I taught high school chemistry for 4 years and was fortunate to have 1 computer per lab group. This was at a time when computers were thought to be the new panacea for our education problems. My findings? Students sure were motivated to get on those computers and play solitaire or change the DOS prompt ("U Suck C:\>") but as soon as they had to create formulas in a spreadsheet all the fun went out the door.
Do I believe games can be entertaining and didactive? You bet. But I bet if the concepts the game is designed to teach get difficult enough then the game won't be too entertaining anymore. Guess what? Oftentimes learning takes work and the payoff is not immediate.
How does this information apply to dark matter? It was reported on the science show Futurama that "dark matter is so dense that every pound of dark matter weighs 10,000 pounds."
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I taught high school chemistry for 4 years and was fortunate to have 1 computer per lab group. This was at a time when computers were thought to be the new panacea for our education problems. My findings? Students sure were motivated to get on those computers and play solitaire or change the DOS prompt ("U Suck C:\>") but as soon as they had to create formulas in a spreadsheet all the fun went out the door.
Do I believe games can be entertaining and didactive? You bet. But I bet if the concepts the game is designed to teach get difficult enough then the game won't be too entertaining anymore. Guess what? Oftentimes learning takes work and the payoff is not immediate.
How does this information apply to dark matter? It was reported on the science show Futurama that "dark matter is so dense that every pound of dark matter weighs 10,000 pounds."