1. René Ponce Carrillo.
Teacher and Researcher.
August 2010.
Videogames, Education and Homebrew (?)
A disposable introduction:
The following article is written with the following assumptions:
1) The person who reads this article knows what videogames are, has been or currently goes to
school, has lived or lives in a family or any other kind of community.
2) The article’s first purpose is to present its readers some ideas and reflections regarding
Videogames and Education and Homebrew as interconnected situated practices.
3) The article’s second purpose is to inspire the readers to become connectors, connector
agents.
Section 1. Converging Times: from Gutenberg to 3DS and back.
To make a very long and complicated story short, human beings (together as one
scattered 3D being) came to develop the ability to mount knowledge over knowledge and skill
over skill, this, done time over time in an ever happening fashion, connecting, in the process,
a collective archive of discoveries that when combined, have brought forth an infinite myriad
of manifestations. Key example: The press. Gutenberg’s press came into the scene in the
year 1450 and its significance is fundamental: mass production of content carrying devices
finally came into existence. No wonder Mark Twain expressed the following a hundred years
ago: "What the world is today, good and bad, it owes to Gutenberg. Everything can be traced to
this source, but we are bound to bring him homage, ... for the bad that his colossal invention has
brought about is overshadowed a thousand times by the good with which mankind has been
favored." American writer Mark Twain (1835−1910) source: Wikipedia.
Fast forward to 2010 and you have individual and collective agents that, from any place
on earth, can seamlessly connect to the cloud to produce and consume thoughts and ideas,
memories and videos, real time conversations and long distance agreements while also being
able to make such recordings available and instantly transmittable to as many people as the
agents’ connections allow. Network connections. Vital connections.
It also happens that in 2010 Nintendo unveiled its 3DS console. To many people that
fact could and will mean nothing, and there is nothing absolutely wrong with that. Even so, I am
enormously thrilled.
In this era, the era of the Internet, I have oftentimes imagined the invention of a toy (or
what could also be called a tool, or gadget, or app, or machine) that will let me drawrite what I

2. have in my mind with as much fidelity as possible to what I see being produced in my mind... I
am talking about much more than words; words and historical data and live happening arranged
in sentences, images and constellations, twirling up into the foreground, embracing eachoter as
vynes, becoming images, moving animals, like roots chasing soil;
It also happens that, by today, the Internet has been invented (or materialized one
could choose to argue) and with it, eventually, Google. Not google the company but google the
information finder: the tool by which millions upon millions of different people everyday look up
into our collected memories (the wholeness of the Internet or whatever one can grasp of it) from
today to as long back as records that can be made digital exist. Those collected memories are
now called the cloud and it could be represented like this:
a three dimensional structure that spans into all directions, with its own set of rules and patterns,
and cycles of that. its expanding-ness can only be partially perceived as this is in fact a 2D
image of a 3D concept.
And so, Nintendo is readying to soon release its 3DS system for mass consumption.
(For those unaware of what a 3DS is, I highly suggest stopping your reading of this article for
now and getting that piece of information).
Now, as you have probably read, the 3DS is a handheld console designed to function as
a machine that ‘plays’ games, apps and software via various input methods for control (ranging
from analog buttons to touchscreen, microphone, accelerometers and gyroscopes) while being
also the screens that display the content.
One could say that in essence, the Nintendo 3DS (very much like every “Game Boy” in
its onthology) will be a games machine. And for a whole lot of the world’s population so it will
be. Nintendo will probably promote it as a games machine with different applications (very much
like the DSlite, DSi-XL) such as music player, camera, Internet connection... The little gadget,
no matter what the publicitary strategy, will allow people to connect. Even if that very important
detail is not the main selling value or strategy.
And that is exactly where I see the astounding potential of the device. To explain so, it
would be best to clarify the 2nd premise of this article: Video Games, Education and Homebrew
matter together.

3. Before proceeding any further, do please click on the following highlighted words as
many times as necessary as to gain familiarity with the contexts and events each category
withholds. They are core elements of the foundations of this article:
VIDEOGAMES EDUCATION HOMEBREW
So... how to sum that up? well, how about: Video games are a modern form of
entertainment that has been gaining notoriety all across Japan, United States and eventually
in many countries in every continent as they have consistently shaped up as an industry that
moves as much money as the Movies industry. And you know what? They move not only
money, they move people, ideas, interactions and values. What? Ideas, values and ultimatelly,
interactions? Were not those the aims of education? What? Is there education outside formal
education? You bet.
You see, schools, as the physical manifestation through which education tries to pursue
its goals, have long tried to (and succeeded in many cases) be the space where people go to
learn what can be learned and what should be learned. News Flash: Today it is possible to
engage in such an academic dynamic without stepping out of the room, any room. Yeah, pretty
unimpressive stuff, right? Not at all.
People are teaching people outside of schools. Individuals are learning from individuals
(thus becoming a community) outside the boundaries of schools and this is what homebrew is
all about, even if the people are to be called hackerz.
Funny: ultimately, people inside schools have begun noticing the learning and
developments that are being generated outside of formal/legitimate institutions and are trying
to bring said processes into the institutions. But that is not to come as a surprise because for a
long time, Schools have tried importing theories, techniques and methods developed in many
other fields and areas such as the military, the industry and even the religions.
In the case of video game consoles, they have now begun to be seen as bounded to
group dynamics, as teaching aids, as learning environments, as interactive whiteboards, as net
browsers, information managers, reading devices, as writing tools, etc. It is the writing one of
the things I most care for.
Section 2. Writing the mind roads of God.
There are three kinds of writing/drawing that the 3DS will allow people to do, even if
Nintendo does not have this in mind. The first one is the most common one which is the 2D
writing, the very same one that would happen if you (the reader) were to take a piece of paper
and a pen, and decided to write a note to your friend. Or even, it happens right now as I type my
ideas, the ones that are now going your way thanks to your 2D reading.

4. The second one consists on being able to draw a tridimensional shape on a 2D plane, say a
cube just like this:
and having it shown in three dimensions, very much looking to what you would see with a
stereogram like this:
Now, if for a reason you have never before seen a stereogram (or you have not yet
seen the movie Avatar presented in 3D) you might what to stop your reading now and look up
techniques to read them (yeah, images are read too).
The third writing mode could be called ‘Live Real Collective Writing’. It would work like
this. A person holding the 3DS will be able to literally draw into the air (accelerometers and
gyroscopes in function) by moving the hand or even the entire body. Imagine: you set the
drawing app (developed by the homebrew community) in the 3DS to consider a 10 square
meters plane. The app will now be able to calculate the position of the 3DS in that 10 square
meters plane. You could walk around the area, intentionally twisting and bending your path
and have it all recorded into the app. What would that look like? Like reality. Like a frozen flow
of reality. Imagine: being able to draw a sphere by outlining its shape with the hand via real
movements and then have it presented in a 3D (thus scalable and rotatable) image.
Imagine: from two to five people with 3DS, drawing 3D shapes into virtual planes and
then integrating the data as to create complex 3D models.

5. Imagine: a console that holds the potential of combining Movement Tracking technology
(think GPS writing combined with foursquare and google earth and maps), Data Journalism
(live images of social behaviour), connectivity with other individuals and groups (mounting on
facebook or twitter, or google sites, or moodle).
Imagine: a momentum in human history where governments will want and need to cling
(with all the required copyleft) onto user defined trends and devices to offer better services
based on real social data.
Imagine, imagine, imagine.
...What? Is that it? nothing about the games? Nothing about Mario? Or Metroid? Or Metal
Gear? Or SUPER STREET FIGHTER IV 3D? Or DJ Hero 3D? Or possible Virtual Boy remakes?
No, not this time. We will leave that for another occasion. Rest assured though that I am as
much thrilled by the 3DS as a socially pertinent device as well as a gaming console. I am a
gamer after all, a gamer at heart, a gamer whose favorite console has for a long time been the
Virtual Boy, a gamer that has bought, sold and rebought even the 64DD. These are good times
for gaming. These are good times for social change. These are good times indeed.
R. Out.
PS.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgxGo0rsdco