Learning with Educational Video Games
Tierra Ricks
English Composition II
Prof. Annemarie Hamlin
March 14, 2016
Educational video games have been a hot topic in the past few years. Educational games prepare children to be more proficient with their work while being entertained. Educational video games promote good memory skills, provides motivation, and improves motor skills for children that are school aged in the United States. They can educate children in a healthy environment that provides excellent communication, so they can enhance their learning. It can enhance problem- solving while playing strategy games or puzzles. It also challenges the brain that connects memory and decision making. Educational video games are essential for the
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Their education is important. Education is what gives them the foundation for which to explore, progress, and even conquer the world around them. Giving children the best opportunities by using the best tools to equip them is vital to their overall success. The tools we used before are often outdated and no longer relevant. Video games can replace those old techniques that have aged poorly. Video games can be the new tool to be used by students and teachers to best equip students for the world they will face today’s world. Josh Kenworthy reports on stories where students describing our schools like prisons. More and more students find themselves trapped within in school, feeling like prisoners. Video games, not only can be used by teachers to learn the best way to interact with and teach their students, but also can be a way for students to find some joy in school, while still benefiting the student. This will help remove the prison-like feel from schools. Teaching children to love learning comes through many aspects. Change within our education system is needed, and video games should be seriously considered as that change. Often, Video games can teach children important life skills while still holding their attention. Overall, video games have the potential to radically and positively change both the way teachers teach and how students
As stated earlier, there are several good learning principles that video games teach, which in turn complements learning. Video games allow students to explore roles and environments that would be otherwise impossible in a real-world setting. This principle is identity. Students learn a new domain by first experiencing/playing a new identity (Gee, 2005). In this identity, whether it is one created by students or a pre-created one that they take on, students observe value and work in the world, the way that their new identity does. In these games, students have the freedom to make alterations to the environments that they are in. Also, there are exposures to different time periods and extraordinary events. Reflection based on this data, reveals significant usage opportunities in subjects like social studies; timelines, time periods,
Moreover, Johnson says that the video games are a good challenge for children’s brains. Through video games and difficult puzzles children are developing higher senses such as a better mind-body coordination and also a higher reflex to the outside
“c(or getting better at) and enjoy. In other words, gameplay is the direct emotional opposite of depression.” Says Jane Mcgonigal, an American game designer and Author. Kids and Adults of all ages enjoy and play video games because they can be helpful in many different ways. For example, they can teach life lessons, motivate children to read, and help train the brain so it can think fast and strong.
Understanding and action go together. We think more fluidly when an action is associated with a concept. Video games contain, joined together, both action and thought. This leads to a much better internalization and understanding of the game's subject matter. In a study done in Germany in 2008, participants were given a simple task to learn, such as Juggling. After about 12 weeks, these people showed a marked increase in the amount of grey matter in their brains. Further examination of these results revealed that it was, in fact, the act of learning coupled with the action that caused this increase, not simply the performance of the action itself. This suggests that games not only are excellent ways of teaching, they can have lasting beneficial effects on the health of the brain itself.
Good Morning, everyone, i'm going to start off with a poll of who all plays video games in this class. A lot of you/ maybe not too many in this class play video games and/but, as of 2015, 42% of Americans played video games at least 3 hours a week, which is roughly 135 million of the total population. This proves that video games play a large role in our society. Today I’m going to be speaking about the psychological effects that video games have on youth, but in order to do that, I need to inform you of the evolution of violent video games, the effects of violent video games, and the positive effects of video games.
Thesis: If a common-sense philosophy is employed, video games can be beneficial to a child’s development.
Today, many tend to believe that videogames have major negative effects on the brain and a person’s well being. People and scientists believe that videogames can be addictive after a while, they can make children antisocial, and they negatively influence young children and teens. Although many like to believe that videogames are more harmful than helpful, there are actually more positives than negatives. With video games, kids learn quick thinking, multitasking, problem solving, logic, and much more. In fact, some schools have adopted the idea of offering game design in the library as a way to help enhance children and teens thinking. These are just a few of the many traits that kids will need later on in life.
This book looks at the educational level of what video games have to teach us. Gee analyze what a good video game are, which possessive the characteristics of being hard, long, and complex. Furthermore, the game develops complex challenges, a learning potential, and steady struggles in the game leading to be
Video games can be used as instructional tools as well. They have positive elements and add value; they create a micro world of their own. The players act based on natural tendencies towards learning. Therefore, learning occurs while playing (Rosas et al., 2003).
Many young children and teenagers have heard their mother’s incessant plead to get away from the screen and to go outside or pick up a book for once instead. The urge to play “just one more level” before starting that homework or doing those chores can be quite distracting. But are video games really as awful as Mom exclaims or as brutal as those TV ads depict? It turns out that video games can have a strong impact on participants’ lives in both positive as well as negative ways.
In today’s society, the concerns for the effects of video games have acquired quite a terrible reputation. Worried parents around the world assume video games make their children do poorly in school, and create violent, desensitized, antisocial children. The increase in violent games, usually get the blame for aggressive behavior, shootings and violence in schools and young individuals. Most beliefs about video games effect on the brain and emotions are very common misconceptions. I strongly believe that video games are an essential tool to learning and gaining much-needed skills. When people look at the studies that have been done on video games and the brain, it will be apparent that some myths about video games have been blown out of proportion. It has come to my attention that there are studies that prove the negative effects of video games may only last the duration of game play. Kids can improve in general knowledge with educational video games like Leap Frog. Video games can train specific areas of the brain as well as increase brain flexibility and memory. Gaming actually has more beneficial effects than negative effects. Video games are excellent educational implement used in elementary schools. It is extremely helpful in brain development and helping kids with trouble reading improve. Memory retention can be improved and increased with the use of strategic, thinking games. Video games, as funny as it might sound, even promote
Current education systems are failing to give learning material to students in a way that they understand. Most students don’t care about their education because they think it’s boring and unnecessary. Students feel if the homework or lesson is too hard they won’t give it their best work. We should use video games as a new source of teaching. Students can benefit from video games because it’s a fun interactive way of learning, improves a student 's thinking ability, and increases participation.
Since the Early 70’s video games have been giving a bad name. Parents state that video games rot the minds of children and are influencing them do be violent. These accusations are far from the truth. In my research I found that there are many positive effects of gaming. Some of these effects are increased skills, creativity, general knowledge, and also help those in need. Parents can also take proper precautions and look into a game before buying it to see if it meets the criteria discussed in this paper.
We have gotten in contact with many different educators to ask what they thought about the learning capability through video games. ”Video games are playing an increasing role in school curricula as teachers seek to deliver core lessons such as math and reading—not to mention new skills such as computer programming—in a format that holds their students’ interests. Some herald this gamification of education as the way of the future and a tool that allows students to take a more active role in learning as they develop the technology skills they need to succeed throughout their academic and professional careers.” (Malykhina 1) Most all of these educators had flashbacks to times when they played games such as “School House Rock” and “The Oregon Trail” either when they were in school or while teaching in their early years. We were reassured that they thought gaming could be used a pivotal tool in the educating of young students. We developed the Ninesis Gaming System to link up as many controllers as needed for a whole class; along with this we have developed a projector peripheral that links with the system through Bluetooth that would be placed at the vertices between the wall and the