Educational Games

Media has been shaping our society since the era of print. Print gave way to radio, and radio to television. Now, television is giving way to a new medium, video games. Video games control a market that rivals big movie production, and draws the attention of billions around the world. Can this new media be harnessed for the betterment of education? Videogames are having a positive effect in today’s classroom. Case studies of educational games show, student test scores are improving, students are receiving constant and immediate feed-back, and students are expecting to use technology in school. Society is fascinated with new technology, and it would be negligent not to use the latest technological means to educate our future generations.

Case studies to determine the effectiveness of education video games have been conducted at all academic levels. David McDivitt, a history teacher at Oak Hill High school in Indiana, conducted a study of the game “Making history.” He used his own history class; 110 students across five classes. Three classes totaling 65 students played Making History, and two classes of 45 students, were designated as control groups. McDivitt started his study with a pretest covering his educational objectives; European geography, the Munich Conference, comparisons of Soviet communism and Nazi Germany, and the reason for WWII. The study was conducted for one week. Students in the control classes received traditional instruction involving textbooks, reading assignments, and in-class discussion, on the objectives; the test group played Making History, conducted class room discussion, but did not open a textbook. The test group did exceedingly well in all objectives. It is also note worry that the t...

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...allows students time to continually work through problems, until the objectives are reached. Because of immediate feed-back, experimental learning is possible. Experimental learning is best defined as “learning by doing.” Video games can convey skills gradually, and allow the player to make mistakes, and retry; Practices which could be costly or dangerous in the real-world. They can also give the look, feel, and decision making challenges of a task, better preparing the student for real-life application (Why Games, 2011).

Third, “the most obvious and logical conclusion is that they engage the students” (Hersh, 2009). Students are having fun while learning, creating competition, talking about it after class. Games automatically create a positive learning environment.

“Well-designed video games are natural teachers,” explains Dr. Douglas Gentile (2009).