Are Video Games Harmful to the Education of Kids - Essay Example

Video Games and Education of Kids In recent years, video games have become a popular pastime activity for many children. There has been an explosion of video game applications available for children to download from the internet at an affordable price. Increased preoccupation with video games among children has led to the discussion of how playing these games affect the educational progress of children. There is fear among some parents, teachers and other stakeholders concerned with child welfare that video games may be harmful to the educational outcomes of children who spent considerable time on this pastime activity. However, there has been some who have held that playing video games is helpful not only for educational purposes but for the general wellbeing of children and should therefore be encouraged as a way of preventing other additions such as drugs that contributes to school drop outs. Consequently, this essay argues that video games can be helpful component in the child’s educational development when well monitored by those concerned. Even as the main reason why children play video games is to get entertained, various strategies and techniques combine to effect the players’ engagement in gameplay especially since the important aspect is to have the skills and knowledge that can lead to winning the game. Parents and teachers can help children identify games that are helpful to them since the ability to device effective strategies and techniques can be carried over to other activities such as in education. when used in a learning situations these strategies and techniques are helpful in assisting the learners to understand their abilities and what they are becoming through individual experiences and deliberations on their beliefs about the world they exist in and the spheres of influence (Begg, Dewhurst and Macleod, 2005). These games create virtual worlds that integrate the learner’s concepts of knowing, doing, understanding, effective social practices, powerful identities in addition to shared values which are important components that contributes in creating an expert (Shaffer, Squire, Halverson and Gee, 2005) The expertise created from the knowledge of video games is a flexible and systemic level understanding of a game system and should not be viewed as simple understanding where those who games such as Civilization III reported greater understanding into other educational such as knowledge of map reading, timelines and historical terms. Additionally, children participating in pairs increase their engagement levels as they get someone to share strategies with which helps in their greater reflection and reduced confusion while they also get someone share with in struggles (Squire, Giovanetto, Devane and Durga, 2005). However all this strategies and techniques can only be achievable with the help of parents and teachers select for the children enjoyable educational video games. These games that are helpful in the learning outcomes must consist of certain important elements such as offering a challenge to the players through setting of achievable goals that are clear, meaningful and with multiple levels of achievements in addition to a constant feedback mechanism. The educational games must also incorporate a sense of emotionally attractive fantasy in them by having characters that are identifiable with the players. Additionally, for these games to be attractive to the children they should incorporate the different elements of curiosity such as sensory curiosity which covers audio and visual effects and elements of cognitive curiosity which is about having surprises and constructive feedback (Rosas, Nussbaum, Cumsille, Marianov, Correa, Flores, 2003). Studies have shown that videogames that are related to brain-wave biofeedback have a potential of assisting children overcome attention deficit disorders. Children with attention deficit can be trained by using a computer display how to control brain waves that are linked to focusing until they master the training. Children who can freely modulate these brain waves, the changes become automatic leading to improvements of grades, social relations in addition to organizational skills. Researchers have conducted studies to verify such studies in the educational outcomes of pupils by rewarding an attentive state of mind of students with attention-deficit through linking biofeedback to videogames. The study conducted by Wright (2001) was based on video games played 22 girls and boys of ages 9 to 13 all with attention deficit disorder. Half of those sampled were taken through biofeedback training while the rest played the modified video games. Results of this experiment revealed that both groups of children had significant improvement in their daily brain-wave activities while they could also be attentive for longer duration of time. Parents also felt that both groups of children had improved their performance in school after the training but the difference was motivation where those trained on video games had few absenteeism and no dropouts. However, researchers warn that not every game has the same effects on children with attention disorders as some of the games were actually found to have a negative effect on these children (Wright, 2001). Many of the studies that have indicated harmful effects of video games on the educational outcomes of children have focused on non-educational games and their relations with sex of the players, aggression and culture. Some studies have examined motor and spatial skills, simulation and tracking tasks. When boys who play aggressive game are compared to those playing non-aggressive game, those playing aggressive games are thought to demonstrate increased verbal and physical aggression towards both inanimate objects and others involved in the games during free play session (VanDeventer and White, 2002). However, these studies should not be taken as being conclusive given that many of them rely on only one aspect of the child’s engagement to report on their findings. Studies showing increased levels of aggression among children who participate in violent games have only relied on behavioural outcomes as a basis of their conclusions. A comprehensive study into how video games affect the learning process of a child’s education should cover more areas of child development such as the child’s willingness to either help or hurt another child after watching video game for the results to be conclusive (VanDeventer and White, 2002). Additionally, many of the studies have concentrated on the short term effects of watching video games with many such studies sampling very young children instead of having teenagers or older children in addition to making observations based on observation a child’s free play. Therefore, such studies create issues about the validity and reliability on the reported outcomes concerning the effects of video games on a child’s aggression (VanDeventer and White, 2002). A shift in focus of how video games affect educational outcomes of children should be based on the enduring effects of playing these games in addition to other factors such as the particular occurrences of aggression during playtime and the circumstances leading to the aggression. Parents and teachers can have in place a number of strategies that they can implement to redirect any aggressive acts exhibited by the children after watching or playing video games regardless of whether the games include violent contents or not. Therefore, by acknowledging that children are predisposed to imitation of aggressive behaviour, parents and teachers can redirect their children’s aggressiveness by channelling their energies into useful lessons in life by watching and guiding them (Beck and Wade, 2004). Therefore, video games should not be perceived as being harmful to the education of children, but an avenue that can be incorporated into learning to improve outcome. Although some levels of aggression can be attributed video games especially those with violent content, there are also many benefits that can tapped from children’ engagement in video games such as improved attention span, creating expertise and collaboration among children. Consequently, parents and teachers should play a hand in determining the kind of games played by children while also supervising and guiding them on proper conduct after watching games that might lead aggression and other socially unacceptable behaviour. References Begg, M., Dewhurst, D., & Macleod, H. (2005). Game-informed learning: Applying computer game processes to higher education. Innovate: Journal of Online Education, 1(6), 2005. Shaffer, D. W., Squire, K., Halverson, R. & Gee, J. P. (2005). Video Games and the Future of Learning. WCER Working Paper No. 2005-4 Squire, K., Giovanetto, L., Devane, B., & Durga, S. (2005). From Users to Designers: Building a Self-Organizing Game-Based Learning Environment. TechTrends, 49(5), 34-42. VanDeventer, S. S., & White, J. A. (2002). Expert behavior in childrens video game play. Simulation & Gaming, 33(1), 28-48. Wright, K. (2001). Winning brain waves: Can custom-made video games help kids with attention deficit disorder? Discover, 22 (3). 25. Read More