations, are widely used at
<http://www.cherrybrok-h.schools.nsw.edu.au>Cherrybrook Technology High
School, in northern Sydney. Students use simulations to learn about
everything from how a plane flies to the intricacies of artificial
intelligence.
It is not an unusual sight to walk into a classroom and see them engaged in
a flight simulator, a chess game or even programming a computer to bring to
life gaming concepts from their own imaginations.
James Laird, head of IT at the school, says learning through the computer
is a natural fit for students today. "There is an ease of learning and
degree of comfort that they get out of it. Given that this is a tool in the
environment that they live with these days, it is not something they have
to think about - they just do it," he says.
But just because the students are engaged in simulations at school doesn't
mean the lessons are all fun and games. The students are expected to study
the theories and details behind what is unfolding on the screen.
In the chess game they are expected to study the strategies of chess and
deduce whether the computer is relying on textbook moves in its matches
against human players or acting on its own.
"They are having a look at artificial intelligence: is the computer really
thinking or is the computer responding using predefined strategies?" Laird
says.
"Is it adapting to the game, finding out one strategy isn't working and
switching over to another strategy to counter what you are doing?"
Laird says that other schools are catching on to simulations as teaching
tools as well.
Infofile
The first known graphics-based computer game was invented in 1952 at the
University of Cambridge. A man named A.S. Douglas created a computerised
version of tic-tac-toe called OXO as part of his thesis on human-computer
interaction.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]