Chapter 7 specifically deals with the differences between knowing, making, and playing. They discuss knowing in terms of exactly that, "knowing." What this means is a focus on the "what." This we can all relate to as this is what the traditional classroom setting usually focused around: being able to recall facts. They then go further to to discuss knowing is not only what but now-a-days "where." Students no longer need to just be able to recall facts because we have a wealth of knowledge at our fingertips. The focus should be on knowing where we can find the information and then what we can do with it. They state, "in the new information economy, expertise is less about having a stockpile of information or facts at one's disposal and increasingly about how to find and evaluate information." This is at the heart of what we try and do in the social sciences. Get the students to not just know facts but be able to find it and think for themselves connecting the issues at hand to those facts. In this chapter they also discuss making. From there they discuss making and the importance of "hands on" activities. This is something that resonated with me as I have tried to have my students use the Knowledge to make more original works to show their interpretation of the information. Unfortunately technology is limited so this is sometimes limited in the way we can incorporate the activities in the classroom, but we make due. The idea of re-imaging existing images is something I will surely incorporate into my class with the creation of memes and similar activities.
In chapter 8 they make the connections between knowing, making, and playing with the ideas of Hanging out, Messing around, and Geeking out with regards to levels of participating in online communities/collectives. "Hanging out" refers to "learning to be" a member of those communities and this is really where I think I still fall in the spectrum of online involvement. At the other end of the spectrum is "geeking out" which is supposed to be an intense autonomous development of participation in the communities you are interested in. Unfortunately, even in the communities of topics I am most interested in I do not have an intense autonomous urge to participate so I don't foresee me getting to this point for some time. Even where I have my own student voice and choice involved, getting to geeking out seems to be more forced than something I want to do, but perhaps in the future.
Chapter 9 wraps the book up by looking at the online gaming communities such as World of Warcraft and the gamers ability to learn through play. This was very interesting and I think it is very cool how they can tap into the wealth of information their community is sharing. They mention that collective indwelling is "the feeling and belief that group members share a tacit understanding of one another, their environments, and the practices necessary to complete their task" and while reading this I thought where have I seen this before? Must this sort of engagement and learning occur in a game? The answer is no. Although the knowledge base is potentially higher to tap into, I did this for 12 years in the Marine Corps with good old fashioned ingenuity and creativity. But I suppose this sort of community can't help but to help develop these skills in our future leaders. Unfortunately, I don't think I see myself playing any games in the future. I have too many lessons to plan! But it does make me think of ways to make may students play in order to learn.