The words school and fun rarely go together. Of course as a future teacher I want my classroom to be fun; I want learning to be fun. And reading Learning By Playing: Video Games in the Classroom I realized there is a whole realm of exciting possibilities in the field of video games and the classroom. When I read the paragraph about the various worlds the students explored and went on "quests" in I was totally enthralled; it sounded awesome! "And while students at the school are put through the usual rigors of studying pre-algebra, basic physics, ancient civilizations and writing, they do it inside interdisciplinary classes with names like Codeworlds — a hybrid of math and English class — where the quests blend skills from different subject areas. Students have been called upon to balance the budget and brainstorm business ideas for an imaginary community called Creepytown, for example, and to design architectural blueprints for a village of bumbling little creatures called the Troggles" (Corbett ¶ 13).
One of the worries I have with so much technology in the classroom is exemplified by an 11 year old student named Kai. He explained the many different types of media he used but said this about blogging, "He used to have a blog, but it took too much time so he dropped it" (Corbett ¶ 21). Is the already shortened attention span of most children becoming even shorter? Are kids unwilling to invest too much time into worthwhile endeavors? That, I believe, is one of the benefits of more traditional learning avenues; they require more time and therefore the attention span of students will hopefully be developed.
Toward the end of the article there is a paragraph about a social networking program called Being Me, in which students are taught, "things like how to tag photos, update their status, credit the work of others, comment meaningfully on blog posts and navigate the complex politics of 'friending'". Okay, when I read this I couldn't help but find it pointless. I don't think we need to teach kids how to use a medium like Facebook; they can and do learn on their own. Corbett explains that Being Me is an, "effort on the school's part to look at the things kids are already doing - social networking, playing video games, tinkering with digital media - and try to help them do it with more thought and purpose, to recognize both their role and their influence inside a larger system" (Corbett 59).
Looking at it this way, I can possibly see the point of Being Me, still I don't think it's necessarily the best way to go about teaching the use of thought and purpose. Overall I enjoyed this article and I really want to incorporate video games into my classroom. An example, could be role playing games about classic literature.
I would also be willing to give video games a chance in the classroom. I think I would be willing to try just about anything, as long as I was willing to assess my self and the results afterward to see if it would be something I would like to do all of the time. Video games interest most students right off the bat, and if they can learn while playing, then I think it is something worth trying.
ReplyDeleteI would love to use video games in my classroom, so long as it was actually worth doing so. I really liked your thought about using role playing in an English class because I think it will really get students thinking about the characters and the story. I don't know the whole thing, but my friend was telling me that while her English class was reading Macbeth, her teacher came up with a game for them to do at the same time. One person would be king (chosen randomly) and then the other students would try to figure it who it was and "kill" them. The successful student then became the king.
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