Emerging Technologies Consulting

This little nugget about an NYU course on video games and cognition popped up in my reader.  It sounds like a cool course, but the end of the article focuses on parents thinking that it, like other courses on popular culture, is watered down.  This is a common reaction to courses by everyday folks, and especially parents, who are shelling out thousands of dollars, thinking, “if I wanted my kid to learn about video games, I would have plopped her in front of the xbox.”  But not studying video games is actually a bad idea.  We want students to think critically, and one way to do that is to have them read and write about Shakespeare.  But, much as Shakespeare’s ideas still hold true today, students don’t always connect the dots to today.  Taking a closer look at video games and how they are shaping our culture gives students the opportunity to think critically about something they may do every day without really thinking about its effect on their lives.  The NYU course proposes to focus on cognition, which could be a quite fruitful avenue to explore.  How do people learn to play Guitar Hero?  What strategies do they use?  And can those strategies be applied to other areas, such as math or science?

While parents may balk at these courses, we can’t just ignore the world around us.  Video games are a part of our lives and learning more about them is one way to learn more about our world.

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