Everyone who checked out our presentation last week would have been amazed!
We discussed the options of using World of Warcraft, Age of Empires, Call of Duty, Battlefield and a range of other exciting computer games that students would like.
I highly encourage teachers in the future to make these games part of their text so that when students actually go to play these computer games, to which they spend something like 10,000 hours, they are thinking critically about the content.
In my next post, I'll post some examples that can be used within the class. At the end of the day, the students will end up playin computer games... so as teachers why not make this "playing" time relevant to classroom content!
Search for the positives, don't be a doom-sayer!
Hi Matt,
ReplyDeleteYes your presentation was amazing, and a real eye-opener for me.
but.. my research for another assignment indicated that 8% of students are 'pathologically addicted' to these games. Many suffer from severe symptoms such as depression, anxiety etc. Are we being responsible for bringing them into the classroom?
cheers
karen h
Hi Karen.
ReplyDeleteI don't doubt that 8% of students would be patholigically addicted to games. I wouldn't doubt if that percentage is higher too. But tbh it isn't the worst thing to be addicted to, as computer games can be modelled to provide essential skills if they are modelled and targetted correctly. I wonder how many students are addicted to drugs and other awful things where they cannot be of any benefit to students.
So I think yes, we are responsible in bringing those students into the clasroom. We also have a responsibilty to teach the usefulness and the educational side of each game and what skills they provide. I also feel we have a responsibility to make our students well rounded people and allow them to see the pitfalls of addictions, to games or anything. Awareness is the key I suppose, and whether or not games are in the classroom.. there will still be 8% addicted to games. However now they will be made aware of the educational benefit of some the games they played and perhaps view it with a different lens!
Thanks for the awesome question, really needed to think about it! :)
Matt Bediaga