Gee Chapter 4 – Best chapter yet…

Describe an example of situated learning (meaning) in your video game.

First, I will give a couple of quotes from Gee as he describes situated meaning:

“In games like Deus Ex, the meaning of any event, object, artifact, conversation, written note, or any other potentially meaningful sign is up for grabs. …meanings in video games are ‘situated meanings; or ‘situation-specific meanings’, not just general ones.” (page 82)

“While video games actively encourage such situated and embodied thinking and doing, school often does not. In school, words and meanings usually float free of material conditions and embodied actions.” (page 84)

“Meaning is material, situated, and embodied if and when it is useful.” (page 87)

An example in my video game (America’s Army) is the use of various keys. Most important keys: “W” to go forward; “X” to cycle through standing, crouching, and crawling; and “F” to “use”, where the meaning of “use” is, itself, situational. “Use” can mean pick up a rifle, open a door, or flare your parachute.

Describe a learning experience in a traditional environment you have had that would have been much improved if it had been better situated, How could that have been done?

I think statistics classes are flush with opportunities for improvement! In particular, the notion of variation in a process. Around about 1996 I traveled to Christian Brothers University in Memphis to attend workshop for statistics instructors. We spent several days working with very simple hands-on examples which repeatedly “gave meaning” to the notion of variation in a process. The entire weekend we did nothing more complicated than calculate an average. I don’t think we ever calculated a standard deviation: no square roots all weekend! But I learned more about variation from those simple exercises than I ever had before. Indeed, concepts which were still abstractions to me finally became concrete. And this is after I had completed my MS in Applied Math. There were other teachers there with PhDs in Mathematics, and I know they felt the same way.

Any other thoughts?

Yes! Pages 84 through 86 are awesome! But especially the following quote, which is relevant to my experience at CBU as described above:

“Now someone’s sure to say: ‘But we cannot teach children everything they need to learn in school, things like science and math, in ways that make sense in terms of situated meanings and embodied actions. There just isn’t enough time, and, after all, they’re not all going to become scientists.’ There is a sort of good common sense in this remark, but the problem is this: There really is no other way to make sense. If all you know – in any domain – are general meanings, then you really don’t know anything that makes sense to you.” (page 84)

So true!