Video Games

When I first read Gee's chapters from, "What Video Games Have to Teach Us", I felt vindicated. After years of playing Zelda, I truly believed that there were benefits beyond the simple enjoyment of playing, and finally someone agrees with me. Games like Zelda and Half-Life, incorporate problem solving skills and reading into a fun environment.

In reading "Games as Cultural Rhetoric", I was reminded of Highlights Magazine, which also came up in my groups discussion on Everest. In Highlights, reading and writing practices were incorporated with fun and games, which I know I responded well to as a child. I especially liked the Salen and Zimmerman's discussion on Seven Rhetorics of Play, and the ideological values that are incorporated in "play". This discussion ties well with Gee's ideas on the social context of learning, and its embeddedness in a material and social world ( Gee, Introduction 7).

As with anything though, too much of a good thing can be bad. There are great benefits that can arise from using a tool like video games for educational purposes. I think that Gee addresses this in the second chapter on the ideas of active learners becoming critical learners (Gee, 39-47). Just like any tool, if used correctly, video games can be a good thing, it just depends on how people use them.

Project Proposal

For my final project I want to write a comparative narrative history between my experiences with technology and my mother's. My mother was born in 1944 and was one of the first women given a job working with one of the earliest computer models.

My paper will include mine and my mother's earliest memories and conceptions of computers and computer technology. I will also discuss:

• How my family adapted literacy values and practices that incorporated computer supported environments.
• How my access to computer technology has varied to that of my my mother. (Focusing on the generational differences.)
• Gender issues related to technology.
• Other issues that I have not yet thought of. (Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.)

I got my idea for this paper from an article by Gail Hawisher and Cynthia Selfe, "Becoming Literate in the Information Age: Cultural Ecologies and the Literacies of Technologies", which I will rely heavily on for interview guidelines and overall format. I feel like this is an important topic because I think generations today take technology for granted. It is difficult for the younger generations to imagine a life without the technological affordances that many have in their homes, or at least come into contact with at school/public libraries.

Finally, I will take what I learn from our narrative histories and attempt to make some practical applications that can be used to curb some of the gender issues that still exist in the world of technology.