Games are a legitmate and practical way of educating students. Especially those that simulate events or allow students to experience history through various points of view. By interacting with history and having history come alive through these games, many students will hopefully be able to remember important information and make historical connections. For some students history is too abstract. It's a bunch of dates and wars betweend dead people, who have no impact on their life. Games will put students in the postion of Neville Chamberlain in the 1930s during Nazi agression, or in the position of G. Julius Caesar in the civil war with Pompey. Learning is not only experiential in this sense, but fun.
I do not believe the learning that occurs during game play is testable. However, it is assessable. Students should take their game playing experience and produce a finished project. Whether it be a journal entry, and evaluation or analysis or the moves they made in a game, or creating their own civilization after playing Civilization IV. I don't think it makes sense to have students learn WWII through the game Making History and then giving them a test on the cause, events of, and legacy of WWII.
Games can oversimplify situations. Students can miss out on important details and miss substantial points. The story Jim mentioned about the student who stated that people riot when taxes are raised is the perfect of example of this. Games should be used as enrichment and as a way of reinforcing concenpts and ideas from other lessons.
I would not be worried about promoting agressive behavior or passive learning. A teacher has to chose the right games. I would never use America's Army or any game like that. A game like that would clearly make some boys a little agressive. And cames that make students think and challenge them won't produce passive learners. I remember playing Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego in 4th grade. We had to research the clues, write down information, and keep track of it. There was nothing passive about it and nothing that promoted agressive behavior. And I believe I learned a lot about the culture of other countries by playing that game. Games like Carmen Sandiego have a place in the classroom and should be utilized.
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
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I completely forgot about Carmen Sandiego - I used to love that game! We played it in middle school, both in school and at home. I never made the connection, but, now that I think about it, that was definitely one of the big things that got me really interested in geography, exploring other parts of the world, learning about different cultures, etc. I don't know if I actually retained any of the facts I learned, but it did motivate me to learn more about those kinds of subjects on my own - who knows, maybe it even influenced my decision to be and international studies major and become a global studies teacher.
In the long run, I think that creating the motivation and desire to learn independently is more important and long-lasting than the learning itself. In that light, games can be tremendously useful.
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