Sunday, September 28, 2008
Video games start to shape classroom curriculum
In this article by Huma Yusuf, a few schools flirt with a new concept of using video games as a learning tool. In one example, they talk about how Sega’s “Sonic the Hedgehog” will essentially teach eighth graders about Homer’s “Odyssey”. I personally think this is a horrible idea to enforce video games on students especially at an eighth grade level. They are completely consumed by them in their spare time; I think there should be a separation of spare time and school work. I also don’t think teachers should fully trust a game to do their job as a teacher. Over the summer, I worked in a special education program for students in elementary school and one of the students could only function and learn by using educational gaming tools. Although this student did have special needs, it still always worried me. I wondered if he was extremely used to being able to use video games as an option, he completely shut down every time someone asked him to do schoolwork and then would throw a tantrum. Hearing about how schools are replacing written schoolwork criteria with virtual games and adventures seems a little too liberal for schools. Many parents will also argue this as well. Their children spend enough time inside playing video games; they wouldn’t want them to be enforced to do it as homework. This also goes along with work ethic, if students get used to being able to opt out of written work and perform in video games, this gives a student the wrong idea about their future. They can not do this when they obtain a “real” job. I think this is giving students a terrible work ethic and the wrong concept of what hard work is.
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3 comments:
There are games that are similar to video games, which teach children to count and read. These kinds of games could aid in reading, math, and analyzing certain pictures and objects. In a way, these kinds of games that are played on the TV can be centered on cartoon characters that the child watches everyday on television. Video games that are played on systems, such as; playstation one and two, and nintendo, etc. can teach children about other individuals emotions and expressions. An example can be a game centered on hand-to-hand-combat; where the individual is portrayed as violent. Another game that could be played is basketball; where the individual is portrayed as being fit and athletic.
I have to agree with Stacey, there really is no reason to use video games in the classroom, especially ones such as Sonic. The students may seem to be more focused on the topic at hand, but in reality they or more likely to be to more focused on playing the game rather than obsorbing information from the game. I too worked at a school that taught students with special needs and I noticed the same thing. One thing I want to add is that when I watched them use the computer games they would struggle through the actual work and spend much more time on the interactive (game part) of the video game rather than the material at hand. When you just glanced at them for a minute it would look like they were doing work but it's deceiving.
Stacey Calcagni has hit almost every point in why video games shouldn't be allowed for teaching students as a learning tool. Like she said, they spend plenty of time playing video games on their spare time and it only makes students lazy. In my opinion video games should have a time limit to the amount of time one spends playing. It consumes time and could cause obesity. Think about how you just sit there looking at a screen for hours. If anything it isn't enhancing ones learning ability but is disturbing it. Stacey also mentioned the work field and how students will get the wrong idea by playing video games in class. They will not be able to do this in the "real job world. Students need to continue challenging their minds with school work not playing games.
Samantha Toohey
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