When Tym first asked me if I would be willing to be the Middle School Staff blogger for Inside Out, he suggested possible ways that I could begin a blog post. One was “So, my husband is gaming again….”
“Again?” I retorted. “More like still gaming or has become obsessed with yet another video game.”
Yes, my husband Kevin proudly calls himself a gamer. And that’s not all—a few weeks ago you may have noticed that he was featured on our ACS Facebook page in a shameless bit of self-promotion before a public lecture at Trinity Western University marking his promotion to full professor in the department of Media and Communication. And he studies video games.
The tagline for promoting his speech was “Video Games Matter.” And, at our house, they really, really do. We have plenty of discussions about how much gaming is OK (we tend to disagree on that one), which games are worth playing, and how much money he can spend on STEAM to buy new games.
He is also taking it upon himself to make sure our three daughters buck the gender trends and are comfortable in the gaming world. Since the only video games I play are Geoguessr and Math apps that I am trying out for my classes, I’ll leave that mostly up to him. In that area, at least, he seems to be succeeding. Hence, the Lombax costume, so our youngest daughter could pretend to be a one of a kind cat-like alien who fights evil across the galaxy with a troop of comical sidekicks.
At least it gives me a break from Elsa and Olaf.
Let’s face it: new technologies change the world and raise new questions, and video games are certainly no exception. While my husband tends to write about secondary worlds and ways that we can find God in and through games (more shameless self-promotion—he published a book last year called “Of Games and God” and we can hook you up with a copy!), I am more interested in other sorts of game-related questions, like:
- Can games help me challenge all of the different student needs in my Math classes?
- Why aren’t there more video games that teach about cat genetics?
- What do kids learn about gender roles from video games?
- How can we teach students to play games critically?
I guess I might have to do some more “research” myself. I’m sure that I can find some students around to help me….
WHAT DO YOU THINK?