In this example down below, I had to read policies to see if they were good enough to pass into law. The example I am about to show describes Gee’s idea of being pleasantly frustrated while playing a game. I was given two policies to look over. For the first policy, I was about to hit the thumbs down button, but I changed my mind to see what would happen. When I went to sign the bill, I was told that the specific policy I agreed with wasn’t a good choice, and I lost public approval.
This actually got me a bit upset because I was originally going to hit the thumbs down button, but switched. With Gee’s idea of pleasantly frustrating, a player is presented with a challenge that they have to figure out. Although this policy stumped me, it’s making me want to continue playing to do better on the next set of policies that I have to sign. The mistake I made will allow me to think about what I have to do next time in order to make the right decision.
One aspect I like about this game is that requires a little bit of critical thinking. When the player is looking at a set of policies, some can be very confusing or difficult to understand. It’s important to completely read every statement and reason on why it would be considered a good policy and why it would be considered a bad policy. When I played this again, I used that strategy for the policies that were a bit more challenging.
ED 386 Educational Technology - Lauren's Blog 