Week One

Author's Note:
Something's wonky with the way this is being formatted at times, through what so far seems to be no fault of my own.
I have given up on making this pretty for you.

Heyya, folks. My name's Dustin.  On the first day I was the fella that came in late and scurried to the back right corner, if that rings a bell.  I was born with a dermoid cyst in my left eye, love the television show Arrested Development, prefer donuts with some sort of tasty goop in the center,  and would like to play pretend for money.  Now that introduction's out of the way, let's get to the meat of this shizz.

What role do you think media technology should play in teaching?

Now, in regards to my opinion on the role media technology should play in teaching, I haven't a fully formed one.  Nascent at best. Nonexistent at worst.  So, bear with me as we figure this out together.

I imagine for something like math, for homework, some sort of video game could be beneficial. Much of math's earlier processes involve rote memorization, so that zonked out reinforcement you get when your brain's on the kind of dopamine (a key neurotransmitter in the "reward pathway" of the brain) high video game's bring about could be helpful.  But, of course, this is a scientific problem.  I am merely providing idle speculation from my sofa while the air-conditioner tickles my leg hairs at seventy-eight degrees and Netflix impugns my attentiveness by asking, yet again, if I am "still watching 'Arrested Development'?"


So, it isn't a study, but I found a Forbes interview with Stanford mathematician Dr. Keith Devlin.  According to Devlin:

"If designed suitably, video games are activity simulators with a dopamine reward system. When someone plays ANY game, they are learning something. The challenge for the math educator is to make that learning be about DOING mathematics."

"Video games are a much better representation system for learning mathematics than are symbolic representations on a static page. If the technology had been available in 350BCE, Euclid’s Elements would have been a video game. All Euclid’s arguments are instructions to perform actions: draw an arc, drop a perpendicular, circumscribe the square, etc. It would be much more efficient, both as a communicative medium and for the student learning, if instead of writing instructions in words, the student was presented with opportunities to perform those ACTIONS. "

So, it seems that I may not have been far off with my initial poke at an opinion on this subject, but, if we are going to look at this subject scientifically, we have to find an actual scientific study on this subject.  Not that I'm impugning* Dr. Devlin's intelligence on the matter- just, you know.  The science is in the study.
*This is the second time I've used the word "impugning" in this post.  Is that weird?  Am I weird?

Here we go.  This article posted in the "News, Publications, & Facts" section of the New York University website seems pretty darn applicable to our discussion.  Basically, children seem to learn best when they are playing the math games with other children either collaboratively or competitively- with the competitive side providing the most fruitful results.  They also enjoy and are more interested in the process when playing either collaboratively or competitively, rather than playing the video game alone.

"Specifically, they looked at two main types of motivational orientations: mastery goal orientation, in which students focus on learning, improvement, and the development of abilities, and performance goal orientation, in which students focus on validating their abilities. For instance, in the classroom, a student may be focused on improving their math skills (mastery), or, instead, trying to prove how smart they are or trying to avoid looking incompetent compared their classmates (performance)."

Mastery goal orientation rather than performance goal orientation was facilitated by competitive and collaborative video game play.

Now, in this study it was found that games can be an effective tool for teaching grammar to primary school students learning English as a second language.  It doesn't seem farfetched to me that the concepts of mastery goal orientation versus performance goal orientation should be just as applicable to this conversation as well.  Learning a new language can be a stigmatizing experience; people just really seem to get a kick out of making fun of people who they think sound funny.

"The experience from the relevant research reveals: that teaching “grammar” through different activities like games is better than teaching grammar as a formal system. . ."

But I think I feel safe giving at least a tentative answer to the original question now.

What role do I feel media should play in teaching?  A supplemental one.  A complementary one.  One that is founded in fun and scientific rationale.  And one that doesn't supplant human interaction.  That seems to be the trouble with media technology these days, doesn't it?  As much at it purports to bring us together we can't all help but have this sinking feeling that it's pulling us apart.  But does it have to?  According to that study from NYU, video games helped to facilitate not only the right kind of learning process, mastery goal orientation, rather than the deleterious mind-fuck sort of learning process, performance goal orientation, but it showed that the children showed more interest and enjoyment in the subject when the video game incorporated a collaborative or competitive element- when the kids had to play with each other!  So, maybe the conversation is more nuanced than the current mopey meme of "media technology is isolating us".  Maybe most of us are just doing it wrong- which is why it's so dreadfully important to study the shit out of this before we start shoving it onto the next generation.  If we're gonna do it, let's do it right.  I don't know about you, but I'd rather not fuck these kids up.


Oh, also...

I forgot about the second question in the prompt.  Ahem.

Have I witnessed any effective or ineffective uses of media technology as a student?  

I have certainly witnessed some ineffective ones.  Without a doubt, almost every time a teacher has shown a movie to the class it's been for bullshit reasons.  You want to show a documentary?  It better do something for the kids that you can't and wish you could 'cause it's so darned beneficial to their learning process.  Most documentaries are just narration over pictures coupled with brief responses to interview questions by academics.  Learn the information the documentary states and discuss it with your students.  Or, if you think it would be really rad to showcase a particular documentary, go ahead, but make sure it doesn't supplant discussion.  Actually, I don't know.  This isn't a scientifically founded opinion.  It would seem that I've had a visceral reaction to this topic bottled up in me.  Maybe it's because I've found a Socratic-style classroom the most beneficial to my own learning process, because I like discussing- I like doing.  And that's kind of what that video game stuff had going for it too, isn't it?  Hmm.  I don't know if that's a connection that deserves to be made.

Go fuck yourself, San Diego.