He believes that technology is actually making us smarter, and has written 5 books about the future of technology in learning. Steven Berlin Johnson speaking at Handheld Learning 2008 says that Sim City has been a fertile and engaging learning environment for young people. The audience of course, agrees. Yet the progress toward increased engagement he says, is becoming more homogenised as adults begin to use the entertainment and technology tools their children are already familiar with. Are these trends dumbing down society? - he asks. No - there is actually a trend he says, toward more complexity, particularly within the content of new games and resources, because the interplay between environments and other elements of games encourages people to think more deeply, manipulate artefacts and objects, and generally learn better. He cites the game Civilisation as a particular game which engages people in complexity. In this excellent exposition on the educational gaming culture, Johnson has exposed some of the key elements of how such games engage and entertain yet also create deeper learning experiences. Games intuitively engage. There are extra levels of exploration within the nested structure that makes up educational gaming, he says.
The popular TV series Lost is also a target for discussion - Johnson has discussed ontological, biological, historical, matahematical and geographical elements of the stories, cast and environment for this series. The complexities of the questions that emerge from this series, he says, equally match up to the complexity of engagement we have brought ourselves to as a society that appreciates and uses compex games. It is no longer passive TV but participative at many levels. The future of educational gaming looks bright...
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