Gamers entering the workforce

To continue on my theme on the retiring boomers and the emergence of gamers, let's learn a bit about our incoming students - who they are and what they have been doing up to now. It’s becoming apparent that traditional means of knowledge won’t translate as before. New generations of technical-savvy experts are headed our way.

According to the article, waiting in the wings for the big boomer retirement are about 90 million gamers. This is the generation born in the early 1980s at the same time as the emergence of the video game Pac Man. It is no coincidence.

Before I continue with this thread, here’s a definition of a gamer:

“A gamer is anyone born between 1980 and 2001 who plays any type of computerized and/or video game for more than five hours a week and understands how to navigate the World Wide Web. It turns out that’s just about everyone under the age of thirty.”

Did you know that by the time a student graduates from college he or she will have played over 10,000 hours of computerized games? As a parent, I believe it. In fact, the older my children get, the longer they want to play video games.

Research provides the profile of an average gamer. He is 29 year old male with an annual household income of more than $50,000. However, he is not alone. Almost 43% of the average gamers are female and 26% of those females are over 18.

Putting it in Perspective

Let’s use this scenario: think of our faculty meetings. We are all educators, so I’m fairly certain this is a common premise between us.

We literally come to campus, sit together on one room and discuss important issues for an hour or two. Is this true for you?

Now take the incoming gamer generation – the literal meeting room may be an odd occurrence for them. Issues could simply be addressed using cell phone texting, Skype, or teleconferencing from home. This will all be “normal” to them. Why waste the energy driving to campus for a meeting when all can “meet” virtually?

The transfer of knowledge between the boomer and the gamer will probably be remote. The boomer – the mentor – will simply text instructions to the gamer on how to complete a process. Although, I wonder if certain industries will be able to work this way. I just can’t imagine a boomer-surgeon texting a gamer-intern on how to perform open heart surgery, can you? I certainly hope not. It will be amazing to see what does transpire.

Now that we may have a better idea of what our incoming students are like, how can we translate this information to teaching our incoming-gaming students how to learn concepts in the programming field without using cheat-codes?

References:

http://ecet.ecs.ru.acad.bg/cst06/Docs/cp/sIV/IV.13.pdf
http://www.e-learningguru.com/wpapers/vendor/Kapp_GGG.pdf