The Art of Video Games

This Saturday, I had a much needed day off, and David and I decided to go to the EMP to see "The Art of Video Games" exhibit. I'm generally not a huge fan of video games (with the exception of anything from the Nintendo 64) but I thought David would enjoy it, and I would enjoy the arts side of it. As soon as I got to the exhibit, I started thinking about my students and how video games could be an awesome influence for them. Art and technology really do go hand in hand, but it's something that I don't really hear too often.

Below is a picture I took from the exhibit that says "Games are a toolkit we use to create." I loved this quote! It made me think about Blooms Taxonomy of higher order thinking, and how creating is right up there at the top.

 Another favorite quote from my trip is in the picture posted to the right. It says "Games have so much freedom. You can go wherever you want." In our tech class we've been talking about using technology to help our kids experience things that they would not be able to before. If we're reading a book with a character from Thailand, how cool would it be for students to be able to quickly look at google maps to see Thailand. When we talk about technology, I didn't really think about including video games until now.

 I had to include this last picture because it was so suprising. It was from World of Warcraft, I think? I was blown away by the sketches here. Art and video games!


It was so fascinating to see how far we've come since the 1970's and 80's as far as technology for video games. They are so engaging, and I wonder if there could be a future for something like this in the classroom, and I wonder what that might look like? If we were to use something in the classrooms, like say Minecraft, that already has students so engaged, how could we use that as a tool for learning and creating?