Can Games Such as 'SimCity' be Used as a Successful Learning Tool?

Teachers have the opportunity to apply a different type of learning than the traditional way. A video game based education teaches young children to rethink how they approach the various subjects. Changing the way that students traditionally learn allows them to prepare for a new way of learning. One that allows them to work at their pace, challenges them, and empowers them. Adequately preparing our students for their future success is not a choice but our responsibility.

One positive is the ability for a video game to allow a player to achieve goals that have been placed strategically throughout the game by designers (Squire 49-50). By playing a game, the player has the ability to foster a new environment, and this ability can and should be looked at by educators in a manner in which they can manipulate a game and aid students to learn in a different manner. A second positive is the interaction, or possibility for interaction among players (Squire 50-51). This is a positive, because it would allow children to interact with others not only in their classroom... ... middle of paper ... ...ssibility to incorporate video games into the classroom. Video games have been given a bad reputation due to their sometimes violent nature.

Develop and critically evaluate a research design to investigate an issue in education My area of interest is in the use and effect of ‘educational’ video games on learning. Grand claims are made in marketing materials produced by companies such as Nintendo about their software’s potential to improve users’ working memory, often further suggesting that the merits of this improvement can be felt in many different areas of cognition. These games are developed based on principles of neuroscience, and many are being marketed to parents and children. Many more related, yet distinct educational games exist online in the form of game-based activities for students, marketed to schools as a supplement to classroom teaching, a resource for homework or as a revision tool. Such tools claim to improve performance in standardised tests for curricula worldwide.

Video games contain information that would help educate students, as well as providing a relief and also the changes involving games help students. There are people who simply think games are a distraction and others that may think that video games are poisoning the minds of children. But the field of video games is an evolving field, and we can utilize it to better equip students with skills like problem-solving and priority management. These skills are integral to a student’s success in the future, and we can help them learn them through something they love doing:

One of their impacts to the school curriculum is it makes the learning fun and test the students’ knowledge and skills. Scott Osterweil, a research director in Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Comparative Media Studies program and creative director of the school’s Education Arcade said that games are a powerful learning tool when combined with other exploratory, hands-on activities and ongoing instruction from a teacher acting more as a coach than a lecturer. That being said, video games contribution and involvement to the school’s curriculum is helping the students to learn more by letting them explore and use their skills and knowledge they learned from the class. The continually experimentation of gaming in classrooms as tools in learning may eventually play a significant role in the future of

It allows a learner to become a teacher by designing an educational game that others can use to learn. Their main assumption is that if learning a game helps students to acquire the knowledge then be able to change the game can provide students with the ability to deeply learn the content. Narrative architecture and ludic design are two major approaches in contemporary video game theory. They both also play an important role in teaching and learning as a part of an educational game. Lester et al.

Pillay, H., Brownlee, J., & Wilss, L. (1999). Cognition and recreational computer games: implications for educational technology. Journal of Research on Computing in Education , 203–216. Pivec, M. (2006). Potentials of games and digital game-based learning.

Minecraft In Education: How Video Games Are Teaching Kids. Gamespot.com. Retreived from http://www.gamespot.com/articles/minecraft-in-education-how-video-games-are-teaching-kids/1100-6400549/ Webster, A. (2011, Apr. 3).

“Interactive games are being used to teach our children history, vocabulary, math, and reading. These same games challenge students to set and achieve goals, while enhancing their ability to work in teams" (Slota 1). In elementary schools across the country, video games like Oregon Trail, Spelling City and Micro Type Pro make learning fun. Student who may not do well with typical curriculum, find they do well with technological assistance. Elementary schools are not the only place you'll find kids playing video game.

Questia School. Web. 21 Jan. 2014. Suja'ee, Mohamad Shalleh Bin, and Myint Swe Khine. "Designing Interactive Learning: Lessons from Video Games."