Wikipedia and Videogames!

I spent about an hour and half on wikipedia last night looking at possible topics for our projects. I think that I want to do my presentation on portable digital audio players- all kinds not just iPod. I'm still not sure about a trend yet though but what a great resources! I knew my 11 year old 6th grade son would think this was so cool. So I showed him how it worked and asked him to look up whatever he wanted. So he spent about 45 minutes looking up the history of video games and asking me if I'd played them when I was a kid and Mom how do you say this. His choice didn't surprise me, but what was so interesting is that just prior to going to wikipedia, I was looking at Wired. There was an article entitled a Generation of Game Boys, Girls about universities offering more video game-related courses in response to the digital media industry's appetite for skilled workers and the tastes of a new generation of students raised on Game Boy and Xbox. This brought several ideas to mind in terms of this Game Boy/Girl Generation- 1. The challenge of creating coursework that engages them 2. The trend of the universities to offer classes that would be of interest to this generation 3. The re-design of digital media programs in colleges 4. The challenge of creating coursework for an audience that combines ages from this generation and many others as well My two favorite comments from the article are: Della Rocca compares it to the emergence of film studies programs decades ago. Dismissed at first, they now produce big-name directors in a field now considered by many to be a serious art form. "Just like when rock and roll came of age everybody wanted to be a rock star, as video games have come of age, everyone wants to be a developer," said Carolyn Rauch, senior vice president of the Entertainment Software Association. I know for my 11 year old this is true. His list of what he wants to be when he grows up went from a train engineer when he was between 6 to 8 years old to a video game designer/programer when he started playing videogames between 9 and 10 years old.