Amber Hanson
#Etlead
Week 10 Blog Post
Essential Question: What Leadership Lessons Can We Take from Gamers ?
I feel there
are a lot of lessons we can learn from gamers. In the article “Get in the Game,
you’ll learn something” It talks about how a successful businessman by the name
of Mathew Calkins has primarily developed his leadership skills as a direct
result of gaming. Now, in this
instance gaming is referred to as a board game, but the general outcome is the
same. Mr. Calkins is quoted to
have said that Games force players to choose which part of focus on them
“because so much is happening at the same time, you have to identify and track
the essential”. This I believe is something extremely useful for teachers to
understand. In games often times
the players are given several different variables, and the gamer must sift
through what is the important and non-important pieces that will help achieve
their overall goal. This is
definitely something we can use to our advantage, as these students who game
may have an advantage in sorting through relevant and non-relevant information
whether it be in mathematics, or reading.
Another aspect
of leadership in which we can learn from gamers, is the whole concept of
providing immediate feedback.
Usually in a game if something when wrong, the game provides some sort
of stats, or feedback that the gamer can use to try the quest or round again.
As teachers we should use a similar strategy. By providing students with timely
feedback on performances they will better be able to connect with the material,
and really understand what they did right or wrong.
More often
than not, games are broken down into a set of goals that the gamer much achieve
in order to receive the ultimate goal (such as, beating the game). Players are able to focus their
energies and brainpower on these individual goals, without being
overwhelmed. If we as teachers set
manageable small goals within our own classroom, students will be less stressed
and we’ll be able to help them move towards the ultimate goal of mastery.
Another aspect
of people who game, in which appeared several times in my research, as well as
in my interviews is the concept of happiness. Often times people choose to game because it makes them
happy. It makes them happy to
think, work and feel successful in something. They more readily accept missions
and engage in meaningful work with it’s connected to a game they enjoy.
Lastly, and
most importantly is that “gamers believe that there is always a chance of
success and that here is something immediately that they personally can do- or
even have to do urgently-in order to achieve success”. Games give people a sense of purpose.
It provides an avenue for people to feel successful and feel if they really can
make a difference, regardless as to whether it’s in real world, or the virtual
one.
Although I do
not game very much personally, I do believe there are a lot of lessons that
myself as an educator can learn from gamers. The main take-away’s I got from the research, as well as the
interviews is the importance of feedback, as well as the importance of providing
an opportunity for students to feel successful.
Interviewer: Amber
Interviewee: Joe-Teacher in Gambell, AK
1. Why do you game?
§
It’s Enjoyable, for fun, engages my brain in a
way that my normal job or people doesn’t. Keeps my brain in shape and sharp.
2. How often do you game?
§
Board Games: Online (twice a week a week/2
hours)
In
person (twice a week/3 hrs) now, once, 3 hrs
§
Video games: 3 days a week, 2 hours a day. Before this year it was up to 4 hours a
day, 5 days a week.
§
Time depends on setting. In lower 48, play less
online because I would play more board games in real life.
3. Do you prefer games in real life, or
online?
§
It’s completely different for me. In real life board games, it’s for the
social aspect. Still a competition, but not as extremely competition because
people wouldn’t want to play
§
Video games allow you to play the game, you
don’t need to talk to anyone, you can just play.
§
Depends on the mood I’m in
4. What types of games do you enjoy?
§
Video Games: Role playing games (World of
Warcraft, Skyrim) Real time strategy (top down, where you’re controlling a base
and units (Warcraft, Starcraft, Invade and Conquer) Grew out of them, they are
more a reflex game rather than strategy (how many times can you click the mouse
and move your stuff around quick). I don’t care about that as much anymore, I
care about strategy. Simulation
games-turn based strategy (Civilzation 5) More Strategy because it’s turned
based, it don’t matter how many time you click something. Instead you do your stuff, then do your
turn. You plan your stuff, plan your attack, execute it, execute a strategy for
a long period of time.
5. Do you play any games with family?
§
As a kid, both of my grandmothers play card
games. My parents have over a
hundred board games, that’s where it really started. Usually it was simple stuff,
they didn’t’ get into too much advanced stuff. They were def an inspiration for it. Dads had a computer always; I got on
his when I was just old enough to see the screen (3 years old).
6. How do you use technology to play games,
like connect with family or friends?
§
I used to a lot more when I was in the lower 48
because of the bandwidth.
§
I used to play a lot of action games, like first
person shooters or first person action
with tanks, or planes. You
can’t do it here, the internet is not fast enough.
§
Time zone differences are significantly
different, hard to match up times. Died off since I moved here.
§
We used to get home, maybe eat dinner and then
be on for a few hours a night.
§
Socialize mostly through gaming. When we got together we would do stuff
in person. It was our way to connect, we would also be done with games, and
someone would be like ‘hey, I’ve got something going on and we would talk about
it then, or even a lull in the game.
7. What types of games did you enjoy playing
with family and friends?
§
Family: Brother, great summer where we played
WOW together. We had computers together and we would play together and go on
Raids together. I’ll always remember that summer because it was one of those
times that my brother was an adult, he was back from college, we could really
connect through it.
§
Same with Diablo 2, also Civ 5 he plays, only
sometimes if we’re not busy playing magic the card game, online. But then again, internet is kind of
slow for a turn based game.
§
Friends: World of tanks, War thunder (war planes
simulations) Dota 2 (Moba-top down)
I know you play Magic
online, How do you play it? Is there an online program you use?
§
Yes, there is an online client that is the same
company that created the card game. It’s called Magic the Gathering online.
§
Can buy virtual packs and cards. same game as card game. but it’s nice
online because in person, someone may make a mistake and forget a rule. and not
abide by the rules, but online the game wont allow for certain things, as it
only plays by the rules. You go to
the card store to socialize, to meet people, to socialize. You go online to purely play the
game. Because the game is played
perfectly.
§
Have played games through Skype with another
person. Right now my fiancé and I
play android net runner. We
started playing it in person over the summer, and now we can play it in Skype
pretty well.
8. Do you think it enhances relationships to
be able to have this technology where you can play these types of games with
people so far away?
§
100%, like for me, the reason I was able to
maintain my relationship with my best friend, it through video games. I had it
all through undergrad and into my early adult life; we always had video games
to play. Moving to Gambell has
been a detriment. My other friend
from high school, we’ve actually drifted apart because we didn’t have it.
Online gaming is awesome.
9. Do you/have you ever visited wikis blogs or
anything like that to help you understand a game?
§
Definitely. I have two examples. With board games there is a site called
boardgamegeeks.com that gives overviews, rules, and clarifications for games.
Sometimes if I knew we were going to play a game over the weekend, I’ve totally
gone online to look for rules and basic strategies for that. When I was playing
wow, I read a couple of blogs and a forum on how to, it’s call mid maxing,
where you’re trying to make your character the best it could be and wow used to
be a very technical game where people would experiment with the builds, trying
to find out what the best gear was, what the best rotation was for when to cast
your spells, when to do these things. it was very technical. There was a big
difference between those who really knew how to play, and those who were casual
gamers. The only was to do it was
to go to those blogs to figure out exactly what to do. There is still a little
bit of that, but that game is 9 years old, it’s still online which is
incredible, but they’ve dumbed it down for more casual gamers, having to look
at blogs Is now less of a necessity and now just extra.
10. Have you ever contributed to any of those
blogs that you’ve looked before?
§
Yes. In a couple of the blogs I would upload my
build and my damage meter so people could better understand it. a lot of people
did this. I didn’t analyze the
data but I did contribute to the data.
11. Aside from looking at rules, can you think
of other reasons that you would look for outside help on a game?
§
Cheat codes, walk-through’s on games and also
for magic online, there is a podcast that I listen to every week, it’s about 2
hours long and it automatically downloads to my iphone each week and I just
listen to it when I have time, and it’s great because all it talks about is
strategy.
12. All games that have an end goal, can those
be won/completed?
§
Yah.
13. And what’s the secret to playing it?
§
Depends on the game because some of it is
reflexes, and other games is strategy.
If you increase the difficulty, you have to outthink the computer; you
need to anticipate what they are going to do. And you also need to look at what
your peers are doing and adjust your strategy to match the things that are
working.
14. Do you think it’s easy to complete a game
by yourself, or with others?
§
Others.
15. Why?
§
Because a computer could do many things, but it
can only do what it’s programmed to do. And the more people who try to do
against the computer game, they are going to discover what exactly the program
is programmed to do, so it just takes several attempts to beat it. And so the more people who do that and
talk about it, the more likely we can discover the secret to beating it.
16. What encourages you to continue playing?
§
Often times a challenge in a game is a good
thing. I don’t want to just be
like ‘oh here’s a wall, click x, oh here’s a wall, click x, like that’ s
stupid. But if you have different
types of challenges, the game makes you think ‘how am I going to solve this?’
like I said before, it really stimulates my mind and my problem solving,
however, some games you’ll get up against this barrier and you’re like ‘I’ve tried
these 10 different things and I can’t get passed it.’ and even though I know I
can just Google it, I just think ‘this is stupid’ and some games I just get
frustrated with. If I think a game
is poorly designed, like ‘this doesn’t make sense to me’ then I will quit it.
17. How often do you read the rules or
directions before you play a game?
§
Board games-Always, I always read them.
§
Video games-Often have a built in tutorial and
depending on the genre I may or may not even do that. If it’s a first person
shooter, I may just hop in because they are the same. I kind of stopped reading rulebooks for games a long time
ago, because controls for many video games have been standardized, which is
another reason why you can just hope into it.
References:
Thomas, D., & Seely Brown, J. (2011). A new culture of learning cultivating the
imagination for a world of constant change.
