For a long time, video games have been disregarded so much so that parents force their children to stop playing them. What if these video games can actually help students with their studies? You don’t think so? Then read on to know how video games are the next big education tool.
If I say the word “video games”, then what is the first thing that comes to your mind? Surely, it isn’t education. Most people believe that video games are a waste of time and they influence children badly as they result in aggressive nature due to its exposure to violence. Though this is a very debatable statement in itself. Most people during their children play games which in certain ways help them learn a lot of things from playing these games. As they grow, these games also do so does learning. Parents often teach their toddlers alphabets or numbers with the help of games. Similarly, if the video games are used wisely then we can turn them into educational tools.
With the advancement of 21st-century technology, it’s the right time now to adopt video games as a new educational tool for learning. This is only possible if the video games are designed right as they have a great potential to impart learning and skills to students.
How can Video Games be an Education tool?
Video games aren’t just a means used for entertainment. They are so much more than that. video games help in making our creative juices running and making our imaginations go wild. They make us a more creative person and also impart problem-solving skills. And how does this happen?
This is because as most of the games are designed to have a series of missions or levels and to explore a new level you have to solve the previous one. Often players land up failing the level in a go and have to try again and again before passing that level. This is also a useful skill as it will help students realize and accept failure but not to give up and try again. In a video game, with each passing level, the level of difficulty increases and to pass them, the player is required to use brain and strategy to complete its missions. This process in neuroscience and pedagogy is called spaced learning.
The idea behind spaced learning is that if you have a learning session of four hours, your brain is very active in the first hour, the concentration falls in the second hour and the last two hours, there will no brain activity. If you take the same four hours but you put 10-15 minutes recess in between and when you monitor the brain activity of a learner, you will find that it’s active all the time. You do exactly the same in video games.
The developers are now focusing on making educational games that will be built around these concepts. The idea is to trick the mind of students to learn from these games. Similar to how our mothers would often find ways to make us eat spinach, in this case, the games will trick students to solve a math problem. Also, some game’s task is such that they impart real-life knowledge. These are advanced learning games where the designers focus less on the graphics of the games but more on the learning part.
Now is really the time to have more such debates and research on ideas to make video games and educational tool. Who doesn’t enjoy playing games? Now if you get to learn while playing the game then that’s cherry on the cake.after all video games do increase the level of concentration.
So what do you think? Do you think this is possible? Let us know in the comment section.
