Games

Happy Valentine's Day!!! This has been a big week for me. Our 5010 class learned all about the Belk Library through a virtual class online. I was so worried about that being able to actual do that but it turned out to be very successful and quite easy. I look forward to really getting to know the library and using it during my course work. (even though I hold it in great awe....ha).

I have been reading all about the using of games as an educational tool. We use lots of online type of games with the younger children in the classroom. There is so much offered online that we can use. Just today we played a Valentine game where the Cupid bops the bad guys on the head. It is a great game to help the children become accustomed to the keyboard arrows. They will need that in future virtual worlds. And they have to work out the pattern they need to use to be successful at bopping as well as figuring out the best bopping strategy. ( Oh dear, this game sounds violent but it really wasn't.....reading about challenges and censorship really makes you think about what you bring into the classroom.)

This generation of young people thrive on gaming. I watched my children with wonder as they just instinctively knew what to do, how to do, and when to do. I just don't get it. The new Wiis and PlayStations, Guitar Hero and Game Cubes just amaze me. When the GameBoy first came out my son could beat me hands down. I think he was maybe 5 or 6 years old at the time. He would play the game and figure out the way to do what you had to do by some manner that was absolutely unknown to me. It is still pretty foreign to me.....except for the 'old people' games like Tetris.

The educational potential of games is vast. As James Gee pointed out in our reading....."gaming is a new kind of literacy" and "the mind is engaged in ways that benefit other literacies" I have seen this first hand with my children and my school classes. The higher levels of thinking skills needed to figure out the strategies are being developed as they work their way through the levels. They are learning and developing these skills independently and with the repetition of the game they are practicing these skills with every move. And it is just so much fun for them!!

I agree with Gee that the lecture method of teaching as the main way of providing information is outdated. Our techno-saavy students need so much more than this. Libraries and classrooms need to look long and hard about updating the materials and the information-seeking skills used by todays students. This generation knows games and as such libraries need to use them as one important tool in education.

(I think it is just too late for me as far as games are concerned......)