As I strolled through campus for a short afternoon break accompanied by triple digit weather I pondered my summer thus far. Power outages, not to mention the heat output of our gaming systems and television have driven us into the pool and me to reading even more books. I have been reading my share of guilty pleasure vampire novels and also finishing up updated version of James Paul Gee’s What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy. Gee articulates well that the games to impact development but not always in a bad way as they are often framed.
It has been a busy summer, the zombies on my Ipad proved unworthy adversaries for my plant armies and me. The US Supreme Court upheld video games first amendment protection and I got interviewed by local public radio station about it.
LINK TO THE PODCAST:
http://www.kvpr.org/shows/quality_of_life.php
My only disappointment was that the interview was defensive rather than a dialogue about games. As James Paul Gee, Jane McGonigal, Henry Jenkins and myself all point out there are many elements that make new media not evil. Yup, I am conceited and I just listed myself with all the authors I am reading right now, but I do agree with them. Though some battles are being won for video games this summer, we need to take a more offensive strategy soon if we want to win the war.
