Slashdot Mirror
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.' "
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
I don't really get it though. My parents told me "listen, quit the fucking apathy and do your homework." If I didn't, I was sorry (no, they didn't beat me up, but they punished me, y'know... like parents). I'm not really sure why grade school kids get to decide whether they wanna do work or not these days.
Ummm no. If it is necessary to keep the brats entertained at all times and constantly stimulated in order to get their attention, then there is a serious problem. The correct response is to not allow them to have their toys and games at all if they can't be bothered to come out of their fantasy world and do some work.
Pandering to them and trying to keep them interested because they have the attention spans of fruit flies will only make the problem worse. It is the kids that need to change, not the entire world in which they live. If little Johnny can't be bothered to do his Math homework because it's not as fun as playing Quake, then little Johny should get teh $#!+ beat out of him until he decides that maybe he SHOULD do his work. His math teacher should not have to wear a clown nose, dance a jig, and assign video games for homework just to keep him awake.
How very true.
But then since you can seemingly get branded a child-hating monster of a bad parent nowadays by even looking at your child in a disaproving manner while they rape and old woman... this isn't really surprising.
Children nowadays are given more and more freedom and less and less resonsponsibilites. You can get away with pretty much anything short of murder if you're under 16. What are parents getting in return in order to combat this? Well they're told that it's not their responsibility, and this is reinforced over and over. For those that realise that this is completely stupid and dare actually try and rase their child sensibly, they're attacked for doing so.
Homework is just a tiny fraction of the overall problem here.
The idea here is to make homework more engaging. Even though the term "video game" is being bandied about, what they're really talking about is "computer simulation." This technology will make it easier to introduce the concept of *case studies* to kids at an earlier age. As anyone who went to college knows, the best way to learn something is by doing case studies.
When I was in grade school and high school, we just did pages full of math problems, with no real explanation of what use they are. While I still think that is necessary just to build up practice, I would have appreciated going to the next level and learning how some of those concepts actually applied to real life. As a result, there is a lot of stuff I learned in algebra and trig that I have simply forgotten over the years because I never had a chance to apply it to a real life situation, albeit a simulated one.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
Video games feed information at a relatively accelerated rate. They contribute to low attention span, impatience, and quickness to boredom. Bad qualities to nurture.
But hey, theres always Ritalin.