Video games and learning

dont need someone tell me how to play the game lol simple put disc in and play simples :p

[quote user="gameshoes3003"]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwNY_-FiwYU

Yes, this is 26 and a half minutes in duration, but I believe it addresses some highly debated topics that are incredibly interesting.

A large portion of this lecture talks about how video games are incredibly good teachers.

I'm just wondering what you guys (may) think about this.

Is there an effective way to make gaming part of our educational systems?

Nice gamerscore

Forget video games I like the idea of giving everyone ponies.

As for using video games as teachers in an academic sense, no, I do not believe they are effective. They aren't, and cannot be, focused enough while retaining enough of the element that makes them engaging. They don't understand gaming enough, as he rightly says, and that's why they keep failing with all these attempts at edutainment.

On the other hand, using a video game to reinforce learning has higher hopes. Actively using knowledge is the best way to reinforce it, and using it as part of complete "project" more interesting than working through multiple abstract examples. However even then gaming can't alter the fact that some people find some subjects inherently boring and gaming cannot change this, at least not without diluting the gain along with the boredom.

Oh yeah and I can see already what Call of Duty is teaching the kids from school...

[quote user="CrazyMvM94"]

Oh yeah and I can see already what Call of Duty is teaching the kids from school...

[/quote]

Interestingly enough Call of Duty isn't the only game on the market, nor is it the only way in which a game can exist.

I made an "educational" game once for a presentation in my last year of school. It was a collection of (I think 4) micro games (snake, tetris style things) designed in such a way that playing them would help re-iterate the points of information that were meant to be re-capped through the presentation. How well did it go over? It didn't, my teacher didn't understand how I could make a presentation outside of powerpoint and removed the floppy disk for "examination" and I never saw it again. Still I'd like to think it would have been more engaging and at least as beneficial as any of the slideshows (which were in powerpoint and, hence, boring as hell) if perhaps more time consuming.

It teaches me how to blow stuff up!  Yay!

[quote user="UseYourIlusion"]

However even then gaming can't alter the fact that some people find some subjects inherently boring and gaming cannot change this, at least not without diluting the gain along with the boredom.

[/quote]

You are correct (at least to me), this is probably part of the reason why educational games are failing.  Nobody can all of the sudden like mathematics just because it's on the screen. I wonder if there is a way to actually make the game itself engaging without the taught subject being disdaining.

Also if you recall that monkey experiment they did with the graphs showing dopamine levels, games generally achieve that middle graph.

Unfortunately when it comes down to some things taught in our curriculum it's either right or wrong.

This generally produces that first or last graph where the outcome has already been determined, and that's not good enough.

Ive been playing video games since i was like 5 years old, and i can honestly say the best teachers i ever had were my parents and actual school teachers.

Too me, i never wanted to mix the two ideas together. Im sure this idea has already been used and implemented in some schools, with software on Pc's anyways.

My worry would be parents and teachers getting lazy and using these methods too much, and leaving the children to basically teach themselves, which imo is wrong.

games like jeoperdy, and other styles of trivia games can definatly be educational. I remember playing video jepardy in my high school history class on the t.v.  it was alot of fun and a great way to make a boring class nore interesting and fun. But with all the critisism that video games get now a' days,(like the video games promote violence argument) I dont see this happening anytime soon.