Can Video Games Promote Learning?

My guest blogger today is Anna Miller. Please be sure to check out her unique guest post. Guest posts are always welcome, please contact me.

Computers were just gaining in popularity around the time I was in high school, and it was with much excitement that we welcomed the first computers into school the year I was all set to graduate. They were equipped with the now-ancient DOS environment, black and white monitors, and large CPUs; even so, they were technological wonders that promised so much more. While we enjoyed the basic lessons in computer languages (I think BASIC and COBOL were the major ones around then), what we really looked forward to was the time we got to play games on the system. Of course, back then you had to boot the system and load your games from a floppy disk, so we would fight over who got to play the Carmen game.

“Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?” was a very popular gaming series back then because it followed the basic cops and robbers theme – you had to chase a crook who escaped to places all over the world using a set of educational clues, and every successful arrest would help you climb up the professional ladder. To cut a long story short, we enjoyed these games, but they were educational too. They focused on teaching geography, history, mathematics and even English.

Today’s kids however would scoff at Carmen Sandiego, inured as they are to multi-player and multi-tasking games like World of Warcraft and Age of Empires. While parents are dead against them, there are a few educational experts who argue that video games, even the ones that are around today, can actually enhance the learning process. Microsoft is leading the way by setting aside $1.5 million to fund The Games for Learning Institute, a joint venture with a few colleges that include the New York University and other reputable institutions. The initiative hopes to see if video games can be designed to help students gain skills that will help them excel in the subjects of mathematics, science and technology.

The problem with today’s games is not that they’re violent and so detrimental to the minds of young children; the more pressing issue is that they’re addictive and end up becoming an overpowering influence in the lives of children who need a more balanced range of activities. Gaming has ruined many a brilliant college student’s life by bringing down their grades (because they’ve been too busy playing and not studying) and by negating their social lives with real people.

Gamers claim that games can encourage scientific thinking because players have to come up with various scientific and mathematical models of the worlds they have to build and defend, and also boost spatial skills and the ability to think and react quickly. We’ve always known that video games improve hand-eye coordination, but now they seem to boost mental acuity as well.

But at the end of the day, the plain truth is that such games are addictive, and the educative value comes out and is of use only if the gamer is able to draw the line between fantasy and real life and never cross it.

Related links
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This guest post is contributed by Anna Miller, who writes on the topic of online degrees.
She welcomes your comments at her email id: anna.miller009@gmail.com

Many thanks to Anna Miller.
Enjoy your reading!