The Education Arcade at MIT defines Games Literacy as the "critical appreciation and analysis of video games and empowerment and learning through production." While learning to make games is certainly invaluable to the understanding of them, for practical purposes, we will focus on the first half of this definition.

We will examine video games from all angles, from gameplay, to the players who play them to the industry that creates them, in order to gain a solid, working knowledge of the medium and understand how they've become an integral part of the cultural landscape of a generation.

There's only one requirement - that you approach the subject with an inquisitive and open mind. Not an easy thing to do, especially with the pervasive conventional wisdom that video games are all violent, misogynistic time-wasters, but don’t we ask the same of our students as we lead them into a new and somewhat controversial subject, be they sixth graders or doctoral candidates?

Some of you may be saying, “I hate games” or “I stink at games”. Don’t worry, the point is not to make you a great gamer (though your skills in that area will probably improve). The point is to give you a broad understanding of the strengths and limitations of video games and, in the process, have you recognize their incredible potential as learning tools.