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Adults Too Quick to Dismiss Educational Gaming?
netbuzz writes "A new survey finds that more than half of K-12 students believe that educational video games in school would help them learn (no surprise), although only 15% of teachers and 19% of parents agree. Adults might not want to scoff, however, because 11% of teachers are already using video games in class and they report great results. 'Only 3% of elementary school students say they do not play video games of any kind. Students surveyed say learning via video games would help them better understand difficult concepts, become more engaged in the subject matter and practice skills. There's no mention of the games being fun, but that goes without saying.'"
You haven't looked too hard have you? A quick check on google turned this up. http://shop.knowledgeadventure.com/Departments/JumpStart-Series.aspx
I grew up in Minnesota - which is what the M in MECC stood for - and we had Number Munchers, Word Munchers, Oregon Trail, and a variety of other educational games. All for the trusty Apple IIgs. If anything like those is available when my own (as of yet unborn) children reach school age, I would also support those titles in the classroom.
One of the first logic-based problems I remember from school was a "lights-out" bonus round from one of the Munchers.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
I would agree as well as playing games, programming them is a great way for kids to learn. While in grade school in the 80's I learned to program as well as played educational games like Fraction Muncher on Apple IIe. That was for the gifted education program. The regular classes didn't let the kids near computers because they were too expensive.
What usefulness could have ever come from learning math on a computer, or how to program on the same computer? As it turns out, I have this deep seeded love for computers and now I'm an IT Manager. I do some programming, scripting, data anlysis, and typical trouble shooting. I don't think I would have ever grown that love if I hadn't been exposed to the powers of the computer at such a young age.
You want to feed a man, give him a fish. You want to feed a man for life, teach him to fish. This same principle goes for any skills used in life.
Teach kids about everything you can, how to build a bird house, build models of cars, build those model engines to teach the mechanics. Teach a kid how to clean up when they are done with something. Teach them to cook, cut the grass, and brush their teeth. Teach a kid how to build a computer, use a computer, as well as play with or work with computers. Education is in everything, even swinging at the park. So, why say video games are bad? The only bad in video games are the people who bring out the bad.