THEORY
When introducing new media to a classroom, it is important to understand the theories which support their use. In this section, I will summarize some of the key theories which support the use of video games in any classroom. We will briefly explore concepts of media literacy, multimodality, visual literacy, and game-based learning, based on my research of 21st century scholarship.
Media Literacy
Many of you coming to this site may be already familiar with this concept, but it bears repeating: media literacy is a crucial foundation to our work with new media in the classroom. Many of us live in a media-saturated society where media consumption is the norm. Smartphones and internet users are near-ubiquitous. This is how we receive information regularly, and has become a part of how we engage socially with one another. More importantly, "the vital role of information in the development of democracy, cultural participation and active citizenship also justifies [the importance of media literacy]," Tibor Koltay points out in his 2011 article (p.212).
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There is an undeniable need today to teach deliberate media literacy skills in order to prevent a dangerously passive consumption of media and pop culture. Though media literacy has many different definitions, for our purposes we will cite one which Koltay provides:
"Media literacy is generally defined as the ability to access the media, to understand and to critically evaluate different aspects of the media and media content and to create communications in a variety of contexts." (p.213)
While broad, it serves a necessary basis for our interactions with video games specifically and with digital media generally in the classroom.
"Adolescents spend more and more time consuming entertainment media, including television, the internet, popular music, movies, and videogames. Using, manipulating, and creating information is acquiring growing importance for knowledge workers, who increasingly rely on the internet and computing tools."
—Koltay, "The Media and the Literacies," p.212
Koltay is a retired professor and current head researcher at the University of Nyíregyháza, Hungary
"Writing, image, and other modes combine to convey multiple meanings and encourage the reader to reject a single interpretation and to hold possible multiple readings of a text."
—Jewitt, "Multimodality and Literacy in School Classrooms," p.259
Jewitt is a professor of learning and technology at University College London
Multimodality
Multimodality is more than assigning online reading, PowerPoint presentations, and sharing videos from time to time. Multimodality is the understanding that meaning is made in a variety and combination of modes. Multimodality does not even necessarily necessitate digital modes of expression—even a physical collage or spoken word poetry count as multimodal texts. Rather, multimodality has come to encompass 21st century technologies. Carey Jewitt talks about multimodality specifically in the "contemporary digital landscape" and how these new technologies "make different kind of cultural forms available, such as computer games and websites" (p.259).
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Multimodality acknowledges complex learning and communicating beyond (yet including) traditional reading and writing skills, in a society that in fact demands multimodal interaction, production, and interpretation. Video games, in our case, can offer digital spaces which explore and take advantage of multiple modes of engagement and learning.
Visual Literacy & Rhetoric
Here is where we narrow down the concept of multimodality to modes related specifically to the visual and sensorial. The concept of visual literacy—crucial to the conversation surrounding video games—comes from the theory that visuals are rhetorical and that rhetoric (and therefore, language) itself is visually-reliant and interwoven. Joddy Murray puts it best in his book about non-discursive rhetoric:
"Image, it turns out, is vital to both discursive and non-discursive symbol-making practices. All symbolization, including traditional notions of language, is based in image because our brains function through image." (p.3)
On one hand, we have always been a visually literate and visually dependent species. On the other hand, new technologies have made it so that we are more visually inundated than ever before. This requires action on the part of educators to deliberately teach skills and strategies of visual literacy in our classrooms. Deandra Little emphasizes this need by suggesting that the visual literacy skills students will normally and passively learn over their lifetime would be better "identified and taught" in the classroom (p.88). Little provides condensed strategies for teaching visual literacy, asking critical questions such as: "Who are your students?" and "What habits have they developed about interpreting and creating images?"
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The video game is an inherently visual medium, and it therefore offers opportunities for learning, teaching, analysis, and discussion about relevant 21st century literacy skills.
"Our realities are a complex amalgam of vision and language. ...In the twenty-first century, when images saturate Western culture to an unprecedented degree, we are returning to or, perhaps more accurately, creating a new oral-visual culture."
—Kristie S. Fleckenstein, Vision and Rhetoric in Social Action,
p. 2, 8
Murray is a professor of rhetoric and new media at Texas Christian University.
"Remember that what we see isn't necessarily what students will see."
—Little, New Directions for Teaching and Learning, p.88
"Digital game-based learning (DGBL) environments can provide cognitive knowledge, besides emotionally engaging learners by letting them test new behaviors and seeing the consequences instantly."
—Janakiraman et al, "Effectiveness of Digital Games in Producing Environmentally Friendly Attitudes and Behaviors: A Mixed Methods Study," p.1
"...using games simply for motivation, drill and practice, and basic content mastery underestimates what GBL can be and do for education."
—Jan and Gaydos, "What is Game-Based Learning? Past, Present, and Future," p.9
Game-based Learning
Finally, we come to the more specific theories and strategies for incorporating video games. Internationally, we have progressed to the point where video games are being taken seriously beyond their commercial reputation. There are organizations which focus on Serious Games with explicit goals related to education, and there have been multiple studies on the effectiveness of video games designed to effect behavioral and attitudinal change. This latter approach was originally popularized by James Paul Gee's theories from 2003 about how game design can inform learning—in other words, how to gamify learning.
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However popular, this is but one theory about game-based learning that continues to be practiced in classrooms. Game-based learning (GBL), or digital game-based learning (DGBL), is young in its practice and research relative to other established disciplines. While the discussion surrounding GBL may have been first inspired by digital games, GBL has been revealed to have even larger implications for the system of education altogether. Research scientists Mingfong Jan and Matthew Gaydos, both from Singapore, discovered that by framing GBL as a 21st century learning approach, the teacher's role in introducing the game matters more than the game itself. Or rather, what matters is the teacher's own views on GBL. Are games used for motivation or content mastery, or to teach collaborative problem-solving? Are they promoting content, behavior, or both?
In conclusion...
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While there are many existing theories which promote and support the usage of video games in a classroom, it is clear that their actual usage and application are still being developed by educators and researchers worldwide. These theories yet serve an important foundation for our work with video games in classrooms moving forward.