James Paul Gee is a dynamic speaker with fantastic ideas about assessment in the form of games and learning in a similar manner. Gee equates games to assessments where the player is placed into a world where they not only need to solve the problems (assessing learning) but need to learn the "rules" of the game (content) along the way. In games, players find instant feedback about their problem-solving skills. And knowing how to play the game is not enough, you need to demonstrate that knowledge. Just like memorizing the facts is not enough, in education, but students need to show an innate understanding of the content through creation and analysis. Gee discusses the idea that learning can be done through games because it crosses boundaries: it is cross platform, cross media, cross modality; this is outstanding for teachers because it allows them to reach a variety of students on their terms.
All of these ideas are great! The idea of adopting technology into a rich learning environment is exciting. And Gee predicts a dramatic change in education as learning becomes more available online. What is unfortunate though is that this prediction while exciting is also five years old! So where is the revolution and what can we do push it along?
Edutopia.org (nd). Big thinkers: James Paul Gee on grading with games. Retrieved from http://www.edutopia.org/digital-generation-james-gee-video
