Tangential Learning through Pokemon Games

[jireh the provider]

If you are reading this, if you can give as much detailed answers as you can, it can definitely help me on my college research paper for next week. I hope a lot of you can aid me here. Sorry if this is a bother.

By the way, welcome to the thread talking about the lessons gamers like some of us here on Pokeheroes can learn from video games like the Pokemon Franchise.

Before I delve into the questions, one thing that I can share to you is the concept of Tangential Learning . If you don't know what that is, it is a modern teaching approach and game designing approach where people can learn any kind of lesson by doing hobbies that they want that is "enabled", NOT "enforced." If the video game enforces learning, Tangential Learning doesn't happen. But if it is "facilitated" or "enabled". I suggest that you watch a video about Tangential Learning by Extra Credits on youtube to have more details.

Just to give you an example as to how video games have enabled Tangential Learning in my experiences, here are two examples:

a. In the Pokemon Franchise, Jirachi is one of my personal all time favorite Pokemon. Due to how curious I was on her characteristics, I searched online and found more on her cultural origins on bulbapedia. That research lead me to learn more about the Tanabata Festival of Japan which I had come to learn to truly admire its lore. As a little fun fact, just a few weeks ago, I reported on literature class about Chinese Literature and also discovered that the Tanabata Festival's original source came from a popular Chinese Fable called The Weaver Girl and The Cowherd. Another element comes fro the Regi Challenge for I never knew how to solve those braile letters back in the day where I actually had to research about Braile writing just for me to solve the puzzle vack in 2005.

b. Another video game that got me a little bit inspired to learn about some iconic historical buildings come from the Assassins Creed Franchise where I take summary lessons about the iconic locations such as the Rome Coliseum, various churches, learn and appreciate the legacies of Leonardo Da Vinci,and learn more as to what made the Renaissance such an iconic historical era.

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So now here are my questions:

1. Can you name any video game title that you played or watched a lets play on Youtube in the past that made you interested on learning any kind of topic? What topic have you been able to learn or make you search about it?

2. Have you played any video game that drove you to learn any kind of language? Or have you learned words coming from a specific field of work, practice, business, or culture?

Just for the sake of clarity, only post Pokemon related Tangential Learning on this thread. If you can give examples of applied tangential learning experiences through other video game titles, click here to answer these too.

 

[Vinc2612]

I can speak and work in English now. Thanks Smogon! Also, I always feel a bit awesome when I can use words like "dew", words that I never use even in French.

I've became an even bigger nerd by learning exactly how do probabilities work, how they add themselves up. Who needs .lavoscalc?

Talking about maths, I can calculate actual stat from base stat in a couple of seconds. It's my main source of mental calculation, and it is rather effective.

Those are the main ones I can think of, but it's always cool to notice actual real life improvements from our favourite videogames :D

 

[flargananddingle]

As Vince said, learning the core mechanics of Pokémon (battling and breeding) pushed me to learn math that I never would have bothered to learn otherwise and, in the case of cartridge play, how those ideas are implemented in the game.

The biggest thing for me though, is the obscure biology facts that you come across in a Pokémon game. In universe, sandshrew is just an adorable ground type. But in the real world, how many people even know what a pangolin is? The symbiotic relationships between things echo the real world and if not for Pokémon, I would take a lot of them for granted.

Then of course there's taking the somewhat morphed mythos of Pokémon (and their designs) that made me curious to learn about several other cultures. Off the top of my head Jirachi's correlation to Tanabata, Infernape's allusion to 'Journey to the West', the connections of the 6th Gen legends with Norse mythology, the creation legend of Gen 4...if you need more examples I could go on for days.

 

[Kyergr]

Throughout my 8 years of playing pokemon, I've learned a lot, but what i learned without realizing it is the importance of allocation of resources.

You see I first started on Pokémon Pearl for the DS. Little 8 year old Kyergr loved the pokemon anime and wanted to be just like Ash, who always was switching out his pokemon. because of this, i ended up with an evenly trained team of an empoleon, two kadabras, a gyarados, a palkia, and a medicham by the end.

Then i backtracked and played emerald. I only ever used my blaziken and it was level 50 when my others were level 17. thats when i learned that i had to use my resource of time and exp wisely

 

[jireh the provider]

As Vince said, learning the core mechanics of Pokémon (battling and breeding) pushed me to learn math that I never would have bothered to learn otherwise and, in the case of cartridge play, how those ideas are implemented in the game.

The biggest thing for me though, is the obscure biology facts that you come across in a Pokémon game. In universe, sandshrew is just an adorable ground type. But in the real world, how many people even know what a pangolin is? The symbiotic relationships between things echo the real world and if not for Pokémon, I would take a lot of them for granted.

Then of course there's taking the somewhat morphed mythos of Pokémon (and their designs) that made me curious to learn about several other cultures. Off the top of my head Jirachi's correlation to Tanabata, Infernape's allusion to 'Journey to the West', the connections of the 6th Gen legends with Norse mythology, the creation legend of Gen 4...if you need more examples I could go on for days.

I actually encourage you to give all of the examples you can share.

 

[I.care.0]

When I was 7, my mom gave me a Game Boy with a Pokemon Blue cartridge. I hated english at the time, but I forced myself to learn it just to be able to beat Marcelo, the boy that lived next door. 19 years have passed since then and now I'm a English teacher working towards my CPE, and I personally know three other teachers that first tried to learn english due to games. One of them actually published a paper on the use of MMOs to help teaching english.

 

[Heracr055]

Pokemon taught me how to spell psychic at a young age. That's what sticks out most