Video games and learning: teaching and participatory culture in the digital age

At the back of my Grade 5 classroom sat a dusty, Pentium, desktop computer. This computer was a foreign entity in our classroom, as our educational world was encapsulated by a printbased understanding. As students, we identified the computer as having one very valuable application, the ability to play educational video games. We all clamoured around the weekly computer schedule to see if our name was on the list, as we were anxious to have our try at The Oregon Trail and Carmen Sandiego. Playing video games was fun, as they introduced both historical and geographical concepts in a visually appealing way. Remarkably, educational gaming has remained relatively stagnant since the initial introduction of The Oregon Trail. For well over two decades the controversies surrounding video games have riddled the growth and implementation of game-based learning environments. Kurt Squire (2011) begins to unpack these constrictive ideologies in his book, Video Games and Learning: Teaching and Participatory Culture in the Digital Age. As an eminent researcher of educational video gaming, Squire presents a refreshing perspective of school-based gaming. His book clearly speaks to the transformative possibilities of educational games as he creates “a vision of digital games and learning that draws on critical analysis of games, naturalistic research of game communities, descriptions of design research, and empirical studies of learning through games” (p. xiii). Although Squire spends considerable time discussing his varied gaming research experiences, he does orientate the book towards an educational audience. Squire provides an array of evidence that demonstrates how an educator might purposefully incorporate and construct an educational video game as an applicable curricular project. Squire organizes the text around his varying video gaming experiences. From childhood to academic researcher, Squire has developed both a technical and research-based understanding of gaming. This deep understanding allows the reader to establish a sense of confidence that Squire does in fact embody the ideologies associated with a gamer. Each chapter further clarifies educational video gaming through Squire’s varied research projects and applications. As the chapters consecutively build, the reader begins to envision the possibilities of video gaming in their own classroom space, even potentially building their own educational game. The 10 chapters are organized with useful headings and, perhaps most importantly, include a detailed theory and practice summary at the end, which not only summarizes the chapter, but also highlights the ideas educators would find most useful. Squire does an excellent job in the overall organization and flow of the text, as he devotes equal attention to both the practical and