Teaching Values Through Videogames - PRTesol
Channel: QuijanoPhD
Date: 2011-11-24

This is a recording from a presentation I gave in PRTESOL's 38th Annual Convention. I was one of the concurrent/break-away sessions. Attendance was at around 60 people. 

The "four As" concept comes from a conversation I had with a colleague a while back. She went to a presentation where a researcher was talking about "universal values that can be taught through games". If you are that researcher, give me your name so I can give you credit. I developed this variation of the Jenga activity based on a similar activity used by Prof. Jose Cruz Massas in Centro de Estudios Multidisciplinarios (CEM).

The "values analysis" I presented on Missile Command was heavily influenced by Daniel Floyd's own closed reading of the game, although his interpretation focuses on how mechanics tell a narrative and now on how the game as a whole teaches values.

The section on MMORPGs is entirely of my own, and is based on several activities I've done with my ESL students where I have them run quests and I evaluate them 30% on quest outcome and 70% on language use. The game used in this presentation is Fiesta Online.