http://www.edutopia.org/digital-generation-katie-salen-video
This video is all about taking the idea of games, studying how people learn from playing games, and integrating this into a school curriculum.
In this video, Katie Salen explains how children learn from playing. Children of all cultures need to play, no matter what the game. She then explains how she has been studying this idea and designing games to teach specific lessons. One of the main ways that this works so well as opposed to traditional classroom teaching is the way the students feel about themselves. Many times, students feel like the classroom is a place that is meant to be hard and is setting them up for failure. But a game is meant to be won. Therefore, students have more confidence in their abilities from the start.
I am particularly interested in this video because I am more on the design side of education rather than the hands-on teaching side. One career path that I would love to achieve is taking part in creating educational games for elementary children. This could be a goal for myself. I've created a few simple games for graduate classes but they didn't have a purpose. I could expand on these skills, collaborate with teachers, and create games that their students could use in the classroom.
As I watched the other videos from this module, I thought it was great how these concepts carry through to my other classes. The first video is about someone changing from scrolls to books. This was actually the theme of our lecture in a class last week. How do people adapt to new technology? Why is the 'book' an improvement from the 'scroll'? The video is focusing more on the humor in the problems people have with learning simple concepts revolving around an updated technology, but I think it could apply to anything. Whenever something is new, it is going to be frightening and challenging to most people. It may seem very simple to the people who work with it everyday, but the rest of us need time to adjust. So whenever we first use a new technology, I think we should try and be more like risk-takers. If the book doesn't open from one side, don't be afraid to turn it over and try the other side.
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It is amazing to see the level of engagement when I create an educational game to teach the students are particular lesson. Students extra-curricular activities seem to all include some type of game. Those games me include a team sport or a video game, but almost every kid engages in some sort of game. This is why games should be included into the classrooms as well because students need to be comfortable when they are learning. The classroom should be a positive climate and this allows them to do something they enjoy while still learning what we are wanting them to learn.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the benefit of using games, specifically video games, to engage and teach children. That high movement, constant change aspect of games are what students today are accustomed to. My reservation is the amount of time it takes to create this type of lesson. With everything that a teacher has on their plate, I wish it was easier and more time efficient to prepare a lesson like this.
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