After reading james Paul Gee’s “Semiotic Domains: Is playing Video Games a ‘Waste of Time’?” I started to think about the whole idea of how video games can be linked to literacy. Here is a part of the article:
It was quite a sight to watch a six-year-old, as Captain Olimar, lead a multicolored army of little Pikmin to fight, build, grow more Pikmin, and explore a strange landscape, all the while solving multiple problems to discover and get to the locations of the spaceship’s missing parts. The child then ordered his Pikmin to carry the heavy parts back to the ship. When this child’s grandfather made the following remark: “While it may be good for his hand-eye coordination, it’s a waste of time, because there isn’t any content he’s learning.” I call this the problem of content.

Even though it appears that the six-year-old is taking part in a profound literacy pastime, I feel as if the markers have taken video games too far. The article focuses on how children are able (through many different principles) to grasp skills in reading and comprehension, I do feel that video games are not the answer. The article does not go on to discuss how children are spending too much time with games, and should just pick up a book instead. Many video games are extremely violent and allow children to believe what goes on in the video game is ok to do in their own lives. I just feel that the idea of video games is not that great for children to be playing, in terms of expanding their literacy abilities. Children should be reading literature and taking a walk outside, instead of playing games for hours at a time and not experiencing what life it all about.