{"id":12814,"date":"2008-09-23T08:30:26","date_gmt":"2008-09-23T15:30:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/2008\/09\/23\/gaming-as-a-gateway-to-education.html"},"modified":"2008-09-23T08:30:26","modified_gmt":"2008-09-23T15:30:26","slug":"gaming_as_a_gateway_to_ed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/09\/23\/gaming_as_a_gateway_to_ed.html","title":{"rendered":"Gaming as a gateway to … education?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Or, as this article puts it: Do first-person shooters make you smarter?<\/a> The author talks about how playing Call of Duty <\/em>led to his son actually learning <\/em>stuff.<\/p>\n

His education started in the 6th grade, with him digging online to learn more about the equipment that soldiers used in World War II. He wanted to know about the guns he was using in the games. Then he got interested in squad tactics and specific campaigns, like the Normandy invasion. He began reading Stephen Ambrose’s books<\/a> about WWII, and eventually read most of them. He watched Band of Brothers<\/a> on DVD. (The HBO series, based on an Ambrose bestseller and produced by Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg, was a huge influence on the style of all the WWII first-person shooters, so it was natural that a game fan was led back to the original films.) To learn more about the battle of Stalingrad (which is featured in Battlefield: 1942 <\/em>and the first Call of Duty<\/em>), he read Antony Beevor’s Stalingrad<\/a>, along with Vasily Grossman’s A Writer at War<\/a> (that’s him in the photo). That led to a deeper interest in European and American history which is still blossoming. Suddenly, I had a kid who was devouring lengthy, adult-level books and had become interested in huge swathes of world history. All because of a bunch of video shoot-’em-ups! <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

I’m not sure how applicable this is as a general rule. Does playing Doom cause you to research literary depictions of Hell, or the history of the Marine Corps? From an MMO standpoint, does CoX lead you into graphic arts as literature<\/p>\n

On the other hand, I had a similar educational arc from my old table-top wargaming days back in junior high and high school. I still know gobs of stuff about WWII, but also WWI, the Napoleonic Era, and other periods. I subscribed to Strategy & Tactics <\/em>for a while, and you can learn a lot about history from the history of armed conflict (and it’s causes and effects).<\/p>\n

Hmmmm … still have a lot of those games down in the basement …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Or, as this article puts it: Do first-person shooters make you smarter? The author talks about how playing Call of Duty led to his son actually learning stuff. His education started…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gaming"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":45450,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/09\/22\/can-we-stop-mass-shooters-before-they-start-shooting.html","url_meta":{"origin":12814,"position":0},"title":"Can we stop mass shooters before they start shooting?","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 22-Sep-14 2:29pm","format":false,"excerpt":"This article indicates it may be possible -- but the structure of our government and the society it serves (and is shaped by) seem to make it unlikely that the ideas of threat assessment will ever be widely expanded or integrated beyond a very high or very low level.Federalism, multiple\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":129093,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/12\/08\/yes-teenagers-charging-people-with-guns-is-a-great-idea.html","url_meta":{"origin":12814,"position":1},"title":"Yes, teenagers charging people with guns is a GREAT idea!","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 8-Dec-15 4:36pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Law enforcement (and, also, sane people) suggest that in case you are in an active shooter situation, you should:1. If at all possible, get the hell out of there.2. If you can't get away, then hide.3. Only if you can't get away or hide should you attack the shooter.This particular\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5060,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/11\/09\/dd_resurrected.html","url_meta":{"origin":12814,"position":2},"title":"D&D Resurrected","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 9-Nov-03 11:24am","format":false,"excerpt":"The Boulder Daily Camera reports on the resurgence of D&D among twenty-something professionals. It's not a bad article -- it talks about how D&D playing is breaking some old stereotypes...","rel":"","context":"In "Gaming"","block_context":{"text":"Gaming","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/gaming"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6941,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/11\/25\/checklist_4.html","url_meta":{"origin":12814,"position":3},"title":"Checklist","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 25-Nov-04 9:35am","format":false,"excerpt":"Jackie and Doyce were watching after Kitten last night whilst we did Christmas shopping (more about anon). And, as it worked out, we ended up being \"just the two of...","rel":"","context":"In "Parenting"","block_context":{"text":"Parenting","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/personal\/parenting"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":31852,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/12\/19\/on-mental-illness-and-crazy-shooters.html","url_meta":{"origin":12814,"position":4},"title":"On "Mental Illness" and crazy shooters","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 19-Dec-12 4:07pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Some very useful, helpful thoughts here. In some ways it's far too easy for folks to chalk this stuff up to \"mentally ill\" people and use that as an excuse to not worry about it (or to worry about it by treating all mentally ill people as potential spree killers).\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":131052,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/07\/10\/the-risk-of-multiple-shooters.html","url_meta":{"origin":12814,"position":5},"title":"The risk of "multiple shooters"","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 10-Jul-16 10:22pm","format":false,"excerpt":"During the Dallas police shooting, matters were serious complicated by a number of protesters who showed up with slung semi-automatic weapons, in accord with Texas' Open Carry laws. Problem is, once the shooting started, police apparently had problems figuring out how many shooters there were, and which of the folk\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12814\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}