Ramble on the Internet

We always talked about the role play in a game setting, which can probably increase engagement of learning. I am quite interested in it, but haven’t got any time for it. I would like to see to what extent the engagement of playing can smoothly promote the value of learning over time.

What I would like to mention here is my real life role play in northeast Wales. I took a break to enjoy the traditional British family life for weekend. Unfortnately, I was full equipmented this time, with my laptop and mobile device. I can access the Internet and check email through my mobile phone during the time, in order to make sure I was not really out of my real life. On the other hand, fortunately, I hardly used my laptop (won’t bring it for my next travelling). Instead, I read a number of children’s books at Lynn’s house. I really liked them. Not surprisely, I found children’s language is much more interesting than the academic language I touch on everyday. Lynn is a child minder. We had several children coming for weekend. I enjoyed playing cards with them. I was wondering whether they thought I was too boring or not. It was hard for me to find some common topics with them. I tried hard to get involved with them. However, I still didn’t quite understand how to play that complicated card game. I was in charge of their graveyards, where the dead cards were buried. This means I could only have a look at these cards, which would not be used during the play. In other words, I was a watcher. At first, I found out that a four year old didn’t talk when I was sitting next to him. If I left the room, he started to talk loudly. If I came into the room, he stoped talking again. There was definitely a gap between him and me. Maybe my charming smile won his trust. He finally asked me to hold his hand when we went through the tunnel, which made me very happy.

During the weekend, I totally played another role in the life, which was so different from my real life. My real family was not like Thomas’ family, when I was little. On the way back to Oxford, I was thinking whether I lost something when I was walking fast along the road. Life can be so different when you were turning around.