Sunday, March 8, 2009
Simulation Gaming for Education Purposes
Teenagers enjoy playing simulation games that involve different levels,realistic graphics, and to the point story lines with larger than life characters. I believe these gaming situations can be used as a teaching tool to educate as well as entertain teaching life skills. I would like to see more companies involved in producing games with less violence and more learning. The skills learned in my game will produce life long learning. It is important that society be more involved with our future youth learning by supporting companies that envision change. In doing so funding may be made available to non-profit entities who are unable to support the production of educational entertainment games.
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According to Liu & Lin (2009) Research has shown that educational games when designed appropriately can entertain instruct, and assist in skill development. The authors implored game developers to provide games that are educational and entertaining. Liu & Lin (2009) also suggested users employ the Delphi technique to evaluate and assess computer games that are suitable for the instructional environment. The Delphi technique devised 43 indicators and classified them into five categories for evaluating educational computer games. The categories are game information, multimedia, interface design, structure content, and feedback. Educators a given an opportunity to complete a survey to identify the presence of any of these 43 indicators before they choose educational games.
ReplyDeleteLiu, E.Z. Lin, C.H. (2009). Developing evaluative indicators for educational computer games. British Journal of Educational Technology, 40 (1), 174-178.
Mironda,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that too many games contain violence. Certainly a game can be fun without being violent! I also think we become somewhat immune to the level of violence after a while, but removing ourselves from it allows us to see the level of violence with fresh eyes.
Mironda, I think games use in schools is a phenomenon that needs to be promoted. I agree with Chan (2008) that the biggest obstacle to games use in schools is a mismatch between games content and curriculum content, and the lack of opportunity to gain recognition for skill development.
ReplyDeleteEven though teachers and parents value the conversation, discussion, critical thinking and organization skills students acquire in games, these skills are not valued in the context of school curriculum. Sesame Street embedded educational skills that were not readily apparent in the television environment. Children who have difficulty with traditional forms of learning do quite well with embedded forms of learning that cover vocabulary, numeracy, and social skills development. Embedded forms of learning also helps immigrant families integrate into a new culture.
I like the idea of games that train your brain to automate mathematical calculations, and increase short-term memory capacity. Edutainment is criticized because unless teacher led instruction is present, there are no forms of assessment that the learner has actually met the prescribed learning outcomes. This is not a serious threat at this time of Internet development. Assessment of learning outcomes can be easily linked to edugame formats to align with prescribed learning outcomes.
In fact, it may be a stretch, but I think teachers and students should be a part of the game console construction activities to find the right match between game and prescribed learning outcomes. What if standardized testing were put in game formats with the winners in every school receiving prize layouts as simple as gift cards all the way to automobiles in high school? Would we see high stakes testing take on a different high stakes level of interaction at all levels of learning.
Would parents become active participants in the standardized testing formula? Would teacher and student designs be awarded merit and pay for standardized testing formats based on ease and structured difficulty to match personalized learning formats? Would it be more probable that all students would master certain concepts within the time frame of a 12-year school cycle?
I can’t predict for sure. But, the odds are in favor of the game format even though it is argued that perceived lack of face-to-face interaction and collaborative learning of edutainment threatens normal socialization of students in a regular classroom. (Chan, 2008) I don’t agree with this analysis. I think interactive games will aid socialization of students in learning to read each other’s moves and counter each other’s game plans; albeit, competition may rise sharply.
But, in the design of computer games, I think student-teacher-parent collaborative activities will take a sharp rise in order to make the best product used by many student users. I think parents will play these learning games with their children and encourage them to use learning skills to master the games.
Reference
Chan, S. (2008). Edutainment. Retrieved April 7, 2009, from http://design.test.olt.ubc.ca/Edutainment