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Revision as of 21:21, 31 January 2007
Contents
Video Games and Education (Education in the Face of a "Parallel School")
Miguel de Aguilera and Alfonso Mendiz
University of Malaga
ACM Computers in Entertainment
The 'big idea'
- Games are frequently cast in a negative light by politicians, the media, etc
- Yet many assumed links (to violence, for instance) don't show up substantially in research
- Research has actually shown that games can be beneficial, useful for education
- Numerous papers with mixed results are listed and briefly discussed
A brief history of attitudes towards games
- Many people (politicians, educators, the media) accuse games of being harmful:
- Promoting violent behavior, sexist attitudes, addiction
- Many attitudes towards harmful effects of TV carry over
- 'Moral panic' applied to video games
Literature review
- Potential game benefits suggested by research:
- Motor/visual
- Spatial perception, abilities
- Visual-motor coordination
- Reflexes
- Divided attention
- Visual discrimination
- Emotional/Affective
- Motivation
- Stress-relief
- Confronting phobias
- Teaching values
- Intellectual
- Learning language, math, reading, history
- Awareness of one's abilities and limitations
- Problem-solving
- Hypothesis forming, testing
- Critical thinking
- Logical thought
- Planning
- Not enough to just educate the population about new media; need to rethink, or redefine the system
- Motor/visual
Discussion
- Opinions regarding the paper?
- Bias of article?
- Underestimates potential value of games?
- Too optimistic about games in education? Dismisses criticisms too easily? Not critical enough of research into game benefits?
- Moral panic?
- Is the negative press on video games purely an instance of moral panic?
- A matter of public opinion?
- Assuming games have great potential, but have a bad (and undeserved) reputation, how can this be remedied?
- Rethinking education
- What should be the role of video games in education now? In 10 years? In 50 years?
- Extreme (& far-fetched) example: Educational process as a series of interactive simulations or games. Is such a system possible?
- Limitations
- What are the inherent limitations of video games for learning?
- Are they things they cannot effectively teach, that say, a textbook or lecture could?