Gaming in Education

Cover photo by Luis Villasmil on Unsplash

Questions to consider for this week

• What makes a good educational game?
• How effective are online games for educating?
• What are some concerns that come to mind on the topic of gaming and education?

Pros and Cons of Gaming in Education

This week in educational technology we talked about using games in education. We discussed whether or not online games are productive in educating students. Of course, there are pros and cons that come along with anything. 

Here are some pros of using gaming in and for education I thought of:

1. Can be super engaging for students who already find themselves interested in video games
2. Helps students become more acquainted with using the computer and being on the web
3. Gives students resources and games to play at home on their computers
4. Can find different types of games for almost any topic!
5. Helps make topics that students may often dislike a lot more fun.
6. Can educate on important topics 

And here are some cons I thought of:

1. Can become a distraction if not monitored or set up efficiently
2. Some games may not be the most effective, for example, many people remember playing on cool math games as a kid, which sounds good from the title but has lots of games that teach little to no math.)
3. Some games can be designed poorly, making gameplay and learning less effective for students

Heres a little infographic I found that talks about the positive effects of games:

Students Creating Games VS Consuming Games

A couple of weeks ago in our tech class, we got to learn a little bit about coding our own games. This was a super fun experience for me and I thought students would benefit extensively from learning about coding. I think it would be cool to do a unit on coding and making your own games but then move into a unit on consuming games. This could help them makes those distinctions of what makes a good quality game. I think students should be exposed to both sides of games (creating and consuming) in order to gain a deeper understanding of both.

Overall…

I think incorporating gaming into education is an awesome idea as long as it’s done well and productively with strong learning intentions. I don’t think we should simply throw a game at our class and let them sit there for 20 minutes, I think it goes best with a learning purpose behind it. Through this kids can learn that even through fun things such as video games that there are important lessons we can take from them. Luckily there are many educational games with learning intentions out there for us to utilize in our classrooms. One example would be the PBS games resource listed in our technology class.

That’s all for this week, happy gaming 😀