Computers and English Matt Barton _professor pixel Computers and English Matt Barton

_yes, even violent ones “I want to talk about video games—yes, even violent video games—and say something positive about them.” (1)

_social construction “You cannot read or think outside of any group whatsoever.” (2) Groups work to encourage people to read and think in certain ways. (2)

_three discourses Situated Cognition New Literacy Studies Human learning is fully embedded in a material, social, and cultural world. (8) New Literacy Studies Reading and writing should be viewed not as mental achievements but as social and cultural practices with economic, historical, and political implications. Connectionism Humans are powerful pattern-recognizers. We think better with patterns than with logic or abstract principles.

_anti-social schools Children are expected to read texts with little or no knowledge about any social practices within which those texts are used. (16) Producers (people who can actually engage in a social practice) potentially make better consumers (people who can read or understand texts from or about the social practice).

_semiotic domains By a semiotic domain I mean any set of practices that recruits one or more modalities to communicate distinctive types of meanings. (18) Cellular biology, literary criticism… People need to be able to learn to be literate in new semiotic domains throughout their lives. (19)

_internal and external Any domain can be viewed internally as a type of content or externally in terms of people engaged in a set of social practices. (26) Internal Error: “God breathed life into the word.” External Error: “Oh, you’re a social linguist.”

_design grammars Each domain has an internal and an external design grammar. Internal DG: The principles and patterns with which one can recognize what is acceptable content in a semiotic domain. External DG: The principles and patterns that determine what is an acceptable or typical social practice and identity within the affinity group associated with the domain.

_“There isn’t any content…” Important knowledge is information in, or at least related to, intellectual domains or academic disciplines like physics, history, art, or literature. (21) Work that does not involve such learning is “meaningless.”

_everything in particular The problem with the content view is that an academic discipline, or any other semiotic domain, is not primarily content. (21) It is primarily a lived and historically changing set of distinctive social practices. There really is no such thing as learning in general. (22)

_everything in particular When we learn a new semiotic domain in an active way: We learn to experience the world in new ways We gain the potential to join a social group We prepare for future learning and problem solving in the domain and related domains

_critical learning For learning to be critical: We need to learn not only how to understand and produce meanings in a particular semiotic domain, but also how to think about that domain at a “meta” level. We need to know how to innovate in the domain.

_learning to play “How are good video games designed to enhance getting themselves learned well and quickly so people can play and enjoy them even when they are long and hard?” (6) “The theory of learning in good video games is close to what I believe are the best theories of learning in cognitive science.” (7)

_videogames Video games are potentially good places where people can learn to situate meanings through embodied experiences in a complex semiotic domain and meditate on the process. (26) Video games situate meaning in a multimodal space through embodied experiences to solve problems and reflect on the intricacies of the design of imagined worlds and the design of both real and imagined social relationships wand identities in the modern world. (48)

_finger Three types of player identity: Virtual Identity: Your identity as a virtual character in a virtual world. Real-world Identity: Your identity as a non-virtual person playing the game. Projective Identity: Your projection of your values, aspirations, and directives onto the virtual character. This tripartite play transcends identification with characters in novels or movies because it is active and reflexive.

_learning identities People cannot learn in a deep way within a semiotic domain if they are not willing to commit themselves fully to it…they must see themselves as the kind of person who can learn, use, and value the semiotic domain. (59) The learner knows she has the capacity to take on the virtual identity as a real world one. (66)

_situated meaning One good way to make people look stupid is to ask them to learn and think in terms they cannot connect in any useful way to images or situations in their embodied experiences in the world. (76)

_the story in videogames The story line in a video game is a mixture of four things: The game designer’s choices How you cause these choices to unfold by the order in which you find things The actions you carry out Your own imaginative projection about the characters, plot, and world of the story

_Hamlet died! Insert coin to try again. When the character you are playing dies, you may get sad, but you usually get “pissed” that you have failed. The emotional investments you have in a video-game story are entirely different from those you get in a book or movie. (82)

_like I was there One intriguing thing about video-game stories is that I am so involved at the level of that the larger story line often seems to float somewhat vaguely above me.

_the cycle Playing a good video game requires the player to engage in a four-step process: Probe the virtual world Form a hypothesis about what something might mean in a situated way Reprobe the word with the hypothesis in mind Reflect on result and rethink hypothesis

_learning principles p. 49 Active, Critical Learning Principle Learning environments should zoom in and out Design Principle Know and appreciate design Semiotic Principle Learn what signs are and how they relate Semiotic Domains Principle Understand semiotic domains and be able to participate in groups Metalevel Thinking about Semiotic Domains Ability to make connections

_learning principles p. 67 “Psychosocial Moratorium” Principle Low consequences encourage risk-taking Committed Learning Principle Practice and commitment are linked Identity Principle Learning through taking on identities Self-Knowledge Principle Translate virtual knowledge to your life Amplification of Input Principle Low input, high output Achievement Principle Learners at all levels rewarded proportionately for effort

_learning principles p. 71 Practice Principle More fun = More practice Ongoing Learning Principle Constant cycles of learning make roles overlap “Regime of Competence” Principle Gain skills to overcome challenges

_learning principles p. 107 Probing Principle Learn as you do Multiple Routes Principle Situated Meaning Principle Text Principle

_learning principles p. 111 Intertextual Principle Multimodal Principle “Material Intelligence” Principle Intuitive Knowledge Principle