Gaming

I spent so much time playing some of these online games that I almost ran out of time to post this blog. My four year old daughter, Evelyn, played a lot of these games with me.  We started on the list of hyperlinks for assignment 5.3. The very first item listed is the PBS website.  Right away we got preoccupied with playing the Dr. Seuss game of matching similar shapes and patterns.  She loved it.  When I inssted that we stop playing so I could research the next online gaming site, she got upset.  That was until she saw it.  She very quickly became engrossed in one of the higher level brain games on the Sheppard Software website.  We played the bouncing balls game where you need to destroy round balloons in groups of three. She didn't fully understand it but still took to it and was very interested in the game.  Then I insisted we stopped because she had homework to do from her pre-school class.  We had to go over her "sight words." That's when I really noticed the difference in using games to learn vs. traditional learning methods.  As soon as I pulled out her sight word flash cards, she became uninterested and bored.  This gave me an idea.  I took her sight words and put each one on a powerpoint slide.  I then made a game of it and timed her to see if she could get 10 sight words correct in 1 minute.  If she did, I put a sticker on this card for her.  After about 20 minutes, she got it.  I was doing the same exercise as before essentially but since it looked like a game and was on the computer, she wanted to do it.

 I'm not a teacher, but I think this course has taught me that introducing games as a tool for learning is a great way to grab children's interest.  I wish that when I was a student there were more games as a method of learning.  I often became bored easily in social studies and had no interest in learning a foreign language.  I had a tough time figuring out how algebra would ever be used in the real world.  I just wasn't interested. But then I'd go home and play Legend of Zelda for 3 hours. Now there are games as interesting and as fun to play as Zelda but are also Educational. World of Warcraft is a great example of a game that is fun for kids but also educational in the aspect that games like these are complex, and include solo as well as group content and goals that are collaborative as well as some that are competitive. (Johnson 2011. 20) World of WarCraft is a Multiplayer Online game that allows several players to play together and against eachother at the same time.

We have a PS3 at our house and my kids play the EyePet game using the Move controller.  I never even thought of this as a form of augmented reality until this assignment.  But essesntially, EyePet teaches our kids how to take care of an animal by feeding, bathing and playing with this virtual animal.  It is very fascinating and the kids love it...so much so, that we were able to avoid purchasing an actual dog in leiu of our virtual pet.  (How's that for dodging a bullet! Ha!)   

Another site I found fasicinating was the Virtual Reality game called Teen Second Life.  This game is almost scary. This allows kids to recreate themselves and live in a virtual world.  They can socialize with other virtual people, get jobs, make money, attend partys, etc... One of the most appealing attributes to Virtual and Augmented Reality games according to Dennis Whatley, CEO of Breakaway LTD states is that it "they (students) can make mistakes without taking risks." (Edutopia) That may not be true with a game that is this real.  This Teen Second Life still has real life people using alias identities but mistakes can translate into their real lives.  These games become popular amongst teenage students who all know each other in school. Bullying and teasing can occur within these games, the same way it occurs in real life. This game is extremely realistic but I would caution teens to get too involved in this life because it could definitely lead to a false perception of reality when not playing in the game.  This type of virtual reality could take over a student's actual reality and consume their personality.  While it's cool technology, to me it scares me and I'm not certain it provides too much educational value.

Don't get me wrong, in general, I think thatVirtual Technology overall is a positive thing that should be implemented in schools.  Computer simulations and virtual reality offer students the unique opportunity of experiencing and exploring a broad range of environments, objects, and phenomena within the walls of the classroom. (Strangman. 2009).  I just think that there needs to be rules in place and enforced for students that participate in virtual gaming within the classroom environment to minimize risks that could transition into real life. 

The few types of video games that were out there when I was a child were not allowed in schools.  I remember teachers confiscating Nintendo GameBoys in the early 90's from students who brought them to school.  That mindset is changing.  Schools are beginning the transition from blocking web-based games to integrating them into their classrooms and curriculums. (Johnson.2011. 19)

 I think this blending gaming  with education is a wonderful thing.  In fact one of the reasons I am so interested in this major (Educational Technology) is because I see how technology can be used to make learning fun.  One of my biggest regrets as a student is that I never got interested in some subjects becasue it was typically just having to read and memorize facts out of a text.  I think games can really make learning fun for kids. 

References:

Johnson, L., Adams, S., and Haywood, K., (2011). The NMC Horizon Report: 2011 K-12 Edition. Austin, Texas: The New Media Consortium.

Johnson, L., Smith, R., Willis, H., Levine, A., and Haywood, K., (2011). The 2011 Horizon Report.

Edutopia: Schools Use Games For Learning and Assessment. (n.d.)
 http://www.edutopia.org/computer-simulations-games-virtual-learning-video

Strangman, Nicole., Hall, Tracey (2009), Virtuality/ Simulations
http://aim.cast.org/learn/historyarchive/backgroundpapers/virtual_simulations