week4-5

Shekira Carmichael
So I read the Gee article and I think it was pretty good. I like how in the Gee article he used his own personal experience in relation to gaming. I understand James Paul Gee when he mentioned that when he could not exceed in the game that he had to do some research on it because what he thought would help change his way of losing did not. There was this game that I started playing on my niece Nintendo DS called Lost in Blue, its basically an adventure survival game. You have to find shelter and provide food for yourself so you wont die. I seem to have kept dying and I didn’t know what I was doing wrong, so it was a little frustrating. I went online to research the game and it explained to me more what exactly I had to do and should be doing. I think researching the game made it a bit more easier because when I started the game I was just playing because I was bored. In the article he referred biology to being a “game” in reality that certain people “play”. I remember that in one of our blogs we had to give the meanings of the words “game”, “play” and “simulation”. We had to explain how do we know when it’s a game and when were playing. Also we had to provide our own personal experience relative to these words and see how these words relate to each other. To be honest I didn’t really understand the whole comparing game with biology. I think that he looked at gaming from another aspect which is good, but I just did not get it. One of the principles in the article was identity. I believe that the reading on the Allegory of the Cave showed identity because of the one man that chains broke free and he got a chance to see beyond shadows on the wall. He had to adapt to learning how to walk from sitting so long and handle the bright sun in his eyes. This was a whole new identity and experience for him because this was not something he was used to. He may not be able to identify the shapes on the wall anymore as the other prisoners do.
Another principle in the Gee article is risk taking this makes me think about the movie the Matrix. In the Matrix Leo had to choose between two pills that decided on his destination. If he took the blue pill he would return back to his regular life and if he took the red pill he will move on to the Matrix. Leo decided to take the red pill which led him to the Matrix. He was taking a risk into a world he knew nothing about.