Videogames as Push Technology
Steinkuehler discusses videogames as a push technology, how videogames serve as a point of entry to explore other areas of technology like programming (Steinkuehler, 2005). Videogames and videogame design have been recognized as powerful way to motivate students to engage in the activities contained within them and, sometimes, outside of them.
The concept of push technology is a powerful one given that the idea of tinkering with technology starting from a motivating experience has a history of success. The best example of this comes not from the world of software but from the world of automobiles.
Since the invention of the automobile and its mass production in the early twentieth century, there as been a parallel movement by automobile enthusiasts who modify them in order to maximize their performance. The so-called hot rods of the 1920s and 1930s and the prototype and dragster cars of recent years were initiated by amateur car "modders."
A similar movement is now taking place with games. Many commercial games are now providing associated toolkits that allow their users to produce custom levels, graphics and gameplay and providing a fertile ground for testing out ideas considered central to computer science.
Virtual Worlds as Social Learning Spaces
MMOs and virtual worlds are, eminently, social spaces. The learning that takes place in these spaces is completely experiential, and as such, a process of apprenticeship is often the most efficient way to get a new player to learn the ropes of the virtual world.
The popular virtual world of Second Life has even gone to the point of creating social assistance institutions for newcomers to the game. When a new payer logs in, a recruiter from a placement group will contact him or her. If the player accepts the invitation, the placement group helps him or her modify his or her appearance to that of a specific virtual identity.
Then he or she will be matched with volunteers who have agreed to mentor them. These mentors might be pretending to be a married couple wanting children and so the new player would be given an identity as a child that will be "adopted" by the mentor.