The more I think
about video games, the more I recognize their educational value. My initial
reaction to the article we read about the educational merit of video games was
fairly ambivalent; however, Clay Shirky’s words on page 138 of The Influencing Machine changed my
opinion. I really like his analogy about sifting through all of the books in
Barnes and Noble when illustrating the act of surfing the Internet, and I think
this also applies to the use of video games in the classroom. Are all video
games worth using in lessons? Of course not. But, this doesn’t mean there
aren’t quality games out there that could contribute to a student’s academic
progress. Teachers just need to design “filters” for video games so as to choose
the most effective ones for learning—as opposed to just pure entertainment. And,
as Brooke Gladstone explains, there are numerous filters already available,
such as online social networks and special interest communities. For example,
it took me a total of three seconds to stumble upon this webpage on CoLearners,
which is devoted entirely to the latest research on video games:
Seeing all of
the enthusiasm others have for the use of video games as educational tools has
actually raised my interest in this topic. I suppose when you boil them down to
their essential forms, books and video games aren’t really that much different.
What do you
think? Have your opinions changed (like mine) or remained the same about the
use of video games in the classroom?
I never ever thought I could use a video game in the classroom unit our class discussing it. I found that i even knew about video games on my own that I could use. I really liked Dalin's comment aboutt using it to teach perspective, you could use whatever video game was hot and coming in the pop future of the students.
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