Technology & Learning - September 2007 - (Page 17)

Massively multiplayer games like World of Warcraft help users engage complex thinking skills. Two years ago I began to play World of Warcraft as a way to stay in touch with my teenage sons while I was on the road. development and provides a neverending stream of feedback and fresh challenges while leaving the player in charge. My guess is that philosopher and psychologist Jean Piaget would be proud and amused to see his ideas implemented in this context and on such a global scale. Slowly I began to unlearn everything I thought I knew about video games. I read New York Times science writer Steven Johnson’s 2005 book Everything Bad Is Good for You, where he makes the compelling case that the hefty cognitive load of engaging in popular culture is steadily expanding our intellectual capacity. Video games, cultural phenomena since the late ’70s, are a big part of this trend. The first thing any video game has to do is teach the player how to use it. Games that fail at this challenge fail in the market for the simple reason that players just abandon them. As a result, video game developers have become adept practitioners of some of the best findings of cognitive neuroscience. Games are also complex problem-solving systems that develop logical thinking, decision making, and encourage a scientific approach to the unknown. I have since discovered a very vibrant community of academics, educators, students, and business types who agree that video games have a powerful potential for learning and training. As well, there is a growing body of practice, products, and research to support the notion that ILLUSTRATION BY JAIMY MCCANN WoW is the market leader of a new generation of computer games characterized as “massively multiplayer”— more than 9 million people around the globe play Blizzard Entertainment’s WoW together on the Internet. In the evenings my sons and I would meet online, playing and chatting about our day and the things we were doing in the game. After a few weeks something about the underlying structure of the game began to look very familiar. When you look past the Orcs, Gnomes, and other fanciful inhabitants and elements, you find Blizzard has built an elegant and engaging learning management system. WoW does an outstanding job of guiding players to their zone of proximal Technology & Learning September 2007 | 17

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Technology & Learning - September 2007 Contents Editor’s Desk News & Trends Product Guide Reviews Getting It Wrong Cover Story: SchoolBiz School CIO Higher Ed Integration How To What’s New Bottom Line

Technology & Learning - September 2007

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