This time, an academic publication (from Christopher J. Ferguson, Texas A&M) that argues
no significant relationship between violent video game exposure and school shooting incidents has been demonstrated in the existing scientific literature, and that data from real world violence call such a link into question.
Paper here, and discussion on GamePolitics.com.
Judy Robertson at Heriot-Watt has been using Second Life for first and second year programming classes, as revealed on Virtual World Watch. She notes that Second Life was an effective and engaging environment for students learning programming due to the rapid feedback and the ability to see what other students were doing. She also notes:
We have questionnaire data which indicates that our students don’t like SL very much. It has had negative publicity recently which makes some of them think it is “sad”. However, the students do on the whole like our module. They seemed to enjoy making their pets and are proud of them. There is not a straightforward motivational effect for SL itself, and it would be a mistake to use it on the assumption that the students will like it because it is fashionable.
Meanwhile, my own most recent class on Collaborative Virtual Environments has a range of comments from students including:
Second Life, the website, the forums and the video conferencing were all useful…
even though i loathed them [forums and blogs] when i started this module (and to a degree i still do) i feel they have played a very important role to the CVE module, and the CGT course.
We should avoid using technology because it is ‘cool’, or we think it might be trendy. Decisions should be based on how they might help student learning… and I’m glad that this year at least my students (and Judy’s, from the sounds of things) were able to see beyond their personal likes and dislikes and benefit from the use of Web 2.0 and virtual worlds in the classroom.
This again takes me back to Sarah Robbins keynote at last year’s SLEDcc conference (slides here) where she emphasised the importance of making explicit bargains with students… explaining why the class is doing something, and bringing them onboard.
One of the more controversial claims around “digital natives” is that their brains are somehow wired differently from “digital immigrants”. I’ve posted often here about some of the issues I have with the concept of the “digital native” as generally conceived – this is the 38th post on this blog under the digital native category. See the whole set here.
The current edition of eCampus news has a short feature asking whether exposure to technology is indeed rewiring brains, and what sort of effects it may be having. While some scientists are skeptical that there are significant changes, others do think that some changes may emerge as children learn in different ways – not all changes being something to crow about:
When the brain spends more time on technology-related tasks and less time exposed to other people, it drifts away from fundamental social skills such as reading facial expressions during conversation, Small asserts.
So brain circuits involved in face-to face contact can become weaker, he suggests.
This one is new to me, and not something I’d considered before. Though as I noted, not all scientists are convinced. But as we consider how technology can benefit students, it is worth bearing in mind ways in which technology might actually hold them back:
Maryanne Wolf of Tufts University, author of Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain … calls that analysis and comprehension “deep reading.” But that takes time, even if it’s just a fraction of a second, and today’s wired world is all about speed: gathering a lot of superficial information fast.
Wolf asks what will happen as young children do more and more early reading online. Will their brains respond by short-circuiting parts of the normal reading pathways that lead to deeper reading, but which also take more time? And will that harm their ability to reflect on what they’ve read?
Those questions deserve to be studied, Wolf says.
(via TappedIn Playing to Learn discussion, posted by BJB)…
In his spare time Dr. Kourosh Dini composes digital music and performs in Second Life via his avatar Kourosh Eusebio. In his day-job, he is a psychiatrist with a keen interest in computer games and computer gamers. His new book Video Game Play and Addiction reviews the effects of video game play. It has balanced coverage – with a lot of detail on the potential benefits of game play, and a correspondingly detailed review of problem gaming:
“Games have lots of benefits, which unfortunately, parents aren’t always aware of when the only games they’re exposed to are the controversial violent ones targeted to more mature players,” says Dr. Dini. “Age appropriate multi-player video games can allow children to learn how other people think – a key aspect of empathy. Games can also help a child become more comfortable with new and ever progressing technology.”
…… Nonetheless, ‘problematic’ game play is covered here in great detail as Dr. Dini provides a comprehensive review of the warning signs, causes and consequences of such behavior. “To be sure, there are those who play problematically. Learning how to tell the difference can be critical toward promoting healthy development.”
A few things have had me thinking about gender stereotyping and role enforcement recently… not normally a topic I’d tackle, but as ‘blog o the month’ at ISTE Island I guess I’d better try and be erudite and wise… 
It started pre-Christmas, reading in the Grauniad about how pink is being used more than ever in marketing and packaging for toys for girls. Becky Francis, an educational researcher at Roehampton reviews the gender divide in toys and notes:
“The very clear message seems to be that boys should be making things, using their hands and solving problems, and girls should be caring and nurturing,” she says. “It is likely that many of the boys in the study sleep with a teddy, but this was not noted by parents as a favourite toy.”
A similar article appeared a few days ago in the Torygraph bemoaning the ‘Pink Plague’.
I recall a genuine feeling when I was an undergraduate that the strictly defined gender roles were being eroded and greater equality between the genders was being reached, so its a bit of a shock to realise that in the world of toys the differences are more entrenched than ever. For example, buying what I considered a very gender neutral toy a few years ago – a basic Lego set – I noticed that the store had decided it was a ‘boys toy’ and it had been stickered as such.
JeongMee Yoon has been making a pictorial archive of the blue/pink divide, and it makes interesting viewing here. There is some scientific work trying to determine the origin of this preference, although I think this has some way to go and is open to criticism currently – such as for studying the colour preferences of adults who are presumably already affected by cultural factors (Hurlbert & Ying, 2007) or for failing to take account of the history of colour/gender ties. As JeongMee notes:
Pink was once a color associated with masculinity, considered to be a watered down red and held the power associated with that color. In 1914, The Sunday Sentinel, an American newspaper, advised mothers to “use pink for the boy and blue for the girl, if you are a follower of convention.” The change to pink for girls and blue for boys happened in America and elsewhere only after World War II.
Indeed, had pink always had the same associations it now holds, perhaps Fenton Tower in the Scottish Borders might not have seemed particularly fearsome because of its girlish hue…
But what has this got to do with computer games and computer science? More below…