Multi-player Online Games: learning for life

I am surrounded by video game playing boys and a husband.  Their world is video games and we have HUGE arguments about technology and playing games, and violence and desensitization towards violence, and what children can actually learn by being in a gaming environment. 

I personally, have no interest in the gaming world.  In our family, the boys owe me time for their "computer footprint" and they need to "offset their gaming" by doing something - anything - outside, be it walking to dog, going to the park, riding their bikes, skiing.....anything to do with being surrounded by nature.

But....I have been fascinated by this course my husband is taking at Pluralistic Networks, and I believe that all educators and leaders could benefit from this type of learning.   For my husband, it has changed his entire perception about leadership. All these skills learned by playing a game!   I am so fascinated, and I believe that this is the type of learning we are moving toward.  

Look at what Pluralistic Networks says about education:

"Education is not about the transfer of knowledge and application of concepts.
It is about enabling others to take new actions that they were not able to take before. It is about enabling people to learn to articulate and re-articulate their identities in an ongoing and recurrent manner as the world changes around them. Learning, in the end, does not happen simply by reading or learning about a new theory. It happens in the body. A person can be said to “know” once he or she is able to do something he was not able to do before." (Taken from Pluralisticnetworks.com: Why multi-player online games?)

This course can help in the delivery of new kinds of education; in the interactions of players and create a hands on learning experience for a team.   

Think of what this type of learning could do for our students....and how this learning could impact their world.