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Why Use Computer Games

This document discusses reasons for using computer games in the classroom. It argues that games can be engaging for students and promote challenge, progression and reward similar to popular games. When combined with good teaching, games can create interesting learning environments. Games offer personalized, real-time experiences and target the same goals as modern classrooms by providing challenge, progression, reward and personalization. The document encourages thinking of how a familiar computer game could support learning.

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Celatuchiac
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30 views

Why Use Computer Games

This document discusses reasons for using computer games in the classroom. It argues that games can be engaging for students and promote challenge, progression and reward similar to popular games. When combined with good teaching, games can create interesting learning environments. Games offer personalized, real-time experiences and target the same goals as modern classrooms by providing challenge, progression, reward and personalization. The document encourages thinking of how a familiar computer game could support learning.

Uploaded by

Celatuchiac
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Games in Schools Script

M1 Why use computer games?



Hello and welcome to module 1, unit 2 of this European Schoolnet Academy course
on games based learning in schools. Last time, we were looking at some
background and resources, and some things for you to maybe to have a reading to
explore. Now we are going to be thinking about Why use Computer Games in the
Classroom. So why use computer games? It is a question I have pretty much for all
of my career, and there are lots of reasons for this, but sometimes it is useful
maybe to recap the basics, so you have got a strong argument if you are going to
your headteacher to say that you want to introduce the computer games into the
classroom. I think that one of the phrases which often resonates with me is the
phrase from my previous colleague and boss Derek Robertson who ran The
Consolarium in Scotland. He said: Good Teachers Use Good Tools. And you know
what? Sometimes that tool is a pen or a pencil, sometimes just a computer game,
sometimes it is taking children outside. What we are not applicating in this course
is that we would use games over time, but at the same time we also say that we
should not dismiss the concept of computer games in the classroom. Remember, a
good teacher will use a good tool which is appropriate for the learners that they
have in front of them at any time. So fundamentally, really what we are talking
about here is we are talking about learning, and if we break learning down to a very
basic level, I think that good learning probably happens when you have got
interesting or engaging activities, and also when you have good pedagogy from a
classroom teacher. James Paul Gee would describe a semiotic domain where you
take the domain of a child and you combine that with good learning and teaching
to create a really interesting space in the middle of where learning really thrives.
And the great thing about computer games of course is that they are interesting
and engaging, and if they are used in the right way, they can be powerful agents for
change in the classroom. Of course, really what we are talking about here is games.
We now are talking about digital games but really what we are talking about is
play, and if we think about how play has evolved over time from very traditional
play to slightly more mechanicalized play to the domain of games consoles, it is still
play. If you speak to earliest practitioners that you might know, the teachers that
work with very young children, much of their curriculum is completely based
around play. So why not include some digital play as part of that as well? The other
thing I guess is that if we are talking about play and playful learning and we think
back to games that we have maybe used when we were younger as children, this
was my favourite game. It is a game called Mouse Trap. And the more and more I
think about it, is the reason I was interested in playing it is because it offered me
this challenge, this progression and this reward. The reward at the end was that
you got to catch the mouse. And if I think about what we have been trying to do
with our classroom in the third millenium, it is we are trying to create interesting
learning spaces that also have this challenge, progression and reward, so actually


maybe play is not such of a bad thing. And of course then take that third domain of
computer games, which have got quite sophisticated graphics and artificial
intelligence, rich big data databases operating behind them, then - not only have I
got this challenge, progression and reward, but I am also able to offer this highly
personalized experience, often happening in real-time. And again, challenge,
progression, reward, personalized, real-time, that is a pretty powerful learning
environment that we are trying to create in just about every classroom at the
moment across Europe. So it is time for you to think about doing a task. What I
want you to do is I want you to have a think about a computer game that maybe
you have used in the past or maybe you have played, and have a little think about
how it might be useful for learning. The reason I am giving you this task now is
because that will become useful when I set the big task at the end of this module.
Good luck and see you next time!

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