CCCC 2005: ReviewReview: E.27 The Many Dimensions of Access in a Digital World Amy Kimme Hea presented “Going Wireless: Implications of Wireless Technologies and M-Learning Initatives for Composition Teachers and Scholars.” Analyzing “the trope of ubiquity” of wireless and mobile technologies was the focus for Hea’s presentation. Hea cited an impressive amount of research to consider the spatial dynamics of human and technological integration and our immersion in wireless and mobile technologies. She discussed “the ubiquitous computing era.” Although she said it seemed like science fiction, Hea alertly connected the ideas behind ubiquitous computing and our present critical thinking about technology in our teaching. She claimed we must consider more carefully our roles in using wireless and mobile technologies, and understand the power and the fact that technology is never neutral. Her presentation was a call to extend critical literacy in our use of wireless and mobile technologies. Gail Hawisher presented “Thinking about Gaming: The Problem of Gender.” She began by thinking about the practices of gaming as how they relate to literacy. She cited James Gee’s What Video Games Have to Teach Us about Literacy and made it clear that she was talking about games played on computers. Unfortunately, this was in a room with other sessions echoing into the presentation. Hawisher managed to overcome the distractions of invading presentation from behind the curtain. She pointed to other scholars like Katherine Bebis who understand how multimodal literacies are creating new literacy practices and she cited Gunter Kress who observes the ways children quickly learn games that adults cannot. Following Gee’s argument that immersion in video games can produce good learning, Hawisher noted the gaming context is also about how reading and writing can be learned and supported her point using several of the 36 appended learning principles from Gee’s book. She then pointed out Gee’s shortcoming when considering who is learning, and critiqued Gee’s delimitation of discussing violence and gender in his book. Hawisher and Selfe’s research finds that girls are less involved with computer games than boys, and Hawisher went on to further Gee’s thinkng about gaming and literacy with a focus on girls. Hawisher cited Purple Moon, a company founded in l997 to produce video games for girls which was effectively shut down when Mattell bought the company several years later. Hawisher problematized the role of girls in games designed for boys, and explained some of the difficulties for girls to be both masculine and feminine in video games. After admitting that she was not a very good gamer, Hawisher turned to some of her graduate students and their experiences to note that girls and women do play video games and can use the experiences effectively in their lives. She learned that it is important for girls and women to influence the values that video games embrace because of the phenomenon of video gaming popularity. In other words, video games not only influence literacy but also powerfully affect perceptions of gender roles in our culture. Cynthia Selfe presented “Video Games, Narrative Theory, and Aggressive Behavior: An Exploration of Cause, Effect, and Responsibility” and began with the question: “Do video games cause aggressive behavior?” The problem first emerged with the rash of school shootings by avid players. Selfe hypothesizes that video games may mirror a culture committed to violence. She focused her research on 3 video games: Counter Strike (at any given time there are 100,000 people playing this game), America’s Army (there are over four million registered players because the game is free--it was a game developed by the United States’ Army to assist in recruiting), and Full Spectrum Warrior (a real time strategy game used in actual army training). She drew several conclusions from these three violent games. “The games may be the result rather than the cause of violence in our culture,” “these games mirror the violent world,” “kids don’t have to play video games to be caught up in enacting this violence,” and that video games “in short, are reflections of the world we have created and in which we are asking young people to live their lives.” Selfe then used narrative theory to point out that Kenneth and Mary Gergen remind us that narratives shape our lives and have “directed capabilities.” She also used Buno Bettleheim to note that life is “structured over time by the narratives that we and others employ.”Selfe concluded that we must continue to scrutinize how our children play these games and that it is up to us (teachers) to critique them. It’s probably not necessary to note the leadership of Hawisher and Selfe in our field, but as I watched them teaching us and encouraging Amy Kimme Hea, I couldn’t help but know they are essential to our field’s progress and further professionalization. |
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