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This session will demonstrate the use of games for K-12 students in an online environment across a variety of subject areas. Participants will be presented with the theory behind educational games as well as demonstrations of how to use games in class to improve student performance. Teachers will become familiar with the use of single and multi-player games to reinforce basic skills as well as to support higher-order thinking and problem solving. Internet-based games will be presented along with ways to encourage collaboration, create emotional connections and enhance motivation. Common concerns about the use of games in the classroom will be addressed and discussed. Ever think you'd see your students spending hours voluntarily doing math drills or discussing economic theories? It can happen!
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Video Games in the
Classroom
Doug Adams
ALTEC
Why Games?
21st Century Skills
The Millennial Generation
• Millennials
• Generation Y
• N-Gen, Generation Next
• Digital Natives
• Oyayubizoku ( 親指族 ) “Thumb Tribe”
“Kids say e-mail is, like, sooooo dead.” – CNET News, July 18, 2007
The Millennial Generation
“Today’s students are no longer the people our educational system was designed to teach”– Mark Prensky
Millennial Attitudes
“I have to ‘power down’ when I go to school.”
“When I am really busy, I hate going to school because I can’t do any work there.”
Characteristics of Digital Natives
• Active• Multi-tasking• Non-linear thinking• Ubiquity• Technical Fluency• Feedback• Individualization• Risk-taking• Collaborative
But how will people learn in a world that is so…
VIRTUAL?
From Scientific American, Aug, 1902:
[C]hildren cope more easily with the new necessities of life, and new arrangements which perplexed their parents become habits easily borne. Thus we may imagine future generations perfectly calm among a hundred telephones and sleeping sweetly while airships whizz among countless electric wires over their heads and a perpetual night traffic of motor cars hurtles past their bedroom windows. As yet, our nervous systems are not so callous.
Brain Research
The brain developed to solve problems related to surviving in an unstable outdoor environment that occur in near constant motion. – John Medina, Brain Rules
Brain Research
If you wanted to create an educational environment that is directly opposed to the way the brain is good at doing, you would probably design something like the modern classroom.– John Medina, Brain Rules
Patterns
The human brain loves patterns. We see patterns all around, in everyday life, in nature, in manmade objects.
We see patterns even when they don’t exist
Emotion
• Our brains work best when there are emotions involved– Excitement– Engagement– Enthusiasm– Exploration
– Frustration
Collaboration
Our brains want to work with others
Games…
…provide structured patterns
…create emotional connections
…encourage collaboration
“Better theories of learning are embedded in the video games many children play than in the schools they attend.”
– James Paul GeeWhat Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy
What kinds of theories?
• Student-centered learning• Peer teaching• Feedback• Problem-solving• Empathy, role-play• Collaboration• Practice• Development of expertise• Scaffolding
Umm, what?
Concerns about Games
• They cause violence• They are just for boys• They are just for kids• They are just for solitary
loners who spend all their time in the basement eating Cheetohs and drinking Mountain Dew
Scientific American
A pernicious excitement to learn and play _____ has spread all over the country, and numerous clubs for playing this game have been formed in cities and villages. Why should we regret this? It may be asked.
We answer, _____ is a mere amusement of very inferior character, which robs the mind of valuable time that might be devoted to nobler acquirements, while it affords no benefit whatever to the body.
_____ has acquired a high reputation as being a means to discipline the mind, but persons engaged in sedentary occupations should never practice this cheerless game; they require out-door exercises—not this sort of mental gladiatorship.
Scientific American, July, 1859
A pernicious excitement to learn and play chess has spread all over the country, and numerous clubs for playing this game have been formed in cities and villages. Why should we regret this? It may be asked.
We answer, chess is a mere amusement of very inferior character, which robs the mind of valuable time that might be devoted to nobler acquirements, while it affords no benefit whatever to the body.
Chess has acquired a high reputation as being a means to discipline the mind, but persons engaged in sedentary occupations should never practice this cheerless game; they require out-door exercises—not this sort of mental gladiatorship.
Challenges for Teachers
• Time
• Alignment with Standards
• Cost– Software– Hardware
• Assessment– Rubrics, participation, presentations
ALTEC Games
http://arcademicskillbuilders.com/– Math and Language Arts
http://www.4kids.org/– Angles and Coordinates
More Game Examples
Food Force
Stop Disasters
Magic Pen
You Are the Historian
Team Treks
Third World Farmer
Minyanland
ElectroCity
Nanoquest
Real Lives
Traveler IQ
The Forbidden City
Virtual History: Settling America
Discover Babylon
Dimension Math
Lunar Quest
Web Rangers
Peacemaker
Budget Hero
