The infinite (and beyond….)
There are infinite possibilities to using games within the classroom. Infinite, I say. Why? Because the only limitations with the technology are provided by the programmer’s mind. There is not much left to “dream” about when it comes to gaming. Every day 2,000,000+ people log on to World of Warcraft and socialize while playing their favorite game. TWO MILLION PEOPLE. That’s downright amazing. Now, imagine if you will, a reading class that is trying to utilize different languages to read text in their original form. A passage comes along that is rough to read mostly because (lets say we’re reading The Prince by Machiavelli) in Latin there is little room for contextual interpretation. Boom, down goes the white screen and up comes the computer. Link to the Latin class that’s going on down the hall on a virtual classroom. Up link the text, the two classes work together to interpret the work side by side. Now that would be holistic learning possibilities, right? The article that gave me the idea for this is:
Incorporating Games
In it, the article speaks about using games in different classes. When I was in highschool, we tried this holistic learning attempt bridging english and history, not a wide gap but it was a step in the right direction. My history teacher always talked about how cool it would be to link all the classes together and learn everything in total synchronous learning. What better way to do it with a virtual classroom, a kind of game for all the students? Think about it!
I agree that there are probably infinite applications of using video games in the classroom to enhance learning. Like anything else though, these applications need to be carefully crafted to be more about the learning experience and less about the game. I think that while the video game experience may be a good experience for some students, I don’t think it’s a silver bullet for all kids. I think if the games are used wisely they can be one component of learning that may enhance the other pieces of the curriculum.
[...] Comment Two [...]
My Word Press Comments « Kim’s Writing Ed Blog said this on April 18, 2007 at 9:26 pm