For what it's worth: Situated Learning

ok. So let's just say I caught up on some reading this weekend... After the discussion in class on thursday my little brain really started to think. How do these different situations we are put in shape the person we become? The term "learning" in the classroom is straight forward and usually corresponds with direct results. What most people don't realize is that we are learning all the time. Whatever we do and however it turns out, we learn from it. We learn behaviors that are appropriate in some situations and not appropriate in others. We learn from each and every experience we have. Gee makes an interesting claim in ch. 4, "It is the connections or associations that people make among their experiences that are crucial to learning, thinking, and problem solving". I find this interesting because I've never recognized the "learning" that happens when kids play video games. Gee points out that in one of the games he plays the characters are well though out and designed. Thinking back on my childhood the game oregon trail comes to mind. I remember choosing my family's names, and traveling the journey on the oregon trail. It was really fun back then and now I think about how much strategy my mind put into that game. You had to hunt your own food, buy your own ammunition (spelling?), forge the river and make sure no one in your family got small pox and died along the way. I dont' know how I learned from playing that game but I do know that it forced my little 8 year old mind to work hard. I look at video games today and how much they've changed but I still think that kids learn things in their lives and in their video games and are constantly learning from everything around them.