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Video Games Can Change The Way We Learn & Teach

Video Games Can Change The Way We Learn & Teach

In a TED talk by game designer and director of R&D at the Institute for the Future, Jane McGonigal, she talked about how games could be used to create “epic wins” in reality and not just in the virtual world. A lot of the articles and videos have shown how video games can be effective tools to use in the classroom. In the articles we’ve been reading and seeing various examples of how video games could be used in school.

In a middle school called Quest To Learn in New York, teachers teach all their classes with video games. They allow for the kids to create their own games and play each others games which in turn creates a sense of community between the students to help them grow and learn to work together to solve the “quests” within the classroom.

Minecraft offers a lot of versatility. People are able to craft (hah) and create various things such as actual working computers, nuclear reactor simulations, working calculators and so on. The list is endless. A biology teacher was able to make the inside of an animal cell which from there he and his students through Minecraft were able to visually see and interact with the animal cell within the virtual world.

Paul Andersen, a science teacher from Montana, also did a Ted Talk about how using the format of video games to make learning fun. He created a system that allows his students to be active in their learning. In his talk, he mentions the need to get rid of the stigma of failure and that students should be able to move through their own pace and be able to retry without having school be an all or nothing system.

All these are ways in which gaming has changed the way one can learn and it’s so interesting to see how people have been able to utilize video games in way that can change and reinvent the way learning is taught in the classroom.

Video games in the classroom allow for students to experiment in a safe environment, connect with a community (other students) to help them to achieve goals, and present flexible tools for teachers to teach effectively.

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