Games and learning is an area of ​​educational research that studies what's learned by playing video games, and how design principles, data, and game video games can be used to develop new learning environments. Video games create a new social and cultural world - a world that helps people learn by integrating thinking, social interaction, and technology, all in service doing the things they care about. Computers and other technologies have changed the way students learn. Integrating games into education has the potential to create new and more powerful ways to study in schools, communities, and workplaces. Games and researchers learn how the social and collaborative aspects of video games can create new learning communities. The researchers also studied how the data produced by the game can be used to design next generation learning assessments.
Video Games and learning
Research
World games and research learn to learn how new digital media tools shift educational research topics from remembering and repeating information to being able to find it, evaluating it and using it appropriately at the right time and in the right context. Game and research learning explores how games and game communities can lead to 21st century education skills such as high-level thinking, the ability to solve complex problems, think independently, collaborate, communicate, and apply digital tools to gather information effectively.
Research conducted by Shaffer, D., Squire, K., Halverson, R., & amp; Wah, J. P. from the University of Wisconsin - Madison shows the educational and social benefits of digital games. The game does not need to be specifically directed to education into educational tools. The game can bring together how to know, how to do, how to be, and ways to care. As John Dewey says, schools are built on an obsession with facts. Students need to learn by doing, and by playing games, students can learn by doing something as part of a larger community of people who share common goals and how to achieve that common goal, making games useful for social reasons as well. The game has also changed the look of the content-driven curriculum in schools. In content-driven media, people learn by being told and reflecting on what is being said to them. In the game, game designers create digital environments and game levels that shape, facilitate, and even teach problem-solving.
Another experiment investigated the effect of utilizing the iPad as a learning tool at American Preschools. The results of the experiment contrasted sharply with the general notion that increasing use of technology by children proved dangerous. In their results, the use of the iPad, particularly the completion of application tasks in it, yields positive results. Peer interactions, participation, and learning are all proven because the task is set in a classroom setting that requires children to work together.
The game also teaches students that failure is unavoidable, but can not be undone. At school, failure is a big problem. In the game, players can start from the last save. Low cost failure ensures that players will take risks, explore, and try new things.
Much of the debate about digital games for education is based on whether or not games are good for education. But the question is too simple. The National Research Council's report on activity and laboratory simulations makes it clear that design and not just a medium of physical or virtual learning activity determines its efficacy. Digital games are media with various offers and certain constraints, as well as physical labs and virtual simulations are media with various offers and certain constraints. Simulation and digital games actually have a lot in common in this regard. Although there are several definitions for the game, the main characteristics that distinguish the game from the simulation involves the explicit inclusion of (a) rules to engage with the simulation, (b) the goal for the player to pursue, and (c) the means to indicate the player's progress towards that goal. Properly designed, game features can provide a powerful force for motivation and learning. Individual studies have shown, for example, that well-designed games can enhance the understanding of process concepts and skills, can foster a deeper epistemological understanding of the nature and processes in which scientific knowledge is developed and can generate advantage in the willingness and ability of the player to engage in scientific practice and discourse.
In his book What Video Games Should Teach Us About Learning and Literacy , James Paul Gee talks about the applications and principles of digital learning. Wah has focused on the principles of learning in video games and how these learning principles can be applied to K-12 classrooms. Successful video games are good for challenging players. They motivate players to be diligent and teach players how to play. Gee's video game learning theory includes the identification of thirty-six principles of learning, including: 1) Active Control, 2) Design Principles, 3) Semiotic Principles, 4) Semiotic Domains, 5) Thought Meta Levels, 6) Psychosocial Moratorium Principles, 7) Principles Committed Learning 8) Principles of Identity, 9) Principles of Self-Knowledge, 10) Amplification of Input Principles, 11) Principles of Achievement, 12) Practical Principles, 13) Principles of Continuous Learning, and 14) Principles of Competency Regimes and more. In these principles of learning Gee shows the reader the ways in which games and learning are connected and how each principle supports learning through the game. One example is the Principle of Learning 6: The "Psychosocial Moratorium" Principle, in which Gee explains that in the game, the learner can take risks in spaces where the real-world consequences are lowered. Another of Gee's principles, # 8, which shows the importance of games and learning states that learning involves taking and playing with identity in such a way that learners have a real choice (in developing virtual identity) and many opportunities to mediate the relationship between new identity and old identity. There is a tripartite identity game when students connect, and reflect, their real-world identities, virtual identities, and projective identities.
Scot Osterweil, a research director at the Comparative Media Studies Program of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said that these standards and test methods are not conducive to teaching methods that incorporate video games. Games alone will not make schools more efficient, can not replace teachers or serve as educational sources that can reach an unlimited number of students. The extent to which the role of the game will play in learning remains to be seen. More research in this field is needed to determine the impact of games and learning.
Peter Gray, who has done research on early childhood learning, states that playing games is a useful activity for children. He stated that children can choose the most effective way of using their time and the extensive use of certain instructional media indicates that they are taking something of value from it. He went on to state the importance of computers in the modern era and not using them as a learning tool is a stupid thing. Video games have shown a positive increase in the field of cognitive function. In their study "Improving Multi-Tasking Capabilities through Videogame Action". Chiappe and colleagues decided that 50 hours of game play significantly improved the results on a performance test modeled after the skills used when driving a plane. Aside from this, the area of ​​concern and awareness, as well as the basic visual process has proven to increase with the time the video game is allocated.
Maps Games and learning
Apps
Digital learning tools have the potential to be tailored to fit each student's ability and can engage them with interactive tasks and simulate real life situations. Games can create new social and cultural worlds that may not be available to everyone in the past. These worlds can help people learn by integrating thinking, social interaction, and technology, all in service doing the things they care about.
Video games are important because they let people participate and experience a new world. They let players think, talk, and act in new ways. Indeed, players inhabit roles that are otherwise inaccessible to them. One example of a game in which players learn while playing is The Sims , a real-time strategy game in which players have to make decisions that change the lives of their characters. They can manipulate scenarios to create a digital life where they can experience single parent struggles or poverty. Players in this game are not allowed to change previous decisions to change the result, even if the result is not fun. The goal is to survive with their best ability. The game is complicated and difficult, just like real life. On a more traditional approach to education, The Sims has been used as a platform for students to learn the language and explore the history of the world while developing skills such as reading, math, logic, and collaboration.
Although not all researchers agree, several recent studies have shown a positive effect of using games for learning. A study conducted by professor Traci Sitzmann at the University of Oregon among 6,476 students stated that "training participants in the game group had an 11 percent higher level of factual knowledge, 14 percent higher skills-based knowledge, and a 9 percent higher retention rate than participants training in the comparison group ". Several other aggregate studies have also shown improvement in learning performance thanks to the use of videogames.
Controversy
Critics point out that the lessons that people learn from playing video games are not always desirable. Douglas Gentile, a professor of psychology at Iowa State University found that children who repeatedly play violent video games learn a mindset that will stick with them and influence behavior as they grow older. Researchers from the study found that over time the children began to think more aggressively, and when provoked at home, school or in other situations, children reacted just as they did when playing violent video games. But even the loudest critics agree that people can learn something from playing a video game. While research on the behavioral and cognitive impact of violent video games has shown mixed results, games with little or no violence have shown promising results. Elizabeth Zelinski, a professor of gerontology and psychology at the University of Southern California stated that some digital games have been shown to improve brain function, while others have the potential to reverse the cognitive loss associated with aging. Some games require players to make decisions ranging from simple to complex enough to drive their progress.
Some researchers question whether a greater reliance on video games is in the best interests of students, showing there is little evidence that skilled game play translates into better test scores or wider cognitive development. Emma Blakey notes that very few studies have examined whether video games improve class performance and academic achievement.
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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