Educational Video
Gaming in School
Should there be video gaming style
learning curriculum in schools? If so how much time should be allowed to be
used “playing” the games and how much time should be divided for regular
teaching practices with teacher/student interaction? My personal opinion is still being
made up on this exact formula for classroom usage, however I do see a great
value in this age in having high tech educational games, which would be
interesting to children and of the same caliber as games found on the market
today.
Cons
to having this type of educational gaming system in the classroom is children
may want to only “play” the games and not concentrate on other school subjects.
This also may keep children in a hyper or worked up state if they are
continually in “game mode” and overloading on dopamine, potentially making it
harder to keep control over children in times they are supposed to be doing
other activities. I also believe that as great as new technology is, it is
making it harder for children to behave in social environments where there is
no technological entertainment available to them. Children can sit for hours
and play games, but send them outside these days and they are bored with
nothing to do. Imagination seems to be able to be enjoyed by children as
crazier and crazier things appear for entertainment, but actual child
imagination output is, in my opinion, going down. I do believe technology such as gaming
programs need to be limited in the classroom. I don’t favor children being
hooked into technology 24/7. I think it is healthy to have many different
aspects of technology and learning, so children can learn to cope without
constant need to be connected to electronic devices.
The
upside to educational gaming is that most children enjoy gaming and it would be
another way to inspire children to want to learn. My children play video games
and even though I played as a child, I can’t play 3D versions of games where
you can roam in any direction. I can only play games that go to the right or
left, as 3D games weren’t around when I was younger. These new inventions in
systems are great for children to learn as they are growing up and if they
could be brought into the classroom on a level that was close to the quality of
games today, I think that would be a great advantage to learning. Children love
to receive rewards. Humans as a whole do things only for the mere reward. We
work to get a paycheck. I don’t think people would work just for the feeling of
accomplishing something if there wasn’t a monetary reward every two weeks.
Children are built the same, they enjoy rewards over the “look you got a grade”
for the class. If there was an enjoyment level to the game where they completed
missions and were allowed to do more fun levels by learning and imputing facts,
I think that would be the best of both worlds.
I
liked this passage found in the article we read on gaming, the author mentions
that, “These programs also provide
timely corrective and progress-acknowledging feedback that allows the students
to correct mistakes, build understanding progressively, and recognize their
incremental progress. “ I think that is a very big key. The program
would need to give advice on why the answer was wrong and what can be done to
correct the program, so children aren’t just blindly going through the motions,
but learning how to correct their mistakes so they can benefit the next time
they are asked to solve a similar problem. I love the idea of using technology
such as games to excite children about learning. In my opinion these new styles
of teaching are great, but need to be used in moderation and have research done
on what the effects of overloading children on continual use of “screen time”
are. Everything in moderation seems to be the key to most of life’s dilemmas.
Article: Willis, Judy. "A Neurologist Makes the Case for the Video Game Model as a Learning Tool." Edutopia (2011): n. pag. 14 Apr. 2011. Web. 24 Oct. 2013.
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