Computer Games as Learning Resources
I must admit I have mixed feeling about gaming as educational tools. My personal point of view is that there is nothing wrong with a little bit of game time as long as its monitored by an adult, is a clean game and it teaches the child something. That being said I do not let me own kids play video games, anymore. I have seen how quickly they get attached to it: when we first got the iPad I thought that it will be a good idea to download a few games for them, learning games, well that's all they wanted to do, and they will fight all the time for it, so we decided no more games. Maybe when they are bigger, I don't know, but for the moment no games. The book, on table 7.4 provides contrasting views about computer games and learning. On the negative views we find that gaming decrease empathy and concern for other people. To this I want to add the internet in general, not only video games. I cannot say precisely how long ago started but recently it seems that there has been an increase on videos of people fighting, and the thing that puzzles me the most is the people watching. Why is everybody just standing there watching, doing nothing to stop the fight ? Why is it entertaining for us to watch other people fight? I do not know what would I do if I found myself in a situation like that, but I guarantee I will not take out my phone to record anything, only to call the police. For centuries people have liked watching other people fight, from gladiators to UFC, there is something completely wrong inside of us that makes us feel some kind of way when we watch that kind of stuff. But what's happening now is something different, people take videos of the people fighting, people take pictures of other people's embarrassing moments, and we just think is funny. Would we still think is funny it it happened to us? On the positive side we have the promotion of in-the-role learning where students learn by doing what people actually do in real-world jobs and professions. I think that this is a really good thing, it can help little kids have an idea of what they want to be when they grow up, it can help high schoolers to know how what working feels like and maybe even make them sympathetics towards their parents. Overall I think everything has its pros and cons but as long as we don't loose ourselves, as long as we don't loose our humanity, our ability to say hi to others in real life, to properly communicate an idea to others, as long as we don't loose our ability to feel, we should be fine.
Virtual Worlds
Virtual worlds are games that let you interact with other players using online identities such as avatars. Examples of these types of games are Second life, Minecraft ad Sims. I personally have not played any of these, but I have heard of people who love them especially Minecraft.
Intelligent Tutoring Systems
Resources
Edutopia. (2012, March 21). James Paul Gee on Learning with Video Games. [video file]. Retrieved on October 4, 2015 from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnEN2Sm4IIQ
Maloy, Robert, Verock-O’Loughlin,Ruth-Ellen, Edwards, Sharon A., and Woolf, Beverly Park (2011). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 1st Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.
Valladares, B. (2015, October 7). ITS. [Image file]. Retrieved on October 7, 2015 from https://magic.piktochart.com/output/8376792-its
Your reflective thoughts about computer gaming are extremely relevant and very important considerations, especially when we begin to think about planning learning activities. As previously mentioned, balance is vital but I think in the case of gaming, there are definitely types of games that would not meet the criteria for problem solving, strategy building, higher level thinking, etc. Avoiding the 'drill and kill' games as stand alone activities would be a good first step. BTW John Paul Gee is an excellent resource for gaming and I'd encourage you to research his work a bit more, as you explore gaming.
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