Video Games and Schooling - Assignment Example

VIDEO GAMES by Student’s name: Course code+name Professor’s name University name City, State Date of submission Question 1 Schooling has been from time immemorial viewed by student as an activity which thy only do to make them busy and away from home. This has made them to develop boredom towards schooling. Many school dropouts have blamed the lack of interest in learning as the cause of their dropout of school. Due to increase in the dropout year after year the teachers have been trying all means to ensure that students get motivated to concentrate in class. (Walter B, 1999) Some teachers have embraced the use of technology to enhance interest in learning; they have introduced video games that students play after classes. These video games are not just games but ones that shape students in a desired way. For example some will enable students to be able to solve some mathematical problems since as the play they acquire some skills in mathematics. Some video games have contents that will enable students to spell words correctly. (Carol D, 1988) Students are always very interested I doing activities outside out of class lessons. Games that make them release their boredom in class are very captivating to them. They always want sometime that they cheer as they do. Some of these video games unknowingly will enable them to develop creative writing skills that will enable them to write essays in class (Dickey 2005). Video games make students to concentrate so much on their play as it is interesting to score a goal against your rivals for an example of football game. So a student will not want to miss even one action done by its players and will be keen on every move. After the video games that students will go back to class and having taken a break they will be fresh and motivated to apply the same energy they had in the playing of video games to the much needed class work. Boredom developed earlier will be no more and they will be ready to explore what the teacher asks them to do. Motivation is very important in any activity that a person is set to do. It is like the engine, that will make one to keep going. Students as well as they learn they need to be motivated so that they can go on with their learning without dropping out of school and joining idlers which may finally lead to crime and drug abuse at a very early age. Through video games students are motivated not to miss classes and always attend school every day and be able to learn and relate well and respect their teachers. Psychologist defined motivation as a psychological act that make one to be determined to the achievement of a certain objective. Motivation arouses some on to be directed toward the attainment of a given goal. (Daniel, 2011) Video gaming in school may enhance and nurture a student’s talent in the field of media at a very early age. Students of have talents that are needed in the media and may be film production and even journalism will get a chance of striking their careers as early as in the primary school. These video games will expose them to whatever happens in their talent oriented careers and thus will equipped with the necessary skills and knowledge to be able to further these exciting careers in media film production and mass communication. Teachers will be able to single out student who will possibly be interested in the related field at the time they are engaging them in the paying of games. If the video games in schools are prohibited this means that some talents and crucial skills in the students will be buried and many students who would have joined those careers will find themselves in the wrong ones. Question 2 Some of the video games will make students develop cooperative skills and interest in the teamwork. Some games have so many characters that work together to achieve a given common goal and they all work together to attain the much needed objective. The characters in the play will each play its individuals role using all his/ her skills, knowledge and techniques and tactics that will enable one to do his part well; and at the end of the day the same common goal will be achieved by the group. For example in a football team each team player will play in his position to his best of ability and this will enable them to work well with the others and be able to score a goal. Students after watching or play a game like these on a computer will be able to grasp the essence of the importance of teamwork in each activity. Students in high schools are normally divided into groups to do some assignments by their teachers. The groups are usually designed in a way that a group has all the needed abilities in all the subjects learned in the school are found in each group. So, as the students sit together in class each will be ready to give the best in the group as the all understand the importance of teamwork in a group. The more one cooperates well with others the higher the achievement in their group and thus will be motivated to discuss and contribute ones best. (Mahmoud et al, 1998) Open- endedness is a feature in the video games provided in schools. There are so many video games that are designed in a manner that they are open ended. When students watch and play these kinds of videos they will be able to develop the eager mind of wanting to know what could have possibly happened at the very part that has been left open ended by the designer of the video game. These kinds of games will instill and inculcates in the student a creative and innovating mind because one will be thinking of the possibilities of some events happening. Some of these skills are very much needed in science subjects such as mathematics, chemistry and biology subjects in the high schools. Student ability to think beyond what is taught in class will be enriched. The teachers will not find difficulty in engaging the students to speculate of the possible happenings of a given event. Philosophers have always argued that the best way to learn is to be open- minded in all what you study. (Houghton Mifflin Co. 2009) Apart from the enhancing of spirit of teamwork by the video games, these same video games played in school have also sown in the students a very positive mind of competition. Some video games genre are designed in such a way that it will elicit in the student a spirit of competing with the others in the development of the ideas as they study in class. Students have been able to achieve high academic performance because of this competitive spirit that is developed after watching and playing the video games after class. Teachers also have motivated the students to work extra hard individual in order to raise the aggregate performance of the whole class. These kinds of games are designed specifically for that particular objective of creating a competitive mind in the students. (John shindler, 2009) Though the video games have be seen probably as the most suitably way of reducing the number of students who drop out of school to join other unlawful activities for example robbery, it as disadvantages that are camouflaged or is disguised by its motivating ability. One of the most undesirable is what happens when one plays games for long hours in the expense of other important activities. This is common especially when the computers are used in the video games playing. Many students will be tempted to spend many hours on the screen eating away the hours of learning in class with the help of their teachers. The excessive use of computers and other gadgets to play games, shop, blog and also to enter online social network sites have been described by the psychologists as internet use disorder (IUD). This becomes a psychological problem that should be acted on before it worsens the situation. The teachers and the parents of the students have been very keen to ensure that the students do not get use to the computers and become a problem to get away from it. So teachers have created strict timetables for the students to follow in each school day. This will help to avoid the problem of spending my hours in the computers playing video games. (APA, 2012) Question 3 As time goes the use of video games in the teacher fraternity is becoming popular with the recent technological advancement in the teaching of students by use of a projector. The education systems have embrace technology that brings efficiency in the field of teaching by avoiding the time taken by a teacher in writing on the blackboard and enable one to only project the work and explain as the students copy the notes from the board. The use of video on the other hand has not been left behind as many schools have embraced the idea. The future generation seems to be the most beneficiaries of the growing and advancing mode of teaching as the students will be able to learn through the use of the projectors and the video gaming at a very tender age. The generation to come will be fully dependent of the computers for their work in class and outside the class and these will enable the students to get motivated to learn as these modern means are very student friendly and provide interesting and attractive ways of working out assignments in the class given by a teacher. These generations will be able to acquire knowledge much faster than the older generation since these students will be introduce to modern ways of solving issues at a very tender age. Innovations and creativity also will be enhancing since a youth exposed to knowledge much early will develop skills in a particular field much earlier. Innovation and creativity is all what is essential in schooling and thus if one achieve that he will be deemed as knowledgeable. The generation to come is predicted to have high potential of inventing new ways of doing things due to the earlier exposure of students to technology though use of video games in school. (URBACT, 2010) Question 4 To ascertain whether the video gaming environment is enabling, motivating and enhancing the student’s education, I will carry out an experiment. The experiment set up consist of using one of the video game playing machine and having one of the students to interview. The experiment should be to ascertain the general impact of the introduction of video games on the student’s class performance and on the reduction of the number of students who drop out of school annually. Video game environment should be very conducive for one to concentrate there as he/she watch a game or play. The room should be clean and the well light. Comfortable chairs should be used in the room to make one enjoying being there. There should also be instructions for the use of the machines in the room and all the students should be made aware of the rules to be followed in the room. (Ojijo, 2013) Assessment should be done in the school to be able to know or understand the impact of the use of the video games in school on the behavior of the students and also their performance and concentration in class. Video games that are used in the schools should be examined to ensure that the content in it provides only what is relevant to the students and not the content that corrupts the mind of the students. Video games are very applicable in the fight to reduce school dropouts but care should be taken not to let the students to be addicted. References Baker, R. S. J. D., & Yacef, K. (2009). The state of educational data mining in 2009: A review and future visions. Journal of Educational Data Mining 1(1), 3–17. Egenfeldt-Nielsen, S. (2006). Overview of research on the educational use of video games. Digital Kompetanse, 3(1), 184–213. Fladen, E., & Blashki, K. (2005). Learning = playing: Interactive learning and game-based. Joyce, A., Gerhard, P., & Debry, M. (2009). How are digital games used in schools: Complete results of the study. European Schoolnet. Kickmeier-Rust, M. D., Marte, B., Linek, S., Lalonde, T., & Albert, D. (2008). The effects of individualized feedback in digital educational games. In T. Conolly & M. Stansfield (Eds.) Proceedings of the 2nd European Conference on Games Based Learning (pp. 227– 236), October 16-–17, 2008, Barcelona, Spain. Reading, UK: Academic Publishing Limited. Mc Grenere, J. L. (1996). Design: Educational Electronic Multi-Player Games. Read More