Education as a Student Teacher

What do students learn when they play games?  More importantly, what do students learn when they create games? A presentation from Scratch, an online computer program that enables children to design and create their own computer games, suggests that students learn vital mathematic and computational ideas. What is also great is the children are learning these concepts in fun and meaningful context.  By creating their own game, students are involved in the design process and use a number of higher order thinking skills.

I developed a game using scratch to be used when teaching Antarctica. However, it was very time consuming. Even though the students learn many skills from creating their own games, it would have to be used very wisely in an educational context. I feel that a lot of students would get very frustrated very quickly if they haven’t had a lot of practice with logical reasoning. And in terms of time, you really need to weigh up the benefits and skills learnt with the huge cost of time.

Whilst doing some work on another assignment, I came across a great article on computer games. The article is based on the idea that computer games could soon be used in formal educational settings as they are proving to promote socialisation and literacy. The article describes computer games as the “most powerful learning technology of our age.” Researchers and game companies are looking for ways to develop ’serious games’ where learning is integrated in to ‘real-world’ situations. There are of course a few hurdles that are mentioned: the issue of violence, and what “exactly” will the students learn form the games and how can we assess them? and finally, how would students feel if we brought something they enjoy doing in their free time into the classroom?

I’m not sure how well bringing computer games into the classroom will work, especially when a lot of schools only have 30 mins a week with computers. I also feel that the interest and motivation won’t last and that students will soon get bored of them. Then there is the case of students who don’t even like computer games, what will be the cause of action for them?