Cesar:
As graphics and quality of game technology increases so can thelevel of education on kids and teenagers that play these games. Educational researchers have a growing concern that students that play video games ar not using their skills properly and in the right way. They believe that there is a way that student that are able to play video games with such dexterity could focus those abilities in academic way yet, still in the virtual world.
In Edutopia, a tech magazine and website, there is an article called Serious Gaming by Richard Rapaport in which it mentiones educational researchers are working together with game manufacturers in order to create what they call "serious games". These type of game would be ones that will aloow the assesment of data, see the achievment of the individuals, and at the same time estimulate the mind with academics topics. Despite this idea already being used in some schools the ability of gathering live data from these games is new. One example of how a "serious game" would be the River City Project. What this game is basically give a student a virtual world in which (nineteenth century) and this particular city has an epidemic that is undiagnosed. Another example of a probaly more common game is Brain Age, which is the Nintendo DS game that challenges the mind in different dificulties. This type of game stimulates the mind and keeps it active. Therefore being consider a "healthy"game.
I personally found interesting the River City Project and would honestly like to give it a shot some day. The whole idea of bringing in games into academics is something i find very intersting because they chose something that todays current youth has a strong grasp on, especially new generations. Also technology is entering all aspects of our daily life, so the fact that educational researchers and gaming communities are comming together to form something that would bring best of both worlds is something that will definately make a difference.
-http://www.edutopia.org/whats-next-2008-games-assessment
-http://muve.gse.harvard.edu/rivercityproject/
Here are som Videos you can watch:
http://muve.gse.harvard.edu/rivercityproject/view/rc_videos.html
Judging by the attemps of educational boards effort to try and bring games into classrooms for educational purposes, In your opinion how much success do you think that these "serious games" will have if launched world wide, in a 5 year term for example and why. Also how much do you personally agree with playing a video game in the classroom instead of using the traditional pencil and paper?
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I really like the idea of having students go into a virtual world and learn from what it seems the real world. However, after visiting the "River City Project" website, I wondered how the disease actually spreads. Is it affected by the interaction amongst users or is it predetermined by the software developers? Because I think that this can affect the effectiveness of this game very much. If it were like a Computer Aided Instruction, then there is limited feedback and not a lot of information could be gained from the game.
ReplyDeleteIm very interested in those "educational game" plus, i actually have the game Brain Age, and it is really fun, feel like my brain is activating. However i think game is game. those kind of educational game would not affect the school grade as bad as normal games, but it will still do. Because if you get addicted to those game, then you will start not doing homework, class works etc... These kind of game expands your common knowldge, but not to help you get better grades on classes.
ReplyDeleteI think these educational games are very good and it keeps the students more motivated to work and learn at the same time, i don't think these games will affect the students performance at school or even their grades because although it is a game, is for the purpose of education meaning that they are learning from this. I don't think that a student will get addicted to this type of games, in that case it is having a positive effect since the student is getting more knowledge.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, I personally agree to have a launched game than with a pen and paper. For me, it would save both the class and the school's materials because it waste money to produce such amount of materials for the whole school. Being in a virtual world in a classroom would help the students to learn and really get into a topic that the teacher teaches and what the student is really interested in.
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