Laura laura.tapimel@gmail.com Tapia

Abstract: Videogames constitute a strong of resource for the development of techniques to empower certain mental faculties like memory, attention, concentration, mental speed, intelligence, creativity and problem solving. Nintendo portable game´s makeover brought a sort of games in spite of opening the markets to a new generation of global focused players. This new games were designed to show gamming as a positive form of leisure what leads to a very controversial issue. In this paper we review the results of key studies on human cognition, neuroscience and gamming to see how life sciences reseach can verify the assumed relation between gamming and mental stimulation.

Abstract: This essay explores the relationship between learning and the use of new technologies by the digital generation. These children have grown up in the new media environment. That´s why a new way of knowledge acquisition is beginning with the of use PDA´s , Mobile Phones, Mp3, Internet and video games. These technologies work with a huge amount of information at the same time and through multimodal texts (image, sound and text) and the digital generation is learning while playing, chating or just sending phone messages. We focus on the use of videogames and its learning environment which connects learners and introduce them in specific semiotic domains. It is a new technologicalknowledge acquisition point of view, necessary to be studied for the consecution of social improvement.

Abstract: There is a large group of impossible and fictional universes in the stories told on videogames. We can analyze from the storytelling perspective of game studies, the kind of human values that players are exposed to when play-ing. Leisure behavior has found in the use of ITC´s a new way of being according to the contemporary practices of children in the digital context. The representation of the city as well as the behavior of its inhabitants, as self designed communities that are game-based developed thanks to player’s actions, generates several questions about the behavior as citizens of these users. That is the main theme of this research: to explore the fiction of video games, specifically the way its characters behave and experience values in its virtual lives.

Abstract: Value conflicts are perceived differently among cultures depending on the socio-cultural context in which people live. Every culture has its own set of values, beliefs and procedures, this is why the study of the MPORRG players relationships during the game sessions is of interest. They share their knowledge and interests in the same virtual space, which leads to an exchange of cultural beliefs, procedures in order to confront their own set of values. Due to the appearance of value conflicts in the stories that are told in video games, we will first study the way in which certain groups of players from different socio-cultural contexts consider some of the actions in the games as value or moral conflicts. Also of interest, is how these groups of players from all around the world exchange their vision about life, moral and ethics. My aim is to develop how we can improve moral and value education at schools through the use of these games and how it is possible to develop teaching tools based on this cultural exchange approach. To reach our goals we also must focus on cultural exchange practices in the context of cultural appropriation defined as the use of a culture’s symbols, artifacts, genres, rituals or technologies by members of another culture. In this context, we will approach cultural exchange as a particular model of cultural relations. Cultural exchange recalls a context in which cultures freely and without power implications mutually share cultural elements, perhaps with the effect of greater cultural understanding and creativity (Rogers, 2006).

Abstract:

Abstract: This thesis asks how video games tell stories and if so, how in these stories some human values are represented. The main purpose for it is to give an answer to some insights about the potential of video games for education and the possible ways in which the games could be worth for learning. First, we propose two hypotheses: games tell stories in which some human values get represented, that being so the values are part of the game goals. Trough some specific criteria about social recognizance, adequacy and diversity, 30 video games from Nintendo Wii and Nintendo Nds have been selected for the study. Afterwards, two content research tools are applied to the games: first, a narrative study to each game case and second a content analysis to help us identifying some certain human values like intellectual, social, moral, willing, affective, aesthetic and economic. We conclude with the proof that games tell stories but in some different way that usual narratives do. And finally that in the stories told some human values are not only represented but into the game objectives include.