Principles: Probing and Distributed. Chapter 2

Probing Principle - Probing principle refers to where a person does something, sees the affect, then makes a hypothesis about the action. Then the person 're probes' or experiments with the action again, and then either confirms the result or forms a new hypothesis. It's a trial an error system to see what works best in a given situation. The Pikmin game: which Pikmin worked best in each situation? Yellow, Blue or Red?

Distributed Principle - Knowledge is stored not only by the person, but also by the tools, technology, and other people available to that person. An example is like what we did in class last time. Each group took a section of the book and discussed it, then we separated into groups that studied different sections. We then shared our information with each other. Not one of us knew the entire whole picture, but combined we did. (Like a jigsaw puzzle).

Chapter 2 Stuff -

In chapter 2, Gee discussed whether or not video gaming was a waste of time. According to Gee, video games help to produce an active learning environment where the player can choose to either actively learn or passively play. Passive playing is a waste of time, however, when we actively learn, we increase our ability to solve problems.
Another thing taught by Gee in this chapter is Semiotic Domain. In a given context a word can have different meanings. For example, "light" can mean waves or particles, which allow us to see, or when something is not heavy. Depending on a situation, each word can hold multiple meanings. This also deals with groups. People belonging in certain sub-cultures can interpret and understand who is 'in' and who is 'not in.' This is because each 'insider' understands his/her mode of creating and interpreting language, symbols, and graphics. For example, someone who belongs to the 'First-person-shooter' group, they understand the differences between each shooter game, and know how to classify what belongs to 'their' category. Someone might be able to tell you all the first-person-shooter games ever made, but that doesn't mean they can necessarily know what that means.