Reading versus Video Games
Posted on October 11, 2010
Boys lag educationally and many blame video games. Girls represent sixty percent of college seniors and dominate the rosters of high school class officers. Many credit the success of young ladies to their greater propensity for reading.
But literature and video gaming may actually be different forms of storytelling. Readers observe stories and imagine scenes. In contrast, a gamer participates in the plot thereby creating endless versions of the story.
Download audio narration to iPod, iPad, and iPhone here (six minutes).
During much of his twentieth century life Joseph Campbell taught mythology at Sarah Lawrence. His research led him to develop a theory that all stories conform to an ancient fundamental blueprint. He exposed the pattern and its meaning in his 1949 book The Hero with a Thousand Faces.
He concluded that all stories can be understood in terms of the “Hero Myth”. Essentially there are constantly repeating characters (archetypes) that are reflections of the human mind. Our minds divide themselves into these archetypes to play out the drama of our lives. Characters commonly repeated in storytelling such as the youthful hero, wise elder, and supreme villain, are twins of the archetypes within our minds. Fictions built upon such models are “lies” that tell a psychological truth. Read more…
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Why Blu-ray Beat HD-DVD
Posted on March 4, 2008
Summary: If you are curious to know why Blu-Ray won the standards battle against HD-DVD for High Definition DVDs, this interview is for you.
Subject: Our guest today is Steve Lang who operates the MadMaxMedia.com blog. Steve believes that the decision by Sony to include a Blu-Ray player in the Play Station 3 gave Blu-Ray the edge. While Microsoft’s X-Box could double as an HD-DVD movie player, the consumer was required to purchase an added external drive.
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Immersive Learning Simulations
Posted on September 1, 2007
If you would like to learn how serious multi-player online games, (Immersive Learning Simulations) can provide productive learning experiences for management, this interview is for you.
Our guest today is Steve Wexler who is the Director of Research for the eLearning Guild. Earlier this year he, and his co-authors, completed a research report on the value of computerized Immersive Learning Simulations.
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