Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Research 2: Chapter four of O'Gormans E-Crit

“What does this have to do with intelligence” (O’Gorman 72)? This question which is asked by O’Gorman in chapter four of E-Crit, refers to the retro game, Police Trainer. This is a game in which “the player takes aim at the targets using a frighteningly realistic handgun attached to the machine by a cable” (72). “The galleries are organized into such categories as ‘Speed’, ‘Marksmanship’, and ‘Intelligence’” (72). People typically get the impression that video games, television, and pretty much anything that has to do with entertainment media, does not expand our cognitive skills. O’Gorman looks into the concept of cognition developed by digital media and also by the typical scholarly ways of gaining knowledge or intelligence.

O’Gorman raises the question; “what if television, playing video games, and surfing the Web are actually good for you” (72)? There is this stereotypical idea that video games, television, and even computers just make people dumber and that this media are just wastes of time, time in which people could be using this moment to read a book or a journal in print. Learning is not meant to be fun is it? There is this misconception that its not and that to be intelligent, one must learn in the traditional ways that our ancestors did, not to mention that our writings must be done in print and not via the computer. To further explore this issue, O’Gorman uses several of Ulric Neisser’s thoughts, including Neisser’s opinions of the ‘Flynn effect’. The ‘Flynn effect’ is “a title given to identify the steady increase in IQ scores since the first tests were administered” (O’Gorman 72). Neisser cleverly makes the point that the “rate of gain on standard broad-spectrum IQ tests amounts to three IQ points per decade, and it is even higher on certain specialized measures” (73). This is an important fact to know because there is now visual evidence that there are other ways of learning than by just the traditional scholarly work required in most institutions.

O’Gorman is not ruling out the fact that traditional educational practices are important, but rather he is trying to demonstrate that there is more to learning than just one single way. I feel that O’Gorman wants educators to realize that visual media doesn’t replace other means of teaching. It just enhances and expands on what is already being absorbed in ones mind. Why accept just one way of learning when there are other modes in which to learn, and if there are multiple educational tools and ‘games’ that build cognitive skills, then why not use them? Yes, our ancestors may sometimes have a better sense of theoretical concepts from the past, but digital media and visual tests can build better skills of ‘praxis’. I can use some most of the skills that were obtained from digital media for more practical purposes. Why not be practical in various ways? Theoretical concepts are essential in the learning process, but what good are they if practical concepts are not utilized? They are both essential and compliment each other in utilizing scholarly skills.

This research reminds me of a time when I was much younger, when a friend of the family had a son that was in a very serious car accident. The person was an adult and his brain was seriously affected by the accident. His doctor told him to play video games, not to just help his hand-eye coordination but to also aid in stimulating his brain. I loaned him my Nintendo games by the request of his mother and she did say that they helped slightly in dexterity and reflexes. It has been years since then, so I am not aware of how he is doing now or if he has recovered anymore since then. My point with this is that, if old-fashioned video games such as the Nintendo games can aid in the recoveries and stimulations of damaged brains, there has to be some truth to them being more than just senseless wastes of time that could be used further by exercising the brain.Speaking of sense, I find it interesting how O’Gorman views sense and nonsense. “Susan Stewart characterizes nonsense as a strikingly intertextual mode of discourse, one which cannot occur without transgression, without contraband, without a little help of the bricoleur’s hand” (O’Gorman 81-2). From this part of the chapter, I feel as if O’Gorman is making the point, as well as Susan Stewart, that nonsense does not have to necessarily have a negative context to it. I think they are merely saying that without sense there can be no nonsense and vice versa. A traditional educator may feel like hypertext is nonsense in the scholarly atmosphere and may feel as though it may have no place in the educational system. This is an example of somebody using ‘nonsense’ as a negative term rather than using it as another positive mode of cognition. When somebody says, “that’s nonsense”. I do not think that what I said is wrong, rather I think that what I said is not what he or she wants me to say or what he or she wants to hear. Some traditional educators may think that writing electronically is nonsense, buy they are not open to new ideas of building cognitive skills, therefore believing the electronic word is nonsense. I believe that our brains sometimes cannot fathom how much these new innovations of learning actually make sense and that is why we call it nonsense. I may be reaching here, but can something make so much sense, that it becomes nonsense? I feel that it can.



O'Gorman, Marcel. E-Crit Digital Media Critical Theory and The Humanities. Toronto: University of Toronto Press Incorporated, 2006.

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