On September 1, 2021, the Republic of China banned students from playing video games extensively during the school week. Instead, they can only play them for just one hour daily on Fridays, during holidays, and on weekends. But do video games only result in violent behaviors, addictions, lack of physical activity or exercise, sexism, and other undesirable consequences?
This is not the case, as playing video games has been proven to enhance spatial-motor skills, foster emotional and social learning, enhance student participation, and boost visual attention. A few educators swear by video games as invaluable high-tech teaching/learning tools.
A few studies revealed the positive impact of video games on learning. Video games can motivate learners to take calculated risks, which is a crucial element in the game of life.
Games – as well as game-like elements – have been readily employed to train the human mind throughout history. For instance, sports ‘games’ were developed to get people to train hard and keep fit. Board games like chess, etc. were created to educate soldiers on war strategies and how to deploy them for maximum victory or success. Card games were made to help teach math. This show how impactful games and game-like elements have been over centuries.
Nevertheless, here’s how gaming is being used for learning:
Several classical teachers are beginning to see the link between gaming and learning and how it boosts critical thinking. According to a researcher, alternate reality games can be utilized as immersive learning systems combining digital technology, rich narrative, and real-life gameplay.
Students find themselves exercising critical thinking, creative problem-solving, and resilience to succeed within an alternate reality game. These skills will stand them in good stead when faced with life issues outside the classroom or in the real world.
Gaming fosters social activity by stimulating children and students to play with one another. Many video games require players to come together as a team to compete against each other or achieve a common goal.
In this aspect, gaming helps students refine their communication skills and eliminates or minimizes shyness introverts. In addition, by refining their communication skills, students readily establish high self-esteem as they establish healthy relationships.
Gaming is one of the most efficient avenues of introducing technology to kids. This could get many of these children keenly interested in technology. However, when this happens, it becomes a walk in the park to embed fundamental technical skills such as programming and coding, the internet of things, cloud computing, etc. These technical skills are also crucial when learning a new language, or building a professional career.
Most video games are natural ways for students to fail, but in a safe way. Students have the opportunity to learn from these failures and can try again and again until they succeed. Some video games even make failure exciting or fun. By learning from your mistakes, you can readily correct them and try again.
According to video game theorists, losing in games is part of what makes them so engaging and fun. When you fail in a particular video game, you feel inadequate. But you can immediately redeem yourself, learn where you messed up, and improve your skills in the next round.
According to educational theories, no student can be given knowledge. Instead, every student constructs knowledge in their mind. Learners learn by building upon previously learned concepts to construct more complex and higher-level knowledge to make it their own.
For instance, many students find memorizing or recalling the periodic table of elements incredibly challenging. However, middle school students playing Pokémon, the popular video game, learn complex 3-dimensional matrices with 27,624 values.
The primary essence of this video game is to figure out how you can combine the seventeen different types of attack when combating other Pokémon. Every Pokémon has at least one or two attacks they can deploy. Players learn the different possible combinations by playing the game, not by dutifully studying the large table with 27,624 entries.
By playing this video game, students slowly and gradually construct a much deeper knowledge of this game while developing core skills such as:
Pokémon was not originally developed to be an educational video game. Nevertheless, its design principles, including those of other well-known video games, can efficiently be utilized for designing video games solely for classrooms that significantly enhance students’ educational experience.
Before now, playing video games was thought to influence students negatively. But it has been proven, as highlighted above, that gaming can be used for learning. There’s no doubt that gaming can create an educational future in which teachers/lecturers recreate connected and engaging environments for students to develop essential life lessons and skills.
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