While I agree that games and videogames can be important tools in teaching literacy, there are some serious differences. With videogames, even interactive ones, you cannot claim the same social capital is being generated. If it is an online game and you are not in the room with the other players, the same social skills are not developed - you can ‘ignore’ anyone you dislike, and you can quiet and restart the game instead of working out constructive solutions, as you often have to do when in the same room as the other players.

I lived with adult gamers for awhile who were serious WoW players (I realize this addresses games at the school-age level, but it paves the road for behavior down the line, as well), and while the structure of that particular game forces you to be social (i.e., join guilds) in order to get to the end-game, the social dynamic of video games encourages isolation from *real* social interaction. Some will argue against my dichotomizing the online world from the ‘real’ world, but it is a distinction that needs to be made, and early, given some of the unhealthy tendencies children are taking with them into adulthood.

Anyway, yes, a certain kind of socialization occurs even in videogames, but it would be dangerous to equate it with the socialization of interacting with other human bodies in a ‘real’ setting.

Where I do disagree with you is that “the social dynamic of video games encourages isolation from *real* social interaction.” There are some videogames that are better with real social interaction and some that foster it. This is no different than with any type of gaming (including sports).

I also don’t see anyone equating socialization around videogames with socialization in other settings, although I will note that my experiences as a casual gamer involve very “real,” very social interactions. Just because they happen around videogames does not make them any less valid than if they occurred around books, television, movies, the weather, fishing, knitting, or politics.

I see IM as a tool, not an activity, and I know a lot of students use IM to collaboratively work on homework. Would you also describe using the telephone as a waste of time? If the student is IMing with a librarian, does that make it okay?

I don’t mean to pick on you (I appreciate your comments), but I feel like there is more to these things than just pure recreation and that they do have learning value. As with any subject, you’re spot on that the instructor can be key. So can parents.