Help a fellow gamer / student out! (thesis about videogames)

Hello fellow gamers,

Before you start reading: my apologies for the long post, but I really need your help. If you do not have time to read all of the information, you can just skip to the questions. Thank you!

INFORMATION:

For the last 3 years I have been studying to become a secondary school teacher (English / history), but I've been a gamer for as long as I can remember.

Next year I will have to write a thesis about a subject related to "education" in order to get my degree / diploma. As mentioned before, I am a gamer, so naturally I chose a subject that combines both my hobby and my work.
I will focus most of my research on one main question: "how can commercial / educational games be used in English CULTURE lessons?"
I want to investigate if it is possible to discuss games in an English culture lesson in the same manner as you would discuss books / films / poems/ other cultural products...

QUESTIONS:

It would be a great help if you would answer all or some of the following questions. Thank you!

1: It is my belief that games are art (Roger Ebert would not agree with me...) and cultural products (like books, films, poems...). I think that games show us something about other cultures, they widen our world view and teach us various lessons.
Do you think games widen our world view like books, films... Or do you think that games are just plain entertainment?

2: What games do you think can be used in English culture lessons? Please consider that not all games are appropriate for all ages. You can recommend games for the following four age groups: 13-14/ 15-16/ 17-18/ 18+. ( for example: 18+ : Bioshock can teach students something about ethics and philosophy.)

3: What genres of games do you think are most appropriate for education? An MMO? An RPG? ...? Also include why you think this genre is more appropriate.

4: How do you think that games should be played for educational purposes? Should they be played during class by using a projector (who should play? Teacher or a student?) ? Should they be played individually during class? Should they be played at home?

5:The students will get an assignment that they will have to do while playing. What assignments can you come up with? These assignments can be as creative as you like. (think about some of the assignments you have ever received after reading a book for school. For example: write an alternative ending to a game. )

6: Would you like it if your teacher used games during his / her lessons? Why (not)?

7: Why do you think that not many teachers use games in their lessons? (if you are a teacher: do you use games during your lessons? Why (not)?)

For all of you who take the time to read and answer my post: thank you! I will mention the people who really help me (and those who want to be mentioned) in the acknowledgements of my thesis.
If you have more information about this subject, but you don't want to post it online where anyone can read it, you can always send an email to: games.education.thesis@gmail.com or visit my blog: http://games-education-thesis.blogspot.com/

Thank you!
games.education.thesis@gmail.com
http://games-education-thesis.blogspot.com/

Dude..

1. I think games, books, films, etc. are just plain entertainment and it's up to the user to derive any applicable lesson. I'm surely not alone when I say I don't rely on any of these mediums to teach me anything substantial unless I actively sought to learn something on the onset of my chosen medium consumption.

2. Off the top of my head: Scribblenauts. English and U.S. History can be tied together and there are probably more games that deal with U.S. History than English culture but maybe they're just not coming to me at the moment.

3. MMO most definitely not unless you're aiming to teach sociological impact and even then you wouldn't need that much exposure. Puzzle games, adventure games, and I hate to say it... first person shooters/fighting games are regarded to test spatial and reflexive cognition, respectively.

4. Sorry, I don't want to say in case I develop a system I can profit from someday. :)

5. See 4

6. Yes and no. It really depends on whether the game can effectively teach a concept on par or better than a boring book/lecture/powerpoint.

7. Games are used. Just not so much videogames as it has a stigma to overcome especially in academia. So far the most recognized recent breakthrough for videogames in education is the motion control/exergames like Wii Fit, Kinect, Dance Dance Revolution being adopted in Physical Education courses.

I hope any of this can help you somehow and good luck with that thesis!

1. Well I definitely don't think all books and movies widen our world view. Some books and films widen my perspective on the world and the rest I don't like or I just find entertaining, which is an art-form of itself.
 
Same thing with games, they can widen my view or make me think in a different way. Others I find just fun and that's just as amazing.
 
2. I'm an American....so ugh I'm not even quite sure what English culture is or what you mean by it. I don't find ethics and philosophy to be significantly English culture ideals either, so maybe you should really clarify. Especially if you're going to be a teacher.
 
Fable 3 lets you be a king or queen...
 
3. What education are we talking about? Education isn't a one size fits all umbrella, it depends on the lesson trying to be taught.
 
4. Again this will greatly depend on what you are trying to explain. Are you really going to be a teacher? If you just want to show an example: teacher with a projector. If you want the student to analyze something or form their own opinion then they should play it themselves, in class if there's time or at home if you can provide them with the equipment.
 
5. Think of a better way to interact with the game than shoot that dude in the face after zapping them.
 
6. Maybe? If the teacher wanted to prove something in an experiment or show why something was futile why not. All depends on context.
 
7. Well there's a bit of a stigma attached to it, it's a fairly new medium, than you add that the teacher would have to be a gamer themselves, followed by providing equipment that the school may or may not approve of. Seems kind of clear-cut to me.

I'm just going to leave this here...

http://www.ted.com/talks/jane_mcgonigal_gaming_can_make_a_better_world.html

They aren't.

First off, i could write an entire paper on just your first two questions alone. So, ill answer them in short.
1. Yes, video games teach about culture and the minds of the people who make them and the people who want to interact with them.
2. No specific game because the list would be very long, but many games offer political stances (Red Dead Redemption was very anti-government and pointed to American political corruption), moral and ethical nuances (many many RPGs have moral and ethical choices nowadays), and are very similar to the same relevance in messages and way about delivering these teachings as film or literature does.
3. None really, i would have to be shown something and actually see it in a functional test. I guess the Assassin's Creed games take historical figure and implement many "real" characters like Da Vinci and the Medici family, but that is no different than a book like "Da Vinci Code" it takes history and is ambiguous with its context through parable.
4. I guess the teacher would have to play, only because they have a paid job as the teacher and would have to be held to a certain standard of ability then. If the kids are supposed to be learning something from a video game, but cannot pass a specific part of the game do to lack of player-skill then that is not fair to the kids.
5. I actually do these things all of the time, i would say i don't see any good teaching lessons to be learned from such exercises, but i have become a much better writer and gotten a better grasp on sentence and story structure since i've been doing this. 
6. I personally would because i love games, i don't know how fair it would be to other kids though.
7. Don't know, don't care to speculate either.
 
Pertaining to question 5, these are two articles i wrote. One is on the visual evolution of games and how it relates to the visual evolution of "fine art". This i guess could be considered a fictional continuation of a way i would like to see a narrative go after playing the game (which reminded me of the way you said an exercise could be to write an alternate ending to a book).  
 
Hope it helps in some way, good luck.

I'm just going to leave this here...

http://www.ted.com/talks/jane_mcgonigal_gaming_can_make_a_better_world.html

Yeah I'll totally help you, guy with one post.

First define education. What is education? What is the purpose? Then we go from there.

Yeah I'll totally help you, guy with one post.

1. I believe games can make a statement about the current cultural environment, just as books, movies, music, and art do. However, I believe people become too tied up in what form of media is used to propagate these statements instead of focusing on the issue the media brings to light. Behind every piece of human-made art/work is a human mind sculpting the piece, that in-itself makes it a statement of some sort regardless of the vessel. The issue that comes up with games is that they are primarily made to be entertainment, not to be a statement. However, what people find entertaining at any moment in history is a statement of its own and relevant for cultural analysis. Not every game needs to be Bioshock, MGS4, what-have-you to be considered important.

The next question is whether legacy mediums such as books are a better form to capture whatever ideal or statement is trying to be made. What if Bioshock was released as a book, would it have the same weight in the literary field as it did in the videogame field? Is the story unique and thought-provoking enough to stand up to works in other areas directly? This is quite an unfair question because the story is only one facet of a game. Do we need to shoot 500 bad guys in the face during our travels to the end of the story, does that help aid the overall statement of the game? I don't know the answer to that question, but it is interesting to think about.

2. I would not use videogames at all on children under 10. Direct interaction is by far the best way to teach the young. I find it sad when parents, or teachers, believe a game or TV show is all the child needs. I do not think they benefit from a videogame at all at a young age. For older kids, playing some classic games would be a great way to get them into the climate of whatever time period you are studying. Play some Pacman before a 80's lesson and you will hook the students into your lecture. I would surprise them with telling them to download, or you could provide the software, to play Pacman and make them take a screen shot of their high score. Older students may do well to play some smaller bite sized games from each era. I could see a drama class playing DnD, that would actually be great for acting skills. I wouldn't waste time with games that are long though. Too much of the time would be spent shooting or whatever and not enough on the point of the game.

3. Fast games that give them a taste of the times. I would not get into longer adventure games or RPGs simply for the time issue.

4. I wouldn't use class time unless you want to just open a lecture with a few minutes or a cutscene. Class time should be for discussion and analysis, the home is for the actual reading/playing through the material.

5. I could see getting them to write a short story on their exploits in the game from the view of the character in the game or a third person view with the narrator being in the game world. They could write a research paper on the people behind the game.

6. I feel that it would be strange unless they had a good point to make. I would find it annoying if the entire lecture was filled with playing a game. I touched on this in the 4th question.

7. It has more to do with the cultural acceptance of games in the educational field. We will see more videogame analysis as our generation gets older.