Walter Hutchens’ Blog

This blog entry from a Chinese teacher offers some thoughtful ideas about how video games, which she calls a category of internet addiction (most gamers in China play online games, not console-based games), differ from conventional education.

Along with the customary points that video games offer immediate feedback and give many incentives for continued play through their structure of levels, opportunities to earn virtual money and ways to gain additional “powers,” she also points out that electronic games 1) allow unlimited attempts to pass a given level and 2) don’t stigmatize players for failure—”dying” doesn’t imprint on anyone’s mind (since the game has no mind) that a player is a weak performer, thereby prejudicing judgment of the player’s efforts on subsequent attempts.

Good points for teachers to remember.