Video Games in the Classroom

Abstract

A decade into the 21st century, there are vibrant pedagogical discussions regarding 21st century texts and new approaches to teaching across grade levels and content areas (Beach & O‘Brien, 2009; Coiro, 2003; Larson, 2008; Merchant, 2009; O‘Brien & Scharber, 2008; Wagner & Dobbin, 2009). Prensky‘s (2001) concept of the ‘digital native,’ or those born into a digitally saturated world, aptly describes most students not only in the K-12 system, but also in the university, pre-service education classrooms. Many of these students have grown up using digital technologies in the classroom, as I have found that some of my nineteen- and twenty-year-old Education students recall using the Internet in elementary school. However, to my dismay, my undergraduate students understood the role of digital technology through the lens of traditional pedagogy. In this way, the students may be digital natives, but they appear to be digital immigrants when they approached pedagogy and practice through the lens of their formative educational moments as students. In other words, these pre-service educators appeared to develop an understanding of practice based on their classroom experiences as students; and if their teachers did not welcome out-of-school literacies inside the classroom, then my students would have had limited exposure to using their out-of-school literacy practices, such as video gaming, in meaningful ways inside the classroom.