K12 Online Conference (Week 12)

Games in Education

Kicking it up a Notch
Games in Education
By: Sylvia Martinez

SUMMARY
This online conference was debating on whether the use of video games in the classroom are a helpful teaching method. Sylvia Martinez set out to tackle the questions surrounding video games in the classroom. Can video games be effective as learning experiences? Can video games replace worksheets as effective methods of teaching? Can learning content be as easy as inserting games into the curriculum? Or are games hindering the learning of students? Sylvia Martinez gives her take on both the positive and negative affects of video games in the classroom and how to properly substitute hard learning for the use of advanced technology.

REFLECTION
Sylvia Martinez says that there are two important factors that come into having effective game planning in the classroom: having adequate time to play and the role of the teacher as administrator and facilitator. These are important because unlike doing old fashioned worksheets that are easier to create a teacher must take adequate time out of there school day for their children to play these games. The games must also be created in a way that will allow students to learn there importance not just the fun of being able to play the games. It is also important that the teacher knows how to balance game play as well as helping the students understand the correlation between games and real life. Games must be fun, it is hard to create games that are fun as well as realistic. Video games are made to be unrealistic as well as false on historical facts in order to keep the kids entertained. Finding games that are true and fun are a hard combination. Sylvia Martinez does a good job of expressing the time commitment and the potential negatives and positives of plugging games into the curriculum. It is important that teachers understand their roles when games are played and how to effective correlate students game play to real life. Games create a great potential if used correctly. A teacher has a huge task in creating these games, it is important that teachers cover all angles when creating games for the classroom.