Final Blog

            Understanding rhetoric and the digital world individually and collectively, I have a better grasp on my personal ability to change the world. The digital age that we all now live in has provided us all with tools for this. The digital world has leveled the playing field to where we can all be innovators and creators for the good of the rest of the world. 

I’ll admit, I have been living in the digital “stone age.” Persuasive writing to me has always been alphabetic; I didn’t realize that persuasive writing could be more than that. I often think about what the next few generations’ education will be like. Being that I was a child of the early 90’s, I didn’t have a DSL connection until my freshman year of high school, where I sat in front of a dinosaur of a monitor screen to Myspace and Google and look up random items for sale because someone once told me that I could literally find anything I wanted to buy on the internet. But I didn’t grow up with the internet and the endless possibilities of social networking. Honestly, it wasn’t until this semester that I realized the rhetorical power of what this digital age can yield (or the power that can find itself in the hands of anyone—even a small child). I have discovered that my powers as a writer are no longer capped by not being published or unknown. I have discovered that the ideas and innovations that roll around in my head are not that crazy; someone else’s is always crazier (Twitter? YouTube?). I have discovered that now, since the digital age, I literally can change the world.

The A/V project was an interesting eye opener for me. I didn’t realize how far behind I was at learning the digital ways. I often wonder what the educational setting will be like for kids in the future. These are kids who are learning how to play videogames, blog and search the web before they ever learn to ride a bike (will this cause bikes to become obsolete?). Would a project like this be the typical introductory to a fifth grade class? Will it be funny to my children that my course required a class like this, that this class wasn’t just a normal rhetoric class? It wasn’t until everyone presented, that I instantly felt like my project was a stick figure drawing in the midst of Picassos. When my mom was a teacher she’d always say to her students, “don’t laugh; I can’t draw.” I wonder if teachers in the future will say, “Don’t laugh; I can’t digital.” Sort of a digression, but its an interesting thought to ponder about how this digital world is evolving, and to where we might discover our world in twenty years from now.

This was my first semester ever of rhetoric. So, between this class and Doug’s Rhetoric and Composition course, my mind has been pleasantly blown by this semester’s rhetoric overload. It was kind of funny how many different ideas and definitions of rhetoric floated in and out of my head all semester, but I am thoroughly grateful for each. At the beginning of the semester, I thought that rhetoric was the skillful means of persuasion though verbal and written means, of course, but at the end of the semester I have realized that rhetoric is also a digital means of persuasion. Something I have also come to realize is not only is rhetoric the persuasive means of digital composition, I have found that it is nearly anything that has to do with the digital world. Whether it is commenting on a blog, posting a picture to a website or searching with your favorite search engine, every decision made is rhetorical in one way or another. This semester has really solidified that for me.

Reading James Gee’s book, What Videogames Have To Teach Us About Learning and Literacy was one of the highlights of my education at MSU. This book showed me how relevant and crucial the digital world is to learning. This book has given me the direction I had been looking for since I entered college. My passion for helping students learn is something that is new to me this semester. In addition, Dr. Peppers article on “Cool” was also another eye opener for me. I think it was that reading that really solidified the concept of the continuum between rhetoric and the digital world for me.

As I watch the digital world rapidly regenerate before my eyes, I am seeing more and more my power to change the world. I am have the power to record an injustice and post it to the Web. I can start a fundraiser for a disease or charitable cause of my choosing. I can create propaganda that may just become viral. The internet has given me the means to be rhetorically persuasive in a way that never existed before. I will take what I have learned this semester and apply my new knowledge of rhetoric in the digital world in the most ethical way I can. I can use rhetoric in the digital world for the good and progression of the world.

 We live in the information age. No one can stop us. We can take a hold of our future and we can change it.

How Rhetoric Through Videogames Helps Students Learn Better In Classrooms

How Rhetoric Through Videogames Helps Students Learn Better In Classrooms

"Videogames are empowering and educating today’s youth by harnessing their excitement for the medium.” -Michael D. Gallagher, president of Entertainment Software Association

Videogames have a bad wrap. Parents are often times criticizing children for spending too much time with their videogame console then their homework, rationalizing that videogames are deteriorating their minds and making them lazy. Welcome to 2015. Here, we encourage videogame interaction, and especially in educational settings. Today, it’s near impossible for children not to be bombarded with multiple modes in their everyday lives. Since students are already submerged in a culture of various technologies, educators benefit from adapting their classrooms to the way students see their every day worlds already. One way to effectively do so is through implementing videogames in the classroom.

Rhetoric used carefully and deliberately in the classroom through the use of videogames makes learning a more effective process for students. Through the adaptation of individual learning needs while engaging multiple means of problem solving, their real world applications, and their lowered the consequences of failure, videogames can bring to the table brilliant new educational properties that barely existed before. Videogames engage and challenge the student, and creates a realm where creativity is encouraged and where many different ways of “winning” is acceptable.  

Educators have come to the brash realization that children are spending more time with their videogame console than their homework. Sequentially, educational researchers are trying to close the engagement gap between what kids do in the classroom and outside of the classroom. So what is it about videogames that lure children in? Educators are asking this question to secure answers for the future of education. SimCityEdu, one of the many educational videogames implemented in classrooms today, is on its way to reinventing classroom learning. Through the rhetorical allure of videogames, educators may be able to revive classroom learning. 

Technology is rapidly expanding, and education is struggling to keep up. The “old-school” means of teaching a child is now unfeasible, as almost every mode encompassing the child’s practical world is in one form or another, digital. The most affective way to grab a child’s attention is to present him/her with relevant information that is applicable to their world. Many instructors are catching on to this phenomenon, implementing various rhetorical digital mediums in their classroom, with videogames being a top pick among teachers.

Rhetoric Through Videogames: Customizes the Experience For Each Player

Videogames provide students with the opportunity to be interactive with their work, promotes intellectual exploration, is collaborative, captures their interest in the medium, all while providing customized, individual assistance to each student. Educational videogames have many positive effects in the learning environment, but most importantly, they have the ability to attract the interest and involvement of students.

Innately, videogames customize to each learner’s specific needs. In James Paul Gee’s What Videogames Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy, he says, “A good videogame adapts to the level of the player, rewards different players differently (but rewards them all), and often stays at the edge of the players regime of competence.”

(Gee Pg. 122). A videogame’s ability to customize to the level of the player and provide individual assistance at his own pace is crucial to the cognitive progression of the student. Each level of the videogame adapts to each player’s needs. This is key as to why videogames are great in classrooms. A videogame can provide the player the individual help needed, when it can prove to be more difficult for a teacher to divvy up her attention to each student accordingly.

In a classroom, where there is only one teacher and multiple students who may need special attention, videogames make it easier to offer multiple students the individual help that they need. Gee says that videogames offer kids the ability to learn at their own pace with different answers to problems and adapting to each players the individual learning needs/style. According to the huffingtonpost.com, “Seventy-eight percent of teachers in a national survey said that digital games improved low-performing students' mastery of curricular content and skills (math, language arts, etc.), and 71 percent said they improved mastery of extra-curricular skills (technology, communication, critical thinking, etc.). Videogames not only motivate low-performing students to attend class, but also help them pay attention and make stronger efforts to succeed.” In a classroom, it makes it difficult for a teacher to spend the extra time helping struggling students, but videogames allow for a customized learning experience at different levels per student’s individual learning needs.

Not only do videogames provide personalized assistance, some like SimsCityEdu also provides the teacher with a report of each student’s progress. The game is able to track “Every time a student is hovering a mouse over a specific object, every time they are clicking on something, every choice, decision and action they make within the game to be able to solve that problem,” says Jessica Lindl, General Manager of GlassLab. Through the game’s ability to track progress and its ability to provide each student with personalized help, videogames in classrooms can improve interest in struggling and non-struggling students, as well as catch a comprehensive problem at the first sight of it.

 Videogames create interest in the classroom. They allow for students to be more engaged and excited about what they are learning by "balancing gameplay enjoyment with an appropriate level of challenge. Games have the ability to keep players in their own unique optimally challenging and engaging zone for learning," wrote Jan Plass, an NYU Professor of digital media and learning sciences (www.huffingtonpost.com).

Rhetoric Through Videogames: Interactive and Engaging

The interactive qualities of videogames detract from the congested, lecture-style classroom learning, where students who struggle with engaging in classrooms may find hard to learn. Videogames offer multiple students individual assistance at a necessary pace, have the ability to customize to the individual’s specific learning needs, while rewarding the player for discovering answers on their own, which makes videogames in classrooms great a great medium for any student.

The interactive properties of videogames grab the student’s attention and interest in a way that non-interactive busy work does not, therefore making videogames in the classroom a very rhetorical and persuasive device for students. In today’s hyper-stimulating world, children find passive learning to be more difficult, as it is something they aren’t normal accustomed to. Multi-tasking has become so ingrained in our society that a passive learning environment is going to hinder the child more so than help, as their minds will be wondering to other avenues to keep awake and stimulated. Instead of teaching students to sit still and do well on tests, instructors can embrace the active tenancies of students rather than try to suppress them. Interactivity provides a space where students can be active thinkers. In place of providing answers for the students, videogames empower the student to discover the answer on his or her own. Interactivity provides students the opportunity to be engaged in learning and focused on the task at hand.

Rhetoric Through Videogames: Allows For the Self Discovery of Answers

SimCityEdu, developed in part by GlassLabs in conjunction with EA Games, who have developed various big names in games such as Madden NFL, The Sims and Medal of Honor, is a game created specifically for middle to high school aged students. SimCityEdu focus on math, science, and literacy. The most powerful aspect of video games as a learning mechanism is that video games allow students to discover answers to problems on their own without the distraction of a hovering teacher. Videogames in classrooms take away from the congested, lecture-style classroom learning, where students who have trouble engaging in classrooms find hard to learn, to a self-taught form of learning. One middle-school child who tried SimCityEdu in her classroom said, “Usually teachers, principals or parents are in charge—at our age, finally, being in charge is kind of cool.” Videogames in classrooms are rhetorically sound in that they allow the child to actively take control of his or her learning. Empowering a child is one of the most affective ways to help them learn.

Rhetoric Through Videogames: Reward Students For Playing and Lowers the Consequences of Failure

Videogames reward the player for discovering new routes and ideas, a concept that is not often implemented in classrooms. However, this sort of risk/reward is necessary for when levels of the videogame become more difficult and where the “think-for-yourself” model of problem solving comes in handy—a critical skill to possess in real-world scenarios. Instead of the red-pen approach that is often used in classrooms that tends to deter a child from wanting or trying to learn, videogames promote a positive learning experience where multiple “right answers” can be explored and where a “wrong” answer isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

One of Gee’s examples used to iterate the concept of risk/reward in videogames was that of the videogame, Tomb Raider. The main character in this game is Laura Croft. He wrote that although the player/Laura Croft was given specific directions from an elder in the game not to veer off the path, rewards for doing so were hidden close by. The risk/reward mechanism that is built into the videogame is necessary for when levels progress to more difficult tasks where this sort of think-for-yourself, problem solving comes in handy. This instills in the player a positive association with discovering answers for himself not only in the videogame, but in real world scenarios, as well.

Videogames encourage the player by providing multiple ways for discovering success at their own skill level. They encourage players to “take risks explore and find new things” (Gee 216). Instead of reprimanding a student for veering off the path, encouraging students to seek answers on their own creates a more positive environment that produces better learning. In addition, students tend to want to keep trying until they finally succeed at a level. “‘Replaying a level [has been] very common as students want to improve and earn higher scores,’” says gamesandlearning.org. “In video games, losing is not losing, and the point is not winning easily or judging yourself a failure. In video games, hard is not bad and easy is not good,” Explains Gee (Pg. 174). Success for students would be much greater upon the encouragement of student’s work, instead of the constant reprimanding that seems to dominate today’s classrooms. Because videogames don’t reprimand the child for trying and losing, a student is more apt to attempt a different approach to the level than the last time he played. If instructors can follow this model in their classrooms, children will find that learning doesn’t have to be a chore, and that they can discover answers to problems that are unique to their learning style.

A good videogame provides multiple means of problem solving. Videogames create a positive space where a student can be confident in his pursuit of answers, rather than deterring him from wanting to try. Implementing a risk/reward, explorative setting in the classroom that provides constructive help will reap more benefits for the student. Rather than the negative red-pen approach, videogames encourage the player in providing multiple ways for discovering success at their own level.

Rhetoric Through Videogames: Links to Real World Applications

It is difficult to help students to see the real world applications of math, science and language learning in the classroom. Kids, today, have calculators, spell check and Google for these things. So, why then do they need to learn a bunch of “pointless” information? Although students can’t see the importance, it doesn’t make learning the information any less valuable. Implementing educational videogames in a classroom setting provides a medium where students don’t realize they are learning math, science, reasoning or language, they just are.

Studies have shown that when a child knows that he or she can employ his knowledge to specific life circumstances then he is will be able to actually retain and apply this knowledge in his future. Consequentially, when a child learns something in a videogame, he doesn’t realize that he is learning real world skills, that what he is doing is not just class work, but rather having “fun,” he is that much more likely to be invested and interested in what he is doing.

Videogames provide the opportunity to make important material interesting as well as relevant for students. Situated meanings, or meanings that are associated with words or images in the real world, are crucial to a student’s learning and retainment of information. If a student cannot associate what is learned with something tactile or applicable, then the information that was “learned” will then disappear after it is no longer in use. (Gee pg 105) Gee says, “This is why so many school children, even ones who are good at school, can pass tests but still cannot apply their knowledge to real world problem solving.” (pg. 105). Videogames bridge the gap between textbook and “real world” information, something that can make a world of difference in a student’s education.

SimCityEDU currently has six missions, all related to the theme of managing energy and environmental issues in an urban setting, all practical issues in today’s world. Gamesandlearning.org says, “Parents need to know that SimCityEDU: Pollution Challenge! puts teens in the role of a mayor whose tasks include a variety of real-world environmental and pollution challenges. Players solve problems by reading textual descriptions of an environmental issue and applying correct textual answers. Players also engage with causal loop diagramming and large-scale city planning in their virtual towns.” Videogames provide the opportunity to make important material interesting as well as relevant for students, as well as provide a means where a student wants to learn.

In addition, videogames enable students to place themselves in the shoes of a character or immerse themselves in a place or culture that they are learning about in the classroom. With a plot set up like SimsCityEdu, students are given a feeling of empowerment that is otherwise nonexistent in classrooms. This creates empathy between the player and the town’s people, and an innate desire to help them, ultimately creating a space where the child is not only interested in the subject matter, but invested, as well. In a review of SimsCityEdu, one child mentioned that he liked the game because he felt like people were depending on him to find an answer. Placing a student in this sort of real world scenario allows him to see education as more than numbers, facts and exams. This type of interactive experience makes students more excited about the material and supports long-term retention. “GlassLab product manager Liz Kline says she’s encouraged by students’ engagement. In an informal survey of 600 students, ‘almost all identified their experience as fun or very fun,’ she says (www.gamesandlearning.org). Videogames in the classroom close the engagement gap between what kids do in the classroom and outside of the classroom by harnessing real world experiences and applications.

To Conclude:

Rhetoric used carefully and deliberately in the classroom through the use of videogames makes learning a more effective process for students. Videogames bring to the table brilliant new educational properties that barely existed before the age of multiple modalities. The interactive properties of videogames challenge the student while stimulating interest. Videogames encourage the active discovery of answers at the individual level, as well as an overall more prosperous environment for a student to thrive within. Videogames promote an environment where teachers act as mentors instead of disciplinarians, ultimately creating a happy, positive environment that promotes intellectual exploration.

Works Cited:

https://www.commonsensemedia.org/game-reviews/simcityedu-pollution-challenge

http://www.gamesandlearning.org/2013/11/07/simcityedu-aims-to-be-the-first-of-a-new-generation-of-learning-games/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kara-loo/7-ways-video-games-help_b_6084990.html

                   

Gee, James Paul. What Video Games Have to Teach Us about Learning and Literacy. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6IsDmManq8 Ted x- learning (re)imagined

“getting away from subjects and making topics and problems the focal point”

www.gamesandlearning.org

Rhetoric is Our Currency

This is the TedTalk I am referencing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9u-TITxwoM

 The other day, I was doing some research for another class when this TedTalk began playing on YouTube. Interestingly enough, I was in the other room when YouTube started to play this video after the previous two had played automatically. (Read: Digital rhetorics literally is out to get me).

It wasn’t until our last meeting that I remembered the video and thought it was appropriate for a blog. So, I looked it up. It so happens to be an excellent example of what we have been talking about all semester.

            In this TedTalk, Kevin Bacon talks about using the internet as a means of connecting for the better good of humanity. He talks about how a Paul Newman's tomato sauce made him think introspectively about what he was doing for the world. He says he recalls asking himself, “What have I done that has been branded with me?” That made me think, “What is the legacy that I can pass on through my rhetoric in this multimodal world?” Kevin bacon makes a good point that we should harness what we have to give back to the world. Bacon has his fame. He is harnessing his fame, his available means of persuasion, to appeal via the internet to multiple diverse crowds.

           

The Internet is ours.

The internet allows us to be whoever we want. It gives us opportunities that were never there before the internet existed. It allows celebreties like Kevin Bacon and regular people to level in ways like interests, struggles, philanthropy, and etcetera. The internet unmasks everyone. It shows the world that we all are regular people was are just trying to feed our families and make their place in this grueling world. I really liked how Bacon says, “How about if regular people can become celebs for their own causes?” The internet allows this “connectivity [that] is just as valuable as dollars and cents.” The internet is a place where rhetoric is our currency. The best part about it: its available to all. The internet is a place where we can be the king of our own jungle.

There is a regular kid, Matt Diaz, who started a Facebook with the intentions of helping others feel better about who they are. He was 495 pounds at his heaviest at 16 years old, and lost 270 pounds. The reason Matt set up this facebook page was because he is very proud of his work and wants to encourage the world and share his success. The only problem: his excess of skin that drooped from his frame since the massive weight loss. He posted a touching video that unveiled the true shape of his body, lagging skin and all. Matt started crying and admitted that he was terrified to show the world his body. The support he received through comments was monumental. Now, Matt has so many donators and people interested in his cause that he is in the process of setting up consultations to have the excess skin removed (the procedure may have been done already). Not only has the internet allowed Matt to become his own celebrity, it has also allowed him to use rhetoric as a means of currency that he can use for the betterment of the world.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbkMmWy3Wk <If you are interested in this kid’s amazing story.

In Kevin Bacon’s closing line, he says that we created the internet to stay connected. He says that we need to keep thinking about ways we can use the internet “as a source for good.” I think this is spot on. As rhetoricians, I believe that it is our duty to use our skill of writing and rhetoric to enhance the world. Options are limitless. Its time to be become active consumers and producers of the Internet.

“Footloose!”

Unfollow the Internet

I was reading through my notes on the Filter Bubble, and I noticed a big boxed question that read, "How does this [my biased searches] affect ME in the digital world???"

This question, at the time, was something that really bothered me and made me curious so much so that I made a scene of it in my notebook. Although part of me wants to blame the ca-a-a-a-a-afene, I think this question genuinely disturbed me. 

My parents are avid Fox News watchers...and I mean avid. They always have something to say about the "fair and balanced" news in which they extract information that they, literally, live by. The mention of CNN in my mom's house warrants a scoff and a crack on one of the major news anchors. But when we were talking the other day in class about looking for unbiased info, it really got me thinking about the world we live in where everything is made easy for us, where information is literally in our pockets and by the quick swipe of a finger (but really...take a second to think about that...at the touch of our fingertips...). At any given moment, we can find out that earthworms have five hearts, that camels have three eyelids and that the Romans used to make toothpaste from urine. But the trick here is that although our digital world has made everything easy for us, it has also made the game that much harder--harder because what the majority of the general population doesn't realize is that what they are reading is already tailor made for them.

So, now, we must take it upon ourselves to look even harder for what is unbiased--ultimately destroying the concept that the internet is making our lives easier. But what really sucks is that people are unaware of this. People think that what they are choosing is what they want, but in actuality, its what marketers are choosing for them. 

Wow, that is some darn good rhetoric, if you ask me.

How do we get people to think what we want them to think? First make friends with them and solidify a common ground, then make them think that what you want them to think is their idea. That sounds awfully cynical, but guess what, the real world we live in, the one devoid of glittery ads and neon commercials about anti anxiety meds that may cause "suicidal thoughts and tenancies" is actually cynical. They don't give a flying flapjack that you may die from their product or that your quality of life is suffering. They care about their investors and their bank accounts. I want to punch every pharmaceutical company in the spleen. I digress.

As a responsible inter web surfer, I have taken it upon myself to put in the extra time to think about the things I search like “Barak Obama” as apposed to "good Barak Obama" and “bad Barak Obama.” I wish I could fully explain this to my mother, but no matter what I say to her, they will always be "The Democrats at CNN."

I like to think that my identity exists beyond the realm of the internet. I think that I can take back control of my identity in the world outside of the internet in reclaiming my free-thinking, unbiased ways, but as much as I like to think these things, and as much as I like to think that I am cognizant of how the internet is influencing my surfing behavior, I don't think that I will ever be fully aware of how my world is being shaped. Because after all, the internet follows us everywhere. Maybe its time to unfollow the Internet.