Check out this article about using video games in the classroom. Of course it immediately made me think of Matt (check out his post on the NYSEC conference--informative and funny) our resident viedo-games-in-education guru, but I think that it's noteworthy for all. This came from Yahoo! news, and was the first thing that I saw when I opened my browser this morning. Which, to me, signifies that the whole thing is going kind of mainstream. And what's particularly interesting is that the article is about scientists, not educators, touting the benefits of using video games in the classroom: "The Federation of American Scientists — which typically weighs in on matters of nuclear weaponry and government secrecy — declared Tuesday that video games can redefine education." And they are calling for more research on the issue, which all of us 663 alums know is essential for good pedagogy. Maybe with these "big guns" in the corner of educational gaming, the federal government would be willing to spend some money on curriculum development and teacher training... Of course, that would mean spending tax money on education instead of war, so...
Something else that caught my attention while surfing was this great post from Will Richardson's blog about his kids spreading the blogging gospel to some new friends. Many of you may have already seen this if you read his blog regularly. I just thought it was so adorable that I had to share. And blogging does seem like a perfect tool for kids who are homeschooled and may feel a little left out of the kind of social network that going to school with other kids provides. And who knew that Richardson was so crunchy-granola? What a cute family.
Now, everyone can congratulate me for finally including some links in a blog post! Yay for synthesis!
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3 comments:
Great links Tracie. Thanks for sharing. Anyone not in the stream (which is most definitely main!) is going to languish on the bank that's for sure! I hope Matt sees this post...Matt??
Tracie, nothing dispels unsupported criticism of video games by conservative sociologists like government sponsored scientific research. Nice. It’s funny you mention the possibility of the government sponsored gaming in school because my fiancé just received a recruitment package from the Army, which included a video game. But the game did not work on my PC. Boo Army. Seems like a great recruiting tool. I wonder how propaganda-filled Army-sponsored games are? Maybe I should check one out for my project.
The article you linked to notes that games, unlike people, never lose patience. I like that. I wonder how significant that component is to my love of video games?
But here’s my major concern with this article:
“The gaming industry has already figured out that educational games don't make money in the consumer marketplace. The new approach would instead market them directly to schools.”
There’s a simple reason why “educational” video games don’t make money in the consumer marketplace—most educational games suck. I’m not convinced that targeting schools directly will make ed. games any better, overall. What government sponsored literature do we read or like?
http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,FL_game_030405,00.html
Here’s an article about “America’s Army,” the game that I couldn’t play. The author seems to think that people between 13 to 24 years of age (watch out, that includes some of our classmates) are incapable of independent thought, and because of this, video games are very effective brainwashing tools, but aside from that, the pro-military author makes some interesting observations about the game and gaming in comparison to war.
What, if not brainwashing, i.e., the power of ideology, supported by the Discourse of patriotism, terrorism, racism, etc. etc., would be the reason why the numbers of Americans alone lost in what was supposed to be a month long "war" is now in the thousands.
Believe me, the Army knows its business--K
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