Our readings this week were all about video game use in the classroom. I am not much of a gamer, I can barely play Mario Kart, and just never had the technology growing up. So, going into this I wasn’t exactly sure what use video games would have in the classroom. I had a lot of misconceptions of what constitutes a video game before doing some digging for this class. Now I see that teachers aren’t wanting kids to play Call of Duty to learn about wars but rather using available technology to stimulate other parts of the brain while learning. This got me thinking back to my school experience, and I realized that I have so many examples of using video games as learning tools without realizing it. It has always been something utilized and I just didn’t recognize it as a video game. We played games to help us learn math, learn how to type, or how to read. We used all the available tools we had in order to learn new skills. It is interesting to me that there is new debate on whether or not this works or if we should be introducing these things into the classroom because it has been available this whole time.
I remember being so excited to get the chance to play Turbo Math and would spend hours trying to make my race car go faster, even though math was my worst subject. The competitiveness of the game gave me goals, but since it was just for me I didn’t have to feel shame if I got questions wrong. I think that those are two huge pros for video games in the classroom. You are able to get those external rewards for learning without participating in class where you might be too shy to say the wrong thing. I can definitely see the applications beyond elementary school and I am not as afraid of “video games in the classroom” as I was before.
