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Your Homework is Play Video Games
GuitarNeophyte writes "Four schools in the UK will be testing a new program idea to use video games for educational use. An IT researcher, along with Electronic Arts (the software game giant) are funding the proposition. 'We're looking at developing some of the softer skills that are needed for the 21st century, such as problem-solving, resilience, persistence and collaboration.' "
IMO, it is vital to make homework not feel like homework in order to get children interested in their schooling again and combat their growing apathy.
I never spellcheck and I freely admit it. Save your karma for more worthwhile "lol erorrs" replies
If it's work, it won't bring the same satisfaction as playing a game for pleasure.
The way I see it, at least they're considering if this is a good idea, rather than going down the "games=bad" route. All of the skills they want to teach the kids, from the article, are present in games.
I'd be interested to see how this turns out, and if it's actually teacher-led "gaming", as it were, rather than "I'll sit here with a cup of tea catching up on my mountain of paperwork when you play these games and hopefully learn something".
At the very least, it's a start.
Just another harmless drunk
It's been said before that parents don't care what kind of games their kids play but rather how much time they're spending playing them.
When I was little, I had all the computer games like Operation Neptune, Super Solvers Midnight Rescue, Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego, Number Munchers, and so on. Those were totally awesome. I'd play them again if I had them. When I was even younger (like maybe 4), I had an awesome baseball game where at each at-bat, you choose a level of difficulty and they give you an appropriate arithmetic problem. You get it right, you get a hit. You get it wrong, you're out. /No point to this post, just waxing nostalgic...
There will be some web sites filled up with cheats as well.
Oregon Trail
Dino Park Tycoon
Odell Down Under
and the endless other games we played in school. How is this new?
+5, Truth
Perhaps it is because of the overwhelming lack of critical thinking and other cognitive skills in young adults nowadays.
I wonder if every generation says this about the generation they produced. Meanwhile technology still progesses forward.
500 dollar reward for tip(s) leading to the arrest of the person(s) who stole my sig.
We had many games that are "educational" the suprising thing though is these were well built games, and I believe the best ones came out of EGA (if I remember that company right) and EA. Carmen Sandiago anyone? I particularly liked the Super Solver series for their logic problems.
If EA is making games for children that'd be great, but Video games for homework only works when we deal with games for learning. Madden isn't going to teach anyone that much except hand and eye coordination and how not to get your QB completely sacked (then again I have yet to learn that).
All I hope is that they are as interesting and entertaining as the games in my youth, such as the typing games that had a car moving and the faster you typed the faster you went. Those games were entertaining to me, and kept my attention and taught me some spelling (though not that much) and typing.
People coming out of the 1920's education system were far smarter than what the system is producing now. They could actually read, write, and perform mathematics. Imagine that! Today you'll find many university-level students who struggle with such basic tasks.
The strict discipline of the early 20th century gave children only one choice: to learn! And so they did.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
I had this idea a while ago. The problem is that unlike flight sims like MSFS nobody is willing to risk the potential for lawsuits and liability that these things would generate. Nobody expects to only use a flight sim program to learn to fly but all those teenagers are to big a risk for the software companies to take, not my opinion but, otherwise there would be dozens of these simulators. I know I'd spend a couple hundred on SW and equipment for myself let alone my kid. But all those ambulance chasers out there would look past the hundreds of lives these things could save to sue the company for a few mill. because there is a potential flaw in the program.
You can legislate morally you can't legislate morality
They should go to Konami for games they could use in gym class. Last time I checked, Dance Dance Revolution is one helluva addicting, and sweat inducing game even when you are not in workout mode.
If you believe in privacy, and believe you have "nothing to hide" at the same time, you're a goddammed idiot
Am I the only one who remembered EA back in the C=64 days, when they truly were the maker/publisher of innovative video games? Classics such as Archon, Mail Order Monsters, Racing Destruction Set, Modem Wars, Wasteland, etc.
'We're looking at developing some of the softer skills that are needed for the 21st century, such as problem-solving, resilience, persistence and collaboration.'
And, in the back of the package, in small print: Social skills not included.
These skills can also be acquired through athletics, or the physical and artistic discipline of dance. Which might help us stop raising generations of overweight kids who grow into chronically obese adults, in sedentary jobs with all the attendant health problems (mental and physical), who are barely aware that they have bodies, much less how to use or take care of them.
The company that created Battlefield wasn't owned by EA until well into the developement of the sequal(s) to Battlefield. So they weren't developed under the conditions you'd think of when you think of EA, and your point is bogus :P
Sure, base-camping is not nice, if the poor new-spawn can't do anything before getting sniped.
But then, my experience of online FPS is about 20 hours of Counterstrike: Source, 15hours of that on Dust2 map. 25 per team.
Plenty of sniping, lots of grenades, and choice of weaponry.
And I get BORED sniping. More fun to run around, shooting, retreating, grenading, than sit in one place looking at a cross-hair, waiting for a light pixel near the centre (piece of background in the far distance) to turn dark (Person). BANG. dang, missed.
b3 4phr41d 0f my 4bov3-4v3r4g3 c0mpu73r kn0wI3dg3!
MadDwarf