Women and Gaming The Sims and 21st Century Learning

by Gee, James Paul; Hayes, Elisabeth R.

• ISBN13: 9780230623415
• ISBN10: 0230623417
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-04-15
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

Video games have become both big business and a technological focal point for new forms of learning. Today games are not just played; players engage in game design, write fan fiction, and organize themselves into collaborative learning communities. In these communities players acquire 21st century skills in technology, but, in the best of these communities, they hone these technical skills and strengthen emotional and social intelligence. The authors argue that women gamerstoo often ignored as gamersare in many respects leading the way in this trend towards design, cultural production, new learning communities, and the combination of technical proficiency with emotional and social intelligence. We draw on case studies about women who "play" the Sims, the best selling game in history, to argue a new general theory of learning for the 21st Century.

Author Biography

James Paul Gee is the Mary Lou Fulton Presidential Professor of Literacy Studies at the Arizona State University. He is the author of What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy and Good Games and Good Learning. Elisabeth Hayes is a professor in the Division of Learning, Technology and Psychology in Education at ASU’s Graduate School of Education.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. vii
Introduction: Gaming Goes Beyond Gaming	p. 1
Video Games and Twenty-First-Century Skills: Why the Sudden Worldwide Interest in Video Game and Learning?	p. 17
The Nickel and Dimed Challenge: Designing New Forms of Socially Conscious Play	p. 41
A Young Girl Becomes a Designer and Goes Global: Succeeding at Twenty-First-Century Skills but Not at School	p. 61
How Passion Grows: A Retired Shut-In Goes from Making a Purple Potty to Gaining Millions of Fans	p. 83
Passionate Affinity Groups: A New Form of Community that Works to Make People Smarter	p. 105
A Young Girl and Her Vampire Stories: How a Teenager Competes with a Best-Selling Author	p. 125
From The Sims to Second Life: A Young Woman Transforms Her Real Life	p. 145
What Does It All Mean?: What Women and The Sims Have to Teach Us about What Education and Learning Will Look Like in the Twenty-First Century	p. 167
Notes	p. 185
References	p. 187
Index	p. 203
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