January 2006 — Features
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Game On!
Now educators can translate their students' love of video games into the use of a valuable, multifaceted learning tool.
SCHOOL ISN'T ALL FUN AND GAMES, but it’s starting to move in that direction. As computer and online gaming has dominated youth culture, it was inevitable that the technology would penetrate the educational system.
But what if you can’t stand the thought of allowing games into your classroom? No problem: Educational gaming enthusiasts are prepared to convert you. Marc Prensky, writing in Digital Game-Based Learning (McGraw-Hill, 2000), makes it clear that gaming is now a way of life: “Today’s schoolchildren, elementary through college, travel with their own personal Game Boys, Handicams, cell phones, portable CD and MP3 players, pagers, laptops, and Internet connections.”
Yet if the introduction of computer games into schools was an unavoidable development, it was also an auspicious one. Digital game-based learning (DGBL), the uniting of educational content with computer or online games, holds the potential for a wealth of educational applications, if managed properly. Simply put: It motivates by virtue of being fun. It’s versatile, can be used to teach almost any subject or skill, and, when used correctly, is extremely effective. What’s more, its use is supported by constructivist theory, which calls for active engagement and experiential learning.
In Prensky’s view, DGBL will eventually be taken for granted as the way people learn, because it meets the needs and learning styles of today’s and future generations of students.
Still, teachers say they have good reasons to be reluctant to bring games into their classrooms: 1) The goals of a game may not be consistent with learning objectives, and may function as a distraction to students instead of as a learning tool. 2) A game’s features (use of color, sound, flickering, etc.) might trigger unacceptable cognitive and physiological responses. 3) Many video games are just too violent for users of any age. And 4) there is general concern about how gaming fits in with the demands of a standards-driven accountability movement in education. In fact, in his book, Prensky concedes that near total revision of existing consumer games is needed for the games to be useful as education vehicles.
Before becoming converts to DGBL, however, educators need answers to questions about how games can support learning, what makes a good game, and what types are available. But if you can address and dispel those concerns, you’ll find plenty of DGBL examples suitable for K-12, in addition to resources for learning more about this emerging technology.
