Ten Reasons Why

In “High Score Education”, from the current issue of Wired, James Paul Gee comments on the inherent learning that takes place in the playing of videogames:

The secret of a videogame as a teaching machine isn’t its immersive 3-D graphics, but its underlying architecture. Each level dances around the outer limits of the player’s abilities, seeking at every point to be hard enough to be just doable. In cognitive science, this is referred to as the regime of competence principle, which results in a feeling of simultaneous pleasure and frustration – a sensation as familiar to gamers as sore thumbs.

Interesting idea worth exploring. However, Gee doesn’t comment (much) on what the practical ramifications of this observation are.

Greg Education