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Games Better Than Books?
cellullama writes "Some of the leading video-game researchers are saying that games are better for teaching than textbooks. Three University of Wisconsin professors just said schools and corporate trainers should learn something from Halo 2 and Half-life. My workplace is already doing this (but don't tell my boss.)"
Is there a corresponding team of book researchers saying that books are better for teaching than videogames? I'd tend to side with them.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
"games are better for teaching than textbooks"
Yeah right, but the real question is: are they better at teaching useful things than textbooks?
If Microsoft was mass, stupidity would be gravity.
"You can use Neverwinter Nights as an application development environment"
Indeed, my half-elf character class is "Application Developer". He was known for his programming prowess in all of Neverwinter, until his job got oursourced to dwarves in Waterdeep. Then he went all ballistic with a bow and arrow and has been chaotic evil ever since. It's sad.
"Backups are for wimps. Real men upload their data to an FTP site and have everyone else mirror it." -- Linus Torvalds
What do you want to do?
.... etc
>Look
You see your manager sitting opposite you, she is holding a sheaf of papers
>Examine papers
You can't do that.
>West
You bump into a filing cabinet. You cannot go that way
>I
You are carrying:
A PostgreSQL manual
A chewed blue pen (full)
A cup of black coffee
An NTK T-Shirt (worn)
A scarred Battle axe.
>Use Axe
Reading a novel isn't just about seeing a story. The story aspect is important as well - and it'd be true that a mindblowing story will be mindblowing whichever way you present it. But a movie or a game have a fundamental limitation, due to their very nature: they show you everything.
:-) ), but that movies and games can never provide the same kind of value that books do - no matter how good they become. Unfortunately movies and games take a lot less effort and so are often the "easier path". This wouldn't be a problem if they were just something you do alongside reading books. But if you discard books in favour of movies and games - well, there you've made a big mistake.
When you read a book, you exercise the muscle of your imagination. You create worlds in your head, you see things that you've never seen, your mind is at full work placing you in another universe. When you watch a movie or play a game (no matter how involved, complex, and interesting the story is), your imagination is at rest. Everything is provided ready-made.
Some movies, and probably some games, manage to work your imagination in a way similar to a book, because of the incredible genius that went into making them, but even there, they are usually lesser than the equivalent book in that respect.
I'm not advocating that books are "better" than movies (in fact I'm not advocating anything, merely presenting my point of view!
Daniel
Carpe Diem
I always wondered why people have to talk about it like it's a contest and that there is one perfect medium for learning. I think you hit the nail on the head in that books are better for some things and games maybe now are being seen as better for others. Seems pretty straight forward to me that a well-rounded education uses multiple techniques.
meep
Depth. Seriously now, most game plots can be summarized in one paragraph, try doing that with Umberto Eco's "Foucault's Pendulum", or from what I've heard "The DaVinci Code" (which sounds to me like a new version of Eco's novel)
Vocabulary. Rarely, if ever, have I seen a game with any words I don't know. I can't honestly say games haven't done a thing to increase my own vocab. Books on the other hand, at least the ones I read, will usually require me to grab my Shorter Oxford or go online to look a word up.
Grammar/Spelling. Go look at your typical bulletin board (I don't count /. as such). People's grammar, punctuation & spelling has gone to hell. My own has certainly declined over the years since leaving college, but some of the spelling I've seen and sentences -- or should I say non-sentences -- are just horrible. I don't think it's just net shorthand, I think people's communications skills really are declining. I think reading less and gaming more could be partly responsible. And yes, I am a huge gamer (FPS, RTS, MMORPGS), but I can admit my mind and communication skills would probably be better served by more reading.
Visualization/Imagination. When the images are spoon fed to you in a game, there's no room for your own mind to construct the image like it does from words on a page. To process words into an image takes a certain amount of brain power, that 'here you go - here's your picture' never will. On the flipside, being able to thoroughly describe something you see in written form can be difficult - I think people write less to, not just read less.
The exception I might make to the above remarks would be module making. I've done some Neverwinter Nights modules - a good one requires the ability to understand basic coding, write good dialog, create a cohesive plot, and learn to tie in various elements (both story and programming objects). Even FPS design requires some thought & planning, map design, etc. I think from that angle, you can learn a lot, but in general I think the quality/depth of most games doesn't match a solid book.
You might be able to say many games ENTERTAIN more than books, but that's not synonymous with EDUCATE.
'The unexamined life is not worth living' - Socrates