Caroline Pelletier
Institute of Education, University of London, UK

Playing with technology: the pleasure of learning

In the last three years, there has been growing interest in the usage of digital games for educational purposes. One strand of the emerging literature places particular emphasis on the motivational qualities of computer and video games (Dawes and Dumbleton, 2001; McFarlane et al 2002). By learning from the design of digital games, it is claimed that educational software could be made as enjoyable and addictive as The Sims. This suggests that motivation and pleasure are to some extent extraneous to learning, something which can be tagged onto an otherwise unchanged curriculum. A variant of this argument is that digital games offer a different approach to learning for students who have difficulties or are impatient with the traditional methods of teaching and learning in school (Prensky 2001). Games can perhaps offer more personalised, more interactive pedagogies to a generation which uses technology in the same way as toys. This current of thinking is now feeding into policy, as seen in the DfES' e-learning strategy document (DfES 2004).

A second strand of the literature focuses on the learning principles which computer games demonstrate. James Gee (2003) argues that well-designed computer games demonstrate a theory of learning that reflects the latest thinking in cognitive science. According to Gee, learning and playing are simultaneous and largely synonymous processes. The pleasures and frustrations of playing are akin to those of learning. From this standpoint, Gee castigates educational institutions for denying pleasure to learners. Formal educational establishments underline their servility to the global economy by denying play to learners, meaning that the major sites of learning are now outside of the classroom.

A common theme in both types of argument is the association between technology and pleasure. Pleasure is linked to motivation as well as to more meaningful forms of engagement. Computers moved into education originally as tools for efficiency and effectiveness - they were imported from the workplace into the classroom. There is now some interest in using more home-based technologies, usually seen as entertainment systems. In the process, technology is being recast as a source of pleasure and play.

This paper will analyse the forms of pleasure that the literature mentioned above seeks to encourage through the use of technology. Using discourse analysis as a method, the analysis will draw on interpretative frameworks found in psychoanalytic approaches to cultural studies. I will draw in particular on the work of Slavoj Zizek, who deploys Lacanian concepts to discuss contemporary manifestations of enjoyment, agency and engagement, in both digital and non-digital environments (Zizek 2000, 1997, 1991, 1989). The paper will seek to explore some of the fantasies or ideologies which underpin the recent emphasis on the pleasure of educational technology, and identify how these are articulated in the research on educational digital games.

References

Dawes, L and Dumbleton, T (2001) Computer games in education project. http://www.becta.org.uk/page_documents/research/cge/report.pdf

Department for Education and Skills (2004) 'Towards a Unified e-learning Strategy', available at http://www.dfes.gov.uk/consultations/conResults.cfm?consultationId=774

Gee, J. (2003) What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy. New York: Palgrave MacMillan.

McFarlane, A., Sparrowhawk, A. & Heald, Y. (2002) 'Report on the educational use of games: An exploration by TEEM on the contribution which games can make to the educational process'. Cambridge: TEEM.

Prensky, M (2001) Digital game-based learning. McGraw-Hill Education

Zizek, S (2000) Enjoy Your Symptom! Jacques Lacan In Hollywood and Out
second edition, New York: Routledge.

Zizek, S (1997) The plague of fantasies. London: Verso

Zizek, S (1991) For they know not what they do: enjoyment as a political factor. London: Verso

Zizek, S (1989) The sublime object of ideology. London: Verso