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August 5, 2008

Gaming In the Media Center

I recently read this "research" and I started to get grumpy. A million counter-arguments filled my mind. I began sharpening my blog knives so I could properly cut him to ribbons. Then I read this and realized it must all be a joke. Pretty good satire too!

He gives three reasons for putting video games in school media centers: Individualization of learning, Simulation of authentic experience, and Intellectual complexity.

He's not talking about spending actual money on expensive and soon-obsolete video games at all. He's talking about books. He's cleverly disguised it as a push for wasteful and pointless video games when he really is telling us NOT to do such a stupid and pointless thing. He wants us to quit wasting our time and money on silly and distracting technology and buy more books. They're the perfect thing. What else offers the individualization of learning so well? What else could possibly simulate authentic experience so well (I'm remembering crying for Charlotte in E.B. White's classic right now), and what else offers just the right amount of intellectual complexity?

They almost had me going there for a moment. Now I know what to do. Buy more books!

Sheer Brilliance. Up there with Swift's A Modest Proposal.

Thank you so much for a good laugh Justin Ashworth and Scott McLeod. I'm wiping a tear from my eye in appreciation.