Kids are told non-stop to put the video game controller down and go outside. Or read a book. Or play with siblings. Video games have gotten a bad reputation as a waste of time, but in the field of education, they just might redeem themselves. The incorporation of games in education has its benefits, including increased learning retention, greater…
Games in education are nothing new. Because of their strategic nature that they share with subjects such as math, reading and writing, games have been used in the K-12 curriculums for decades. What is new is the use of a specific type of game for these subjects: the video game. This is especially the case with language arts. Like comic books, video games (including computer or PC games) in language arts curriculum have been controversial over whether they’re appropriate learning tools. This is because of the violent and seemingly trivial subject matter that video games have been stereotyped with. Besides this, its very graphic nature, moving pictures, has connoted the video game to be as mind-numbing as television has typically been made to seem. Like TV, the video game has been turned into an enemy of the traditionally more academic medium: the book. But these stereotypes are being broken more and more each day. Video games are showing capability of teaching the necessary literacy skills kids need to survive both in their studies and in the workplace later in life.
While educational games have a history of contributing positively to student learning, there are cases where something developers perhaps should not have turned into a game. The recent flak over Mission US: Flight to Freedom illustrates the point.
Last time, we featured USA Today national education writer and author, Greg Toppo to discuss about his recently released book, “The Game Believes in You: How Digital Play Can Make Our Kids Smarter”. Hailed as the most important book since James Paul Gee’s pivotal work, The Game Believes in You covers how video games are presently being used in the classroom setting and the visionaries who have led the way.
Watch the full interview below to learn about:
Watch the video below and be sure to catch our next episode of the Gamification Revolution.
It’s the scene of a crime, set in some indeterminate time in the future. Forensic experts, computer experts, and scientists fill the scene. You are one of them. Your job is to gather clues and recover data from a top-secret research project that somehow goes wrong. It sounds like the plot of a movie. But in fact, it’s a game called Max5 and it’s another example of games being used in education, this time, for teaching science, technology, engineering, and mathemetics – the so-called “STEM” fields.
The notion that games are more than trivial toys that waste time is a radical one and has been confronted with a lot of controversy. The efforts of teams of talented individuals are being recognized. These innovative approaches to game playing are now being followed by the actions of powerful companies in the game industry.
With both games and gamification becoming more popular in the educational space, it is more important than ever to understand the differences between them. While they may seem very similar, they have different costs, implementations and, most importantly, different results. This is because educational games do something that gamification systems do not: they immerse the…
It’s Mission Possible for 1:1 iPad Use at BHS Think games in education, and the first to come to mind are those for students. However, gamification is also being employed to advance educators in their profession. Consider Mission Possible, a gamified experience developed at Bettendorf High School in Iowa to promote the implementation of 1:1 iPad use…
