Media Response 4

So, this week, in response to our reading, I decided to take a trip down memory lane and go back to an age when I did play video games. Last Sunday, I found an online version of Oregon Trail and started playing it. I was immediately transported back to third grade as I chose the names for my characters, my occupation, and the date I planned on leaving Independence, Missouri. My initial trip across the plains that day went well, until I was about three landmarks away from the finish, when my computer froze and my game ended. Playing it later in the week, Boyfriend and I managed to kill off our entire “family”—he was the only one who made it to the end because we all starved to death or drowned.


The thing that I thought was interesting about this process was to look at it now from a teacher’s perspective. As I mentioned playing this game to someone (I can’t remember who—it could have been one of you, but I’m thinking that maybe it was my student teacher), she said that she remembers competing with her friends, trying to see who could kill off his/her entire party the fastest. Now, I’m not sure, but I’d assume that WASN’T the educational objective of her teacher at the time, and I wonder what students actually learned from these days in the computer lab. I know that I, personally, remember thinking that it was “cool” and “fun,” especially because back then, computer games were very new.


I also had the chance to play the original Mario Brothers game this past week. I used to LOVE Mario Brothers 3, and as I played it was amazing to me how much my hours in front of the game as a kid are stored in my subconscious. I sat there and it was as if my hands and my head were coordinating to do things and go places in the game that I didn’t consciously know existed. It was really weird, having my subconscious control my actions. As I thought about this, I started pondering the implications if we could find a way to harness this aspect of gaming, the “training” of the subconscious, and apply it to learning. What would happen if we could use gaming to subversively “program” knowledge into students? Not a very ethical thought, I know, but still an interesting one.