S640 Blog Posting #9 by Maywin A. Jackson
Networking, Gaming, and Teen Education
First, I am not a gamer, but have spent many hours trying to talk to my grandsons while they sat drooling as their glazed eyes focused on the same screen and game they had been playing for an unbelievable amount of time.
I can not understand why our educators don’t see a wonderful opportunity to appeal to students through gaming.
After reading the article Pew Internet and American Life Project, it became clear to me that gamers are prime targets for really good games with civic information peppered throughout them.
As I said, I am not a gamer, but why can’t educators incorporate gaming into their classrooms to some degree in order to heighten these young kids’ interest in various school related topics?
I was even more certain that this could work after I read through the Pew Internet and American Life Project.
This article covers various topics about youth and gaming, but the thing I noticed the most was, again, the number of young people who love these games. As I’ve said, I see such potential for games in the educational arena. There must be someone already working on this.
Watching my gaming grandsons through the years I have seen them all take turns working their way through Grand Theft Auto, Halo and all the other popular games. They are all basically the same: The main character has only so much time to either steal a certain amount of cars; kill so many women or men, find the magic door to go through, acquire so many items to build up power and more time; etc. Pretty basic stuff, but there has to be a way to create a civic related game. Like, the main character has to act as an attorney and must select the correct court to try his best friend for hijacking an airplane. He/she will have the choice of civil, supreme/etc. and he must figure out how to open that particular door before he can represent his client. Then, he or she will have to go through the correct process of jury selection, and so on. Of course, there would be lots and lots of shootings, lots of explosions and just a general reeking of havoc; and of course blowing things up.
I can hear it now, “no mom, I don’t want dinner, I’m right in the middle of homework.”
Of course, this is just an imaginary scenario, but you get the idea.
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I think that using games for educational purposes is a great idea, but I'll bet it would take a lot of skill an savvy to do it in a way that appealed to gaming youth. Without a great deal of care, the educational games could end up like conditioning shampoo: not effective at either aim.
ReplyDeleteMy brother and sister became addicted to a Wii game called "Trauma Center" in which you have to do surgeries on patients in a hospital environment. They found this game fun and challenging, and you can see the potential a game like this would have in teaching human anatomy. I think educational video games work best when the user is role playing--pretending to be someone from the past or someone with a different job. I think as video games become more sophisticated it will be easier to place classes in these type of virtual environments.
ReplyDeleteThis does sounds like an interesting idea, and it seems like it would be helpful in appealing to those with different learning styles, or possibly those with development disorders. I just read a BBC story (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7935336.stm) where they mention a study being done, using a music video game to see how it will (or will not) positively affect the brains of autistic children.
ReplyDeleteArizona State University's library came up with a game called Quarantined to teach students how to do library research. I've seen it demoed and it's pretty cool.
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