Week 10: Online Cultures and Intercultural Communication

I have to confess that I'm at a bit of a loss to intelligently reply to the questions this week. My professional experience with online affinity spaces is slim to none and so the only meaningful input I could offer would be a regurgitation of what I've read and watched this week. I wouldn't wish that on anyone :) .

I teach a grade 2 French Immersion class and the only digital tool I use with them is our class blog. I find it indispensable as a means to communicate with both students and parents as I share what is being studied, new vocabulary, photos, and links to helpful web sites. Parents do enjoy leaving comments and while I have encouraged my students to do the same, they are reticent to participate in this way - preferring to visit the blog to view photos of themselves and their friends. I suppose that at the tender age of 6 and 7, they prefer to consume rather than to create - their participation in the blog is their (strong) desire to view it and to appear within it. 

One of my sons plays an MMOG everyday. I'd like to say that I embrace his devotion to today's online affinity spaces and high tech entertainment but, more often than not, it's a cause of tension in the house. Why? He has become so involved in the game that we have had to co-create a contract to ensure that does not entirely disengage from his other life. His "addiction" is powerful enough that he forgets to eat and even go to the bathroom.

The game is called League of Legends (LOL). It is an MMOG which he describes as addictive, exciting, and thrilling. The purpose of the game is to destroy the enemy nexus (whatever that is) in collaboration with his team. His LOL friends are international and range in age from (he believes) 8 to "really old" (that could be 30 for all I know!!!). Communication occurs via audio chat as well as "pinging" which is apparently a code created from dots. These dots take various forms or patterns and each string holds different meanings, for example, "help me", or "come over here". I assume that this coded form of communication has been developed to compensate for language barriers. He knows that some of his friends are from France, Russia, and other European countries, as well as North America. I am fascinated by his activities in the game and am also blown away by the graphic interface.

The negative side to his penchant for this game is however that, given the choice, he would live solely in his virtual world and eschew the relationships he has with his "physical" friends and family, not to mention his piano practise, exercise, and opportunities to engage with the outdoors.

Throughout this course, I've been wrestling with my son's reality versus the idea that digital technologies can increase engagement and enhance learning outcomes. I think I need to hope that one of his teachers will see the light and introduce a unit that allows me to see this transformation for myself!

A question which occurred to me today was: How do games like League of Legends (LOL) make money? There was no initial outlay of funds for the basic game either via download or a trip to EB Games... I know that my son doesn't spend any money on LOL as holding onto his cash is the one and only thing that he would prioritize over gaming! I looked it up and it would appear that, in LOL, there are over 32 million accounts. Within the game is the option to buy items such as a new "skin" for your character. While the amount to pay is very low, it is estimated (by the bloggers I've been reading) that at least 1 million of these players makes a purchase from the store. This is otherwise known as a micro-transaction business model that is similar to games you might find on FaceBook. Fascinating. So fascinating that there are over 32 million accounts and even more fascinating that players are invested ('scuse the pun) deeply enough to pay funds to change a skin! 

Week 9: Gaming and literacy

Having read this week's resources and watched the online presentations related to gaming and social change, the question that popped into my mind foremost was: "why are we so attracted to screens?". Now this may be old hat for many who have read extensively the literature pertaining to digital technologies but for me, it's all new. I have a son who spends his life with online gaming and another who is perpetually watching online shows. My daughter is connected to her handheld device 24/7. Why? Why do my husband and I watch mindless shows when we're tired after a day's work? Why is it impossible to ignore the invitation from a lit screen, even if one is engaged in an absorbing and interesting activity that does not involve the screen? 

Robert Kubey and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (click to link to article) discuss the “orienting response.” This term was coined by Ivan Pavlov in 1927. The "orienting response is our instinctive visual or auditory reaction to any sudden or novel stimulus. It is part of our evolutionary heritage, a built-in sensitivity to movement and potential predatory threats. Typical orienting reactions include dilation of the blood vessels to the brain, slowing of the heart, and constriction of blood vessels to major muscle groups. Alpha waves are blocked for a few seconds before returning to their baseline level, which is determined by the general level of mental arousal. The brain focuses its attention on gathering more information while the rest of the body quiets" (Kubey and Csikszentmihalyi, 2002). 

The authors go on later in the article to state that even babies display this orienting response to television, "Dafna Lemish of Tel Aviv University has described babies at six to eight weeks attending to television. We have observed slightly older infants who, when lying on their backs on the floor, crane their necks around 180 degrees to catch what light through yonder window breaks. This inclination suggests how deeply rooted the orienting response is" (Kubey and Csikszentmihalyi, 2002). 

While I have read no further, this would seem to explain the initial fascination with the screen. One can only imagine that, since television is for consumption only, the opportunity to interact with the screen might raise that attraction exponentially. In fact, in the same article, the authors go on to say that "Many video and computer games minutely increase in difficulty along with the increasing ability of the player. One can search for months to find another tennis or chess player of comparable ability, but programmed games can immediately provide a near-perfect match of challenge to skill. They offer the psychic pleasure—what one of us (Csikszentmihalyi) has called “flow”— that accompanies increased mastery of most any human endeavour" (Kubey and Csikszentmihalyi, 2002). 

"Flow experience" is the term coined by Csikszentmihalyi to describe the completely engaging process of creating something new, an experience in which one is so ensconced as to be unaware of the world around one, or of one's body. It is a state of ecstasy during which one is existing in a life less ordinary. A good resume of his thinking is available in a TedTalk here Flow Experience. 

It seems to me that there is a parallel here to be drawn between Csikszentmihalyi's Flow Experience and the act of serious online gaming. Jane McGonigal, a game designer, in her TedTalk Gaming Can Make a Better World describes her work in creating socially provocative games intended to change the world. She discusses how the world of gaming is significantly more exciting and elicits feelings of great power in the gamer which cannot be achieved in real life. This sounds a lot like ecstasy. She goes on to describe the four things that gamers are virtuosos at. These are: 1. Urgent Optimism (extreme self-motivation and a belief that an epic win is always possible and can be had NOW) 2. Weaving a Tight Social Fabric, (we like people better after we've played a game with them as playing with them builds bonds and trust, and cooperation) 3. Blissful Productivity, (gamers know that they are happier working hard than they are when relaxing, gamers are willing to work hard all the time) and 4. Epic Meaning (gamers love to be attached to awe inspiring missions). Again, this reminds me of Csikszentmihalyi's flow experience. If gamers are truly engaged in their mission, on a level of ecstasy, being creative and solving problems of epic scales, they are in a state of flow, surely... I am very excited to learn more about the games in which Jane McGonigal is involved whose goal it is to problem solve real-world issues such as a world devoid of oil. Here too, lies great fodder for the use of games in educational contexts.

I had no knowledge of any of this last week and am now fully inspired to find out more.