June 2008
Experts say gaming and virtual worlds help kids develop 21st century skills
Video games can help teach kids many of the essential skills they’ll need when they enter the modern-day workforce, according to educators speaking at a recent web seminar.
“What is the Role of Gaming in Education?” was the name of the seminar sponsored by the Consortium for School Networking (COSN), and it took place this past April. Speakers at the seminar included classroom educators and leaders in the world of educational technology. The consensus among them was that video games may be more effective than traditional teaching tools at helping students develop key skills like problem solving, critical thinking and collaboration – all important aspects of the 21st century workplace. We don’t usually highlight such long quotes, but the following ones from two of the seminar’s speakers do seem especially relevant:
- “…You could take [children] and put them in front of a video game and they won’t know anything about their character, the rules of the world they’re about to enter or the problems they’ll have to solve. But despite all of that, video game creators have somehow created such a compelling experience that, not only will these students go back and fail 100 or 1,000 times before they finally succeed, but they will spend money to get gaming guides, go to web sites and ask friends… If you had a system that could compel a student to do so much to make it work, but instead it was teaching them about algebra or science or calculus, I think that educators would – and should – fall all over themselves to understand as much as possible about why that works and how that happens.”-Ntiedo Etuk, CEO of educational game maker Tabula Digita
- “When you think about the skills that students need when they leave school, like creativity and curiosity, identifying problems and solving them – these are skills that [can be] hard to teach in the traditional face-to-face classroom…. The environment [of the game, the River City Project] lets students learn about the scientific method and lets them actually see how their changes can affect the environment. It’s design-based research to help students learn, particularly those who are unengaged and low-performing.”-Jody Clarke, Project Director of the River City Project at the Harvard Graduate School of Education
To learn more about the seminar and about its sponsor COSN, visit http://www.cosn.org/.
Search engine shows that kids are looking for games
Ever wonder what kids at school look for when they search the web? Well, dogs and George Washington are in the top ten, but coming in at #1 is… games.
That’s according to a recent index from the educational search engine, netTrekker d.i., which is used in about 20,000 U.S. schools. Randy Wilhelm, the CEO of Thinkronize which makes netTrekker, explains “Search engines such as Google and Yahoo pull together lists of the most popular keyword queries, underscoring our nation’s interests and fixations and showcasing trends and patterns. Our report offers a different view: a real-time, school-based mirror of what our children are searching for – both for academic curiosity and out of genuine curiosity.”
So what’s that top ten look like? Here goes….
- Games
- Dogs
- Animals
- Civil War
- George Washington
- Holocaust
- Abraham Lincoln
- Multiplication
- Math Games
- Weather
While these results could be interpreted in various ways, Wilhelm feels that at least one thing is clear from them. “We have these kids who are digital natives and that’s their world, and then we bring them into a classroom that is the exact opposite,” he says. “I really think it says ‘I want something more than what I’m getting from my [textbook].’”
You can find out more about the results and about the netTrekker search engine at http://www.nettrekker.com/.
Kids + board games = improved math skills
A new study shows that playing certain kinds of board games - even for just a short amount of time - can help very young children greatly improve their understanding of numbers.
The study’s researchers, from Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Maryland, had a group of preschoolers play a simple board game for 15-20 minutes four times over the course of two weeks. In the game, players used a spinner and then moved their game pieces either one or two spaces on a board with ten numbered steps. The children who played the game wound up showing substantial gains in four different areas of number sense. And those gains were just as strong when the kids were tested nine weeks later without having played the game again.
“Young people learn a great deal about the world through play, and games are one source of play,” says Robert S. Siegler, one of the researchers. He adds that games might be especially helpful when it comes to learning math and that “the games that build understanding of numerical magnitudes are crucial.”
You can read the entire study and learn more about board games and math learning at http://www.psy.cmu.edu/~siegler/ramsieg-inpress1.pdf.
Quick Hits
There’s been lots of buzz lately about so-called “brain training” games – Nintendo’s “Brain Age,” Sudoko, crossword puzzles, etc. But do these games really train our brains? Learn the answer in this article from Britain’s Telegraph.
More and more public libraries are using video games as a way to reach out to young people. Check out this story in the Los Angeles Times to learn more.
It sounds strange, but kids will soon be able to play their Nintendo DS while they study for their SATs. Find out how at Newsweek’s video game blog
News Archives
March/April 2008
February 2008
October 2007
September 2007
August 2007
July 2007
June 2007
May 2007
April 2007
March 2007
February 2007
January 2007
December 2006
November 2006
October 2006
September 2006
August 2006
July 2006
June 2006
May 2006
Back to the Got Game Home Page