[Xmca-l] Re: The power of Humanities in a recursive loop

[FRANCIS J. SULLIVAN]

In response to Mike's point that "There must be a whole academic industry
in games studies doing such
critical analyses but I have not read much of it," James Paul Gee is a
small industry unto himself in that regard. Some may take issue with his
take on video games--he's not your father's Marxist--but he's thoughtful
and committed.

Francis J. Sullivan, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Department of Teaching and Learning
College of Education
Temple University
Philadelphia, PA 19122


Find out what any people will quietly submit to and you have the exact
measure of the injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them.

 Frederick Douglass

On Thu, May 26, 2016 at 12:37 PM, mike cole <mcole@ucsd.edu> wrote:

> Hi Jessica -- Your observation of deep commitments of Western common sense
> to a culture/nature dualistic ontology fits with my experience with
> "edutainment" games as a genre that was very
> important at least from about a 20 year stretch. Oregon trails is an award
> winning game whose underlying
> schema can be the source of rich educational experiences, but fits the
> Grand Narrative of American expansionism excusing mass genocide that Jim
> Wertsch writes about in terms of the influence of national narratives.
>
> There must be a whole academic industry in games studies doing such
> critical analyses but I have not read much of it.
>
> mike
> little about it.
>
> On Thu, May 26, 2016 at 6:42 AM, Kindred, Jessica Dr. <jkindred@cnr.edu>
> wrote:
>
> > I read a huge article in the Sunday Times magazine a few weeks back about
> > Minecraft. It was a full on endorsement as far as I could tell, but at
> the
> > end, buried in some point about how it teaches kids about coding and
> > creating things from resources, it said "Kill a spider, get the silk."
> This
> > is the wrong lesson to be teaching kids about spiders and other living
> > things. Spiders don't make silk once they're dead, except in exploitative
> > fictional landscapes like this that are teaching kids to kill nature for
> > their own use. This seems tragic on the heels of a generation that was
> > raised to save the earth, in the wake of what their parents have done to
> it.
> > ________________________________________
> > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu]
> > on behalf of mike cole [mcole@ucsd.edu]
> > Sent: Monday, May 23, 2016 3:41 PM
> > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: The power of Humanities in a recursive loop
> >
> > Greg-- What do you make of the minecraft world? I know a lot of kids that
> > love to play it (and adults who
> > think they are wasting their time). What has impressed me is how little
> > live adult co-presence is needed for a group of kids to develop pretty
> high
> > level skills (the adult is behind the code, somewhere, of course).
> >
> > I ask both because minecraft appears as an issue in places I inhabit and
> > because one of the reasons live adults give if they think it is a good
> > activity for kids is that it is a pathway into the world of coding.
> >
> > I liked the poem as well. Thanks for that.
> > mike
> >
> > (Martin does his flushing in Bogota, Annalisa; perhaps that accounts for
> > the poor advice).
> >
> > On Mon, May 23, 2016 at 12:27 PM, Greg Mcverry <jgregmcverry@gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > However coding should not be a social-darwinist experiment, which tends
> > to
> > > be the case because code interpreters are ruthless syntactic
> stalinists.
> > >
> > > I think this is  a stereotype, a specialized set of discourse
> practices,
> > > and a reflection of gender inequity among coders.
> > >
> > > Nobody learns to code. You can just copy and paste better than the next
> > > gal. It takes a long time to generate original code.
> > >
> > > I am a self taught....actually community taught...the auto-didactic
> coder
> > > is a myth. I have been involved in a variety of open source projects in
> > the
> > > last few years as a non-technical contributor.
> > >
> > > Yet every project I get involved in, I learn a little bit more. Right
> now
> > > its just html/css/javascript but its always a little bit more than I
> knew
> > > yesterday.
> > >
> > > There are amazing and really inclusive places to reach out and learn
> how
> > to
> > > code or markup webpages.
> > >
> > > On Mon, May 23, 2016 at 3:21 PM Annalisa Aguilar <annalisa@unm.edu>
> > wrote:
> > >
> > > >
> > > > Thanks Martin and Greg,
> > > >
> > > > Um... first things first. I never do the paint thinner down the
> toilet
> > > > thing. I actually make an appointment with the waste management
> > > department
> > > > on Saturdays and drive it in. Do they not have such a thing for you,
> > > Martin?
> > > >
> > > > And, I love your poem Greg. Just because computers "think"
> > > algorithmically
> > > > doesn't mean we do. Humans first! :) And Humanities first (too!)
> > > >
> > > > As much as code is a stinky affair for some of us non-STEMers, there
> is
> > > > something to be said of occupying the codebases. I don't mean github
> or
> > > > reddit, as I'm not a masochist.
> > > >
> > > > However coding should not be a social-darwinist experiment, which
> tends
> > > to
> > > > be the case because code interpreters are ruthless syntactic
> > stalinists.
> > > I
> > > > myself have tried to teach myself to code more times than I can
> count,
> > > and
> > > > it still eludes me! If I had the right teacher, I'd do some great
> > things
> > > > with code. I think it's because of my system-thinking (top-down
> rather
> > > than
> > > > bottom up) that it eludes me. You can't sketch with code, and then
> fill
> > > in
> > > > the lines (or can you?) I sense, if I were to learn to code, I'd
> > become a
> > > > dialectic coder.
> > > >
> > > > Is there such a thing?
> > > >
> > > > Kind recursions,
> > > >
> > > > Annalisa
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> >
> > It is the dilemma of psychology to deal as a natural science with an
> object
> > that creates history. Ernst Boesch
> >
> >
>
>
> --
>
> It is the dilemma of psychology to deal as a natural science with an object
> that creates history. Ernst Boesch
>