So despite the fact that I've finally recovered from my last conference presentation on Resident Evil 5 and King Solomon's Mines (I promise I'll post a summary of it at some point; I need all the feedback I can get as I'm going to revise it in hopes of publication) I'm throwing myself once more into the breech with yet another one. This time the proposal deadline really snuck up on me, so this post is more for me to draft my ideas than to seek feedback (though that would be nice too, especially if I'm not accepted). This time around, I'm submitting not to a pop culture conference, but an English language and literature one in the area of pedagogy--specifically technology and education--for the purpose of discussing the use of video game adaptations in teaching.
The title of my proposal comes from an amusing (albeit frightening) anecdote that one of my colleagues likes to tell about trying to place a reading in the context of the Holocaust for his students, who largely knew nothing of the event. That some were only aware of the perpetrator of this dark moment in history because of his customary inclusion as the villain of a World War II video game is disturbing sign of the times.
More and more, our students are learning from the titillating versions of what we would teach. But how, as teachers, do we deal with this great gap in learning when our students seem all too eager to fill with the version that features zombies, machine guns, and inhumanly powerful and attractive heroes? The answer is simply that we must use it.
By looking at the potential for tangential learning that video games can provide (as opposed to the kind of edutainment that has failed in the past), it becomes an obvious (albeit understandably ludicrous) proposition. But this presentation will study how it can be done now, how it's been done in the past, and what we as teachers should prepare for in the future.
Questions? Quibbles? Controversies?
5 comments:
Sounds great! You're really doing some nice work.
Thanks Andy! I'm tryin' :-)
I'm a little worried about this one. If I get accepted, it may require me to do some of my own research, which means I might be spending the rest of this semester designing a new course for the summer semester to use as research :-/
Sounds like a lot of work, but could it lead to more opportunities? Publishing? Money? Fame?
Money or fame? Haha, not likely ;-) Publication maybe, though :-) We'll see if they accept it :-/
Haha! So I thought I was in the clear because I didn't hear back by the acceptance deadline, but I'm evidently a late add. Oh well. I think I can do this without doing in-class research by discussing of the adaptations' importance to pedagogy as opposed to the pedagogy of incorporating adaptations. We see :-)
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