Productive Gaming and the Case for Historiographic Game-Play

Introduction

Recent years have witnessed unforeseen leaps in technology, which many have argued are ushering in a new media paradigm (Galarneau, 2005). Video games are an excellent site to examine in order to understand this new medium, because games are natively digital. Video games are emblematic of the current popular culture we live in that has a distinctive zeitgeist. Examining games, we see three overriding themes that demarcate the modern media landscape:

• 1.

  Video games are built around logic of simulation: One that is about possible worlds, rather than inspiring oratory, coherent linear arguments, or purely visual imagery. Games are worlds we explore, and learn within, through interaction and performance.

• 2.

  Video games are participatory: Players have the opportunity to shape the medium itself through: (a) production within game worlds (many of which are filmed and published on the Internet), (b) production with game tools (such as modding), and (c) gaining membership in affinity groups, such as gaming clans, guilds, clubs, and so on, to support one’s gaming.

• 3.

  Video games provide an aesthetic experience: Video games offer us opportunities to do new things and take on identities that are unavailable in the real world. As Galarneau (2005) writes, their potential impact in education may be best thought of as producing transformative experience.

A mature theory of game-based learning, we argue, will take into account the underlying principles by which they work as learning environments “naturalistically,” or “in the wild,” to borrow Hutchins’ (1995) term. Modern video games, with their myriad of toolkits for modding and interface editing, have increasingly evolved from being compelling mediums that merely engage users passively, into spaces (and communities) that empower users to willfully create and disseminate content (Jenkins & Squire 2003; Steinkuehler & Johnson, this volume). As such, video games are not only a pervasive popular culture media, but also form some of the central discourses around 21^st century pedagogical practices and what it means to teach or learn in a globalized future. The growing body of literature around video games and learning suggests that games are powerful models for teaching and can potentially affect how people can and ought to learn in the ever-changing landscape of knowledge (Shaffer & Gee, 2006). A key challenge that remains for educators is how to produce pedagogical models that leverage the strengths of the medium, yet meet educationally valued goals. Restated, we know that players learn through participation in MMOs such as World of Warcraft (Steinkuehler, 2005, Nardi, Ly, & Harris, forthcoming; Galarneau & Zibit 2006), and that educational interventions that use game technologies (such as networked 3D worlds) can be effective. But how might we harness the simulation, participatory, and aesthetic dimensions of games for intentional learning?