Trends in Video Games and Gaming - Literature review Example

College: Gaming Adolph, Martin. Trends in Video Games and Gaming. ITU-T Technology Watch Report (September . Summary: This article provides a comprehensive survey of some of the recent advances in gaming technologies. The article also extensively describes some of the most commonly used gaming terminals and platforms in the modern society. It further highlights latest game technologies and proposes ways of improving the gaming experience, as well as, linked standardization measures. Assessment: This article provides immense background information about gaming technology. It also forms a good basis for research since it provides statistical evidence about trends in computer games and the fields in which they are most utilized. The article also proposes further research into the influence of games on education, behaviour and even health. Therefore it provides me with a good starting point for my research. Quotations: “Games and gaming have evolved from dedicated, single-game units to massively multiplayer online role-player games with millions of players.” “Games are an exciting way to communicate and connect with a larger community of likeminded people. Rich mobile games, combined with connected near distance multiplayer gaming over Bluetooth and wide area gaming using cellular networks, opens the door for totally new gaming concepts.” Foreman, Joel. NEXT-Generation Educational Technology versus the Lecture. EDUCAUSE Review (August 2003). Web. 11 November 2013. Summary: This article provides a comprehensive comparative analysis of conventional learning methods and the modern technology-based approaches, with particular interest in use of games. The author discusses several aspects that constitute ideal learning situations. This article further indicates that shared graphical settings such as those utilized in multiple-user internet games are likely to be the ideal learning environments in the future. The paper is also indicative of the fact that games technology provides visualizations with sophistication and dynamism that could only be produced with supercomputers in the past. Assessment: This article is a highly informative source for my prospective research, since it compares traditional and modern technology-based methods. As a result, it provides a platform for proving that learning using modern technologies like multi-user games is more advantageous than conventional learning. The author presents this argument in a systematic hence coherent manner and at the same time cites previous research in the subject. Citing relevant literature and inclusion of statistical data makes the article a credible source. Quotations: “Visualizations, best referred to as immersive worlds, can bring a student into and through any environment that can be imagined. Instead of learning about a subject by listening to a lecture or by processing page-based alphanumerics, students can enter and explore a screen-based simulated world that is the next-best thing to reality.” “If nothing else, games expose players to deeply engaging, visually dynamic, rapidly paced, and highly gratifying pictorial experiences that make almost any sort of conventional schoolwork seem boring by comparison.” Perrotta, Carlo, Featherstone Gill, Aston Helen, and Houghton, Emily. Game-based Learning: Latest Evidence and Future Directions. Slough: NFER. 2013 Summary: This book explores evidence of the growing use of new education approaches. The authors particularly focus on how increasingly popular trends like game-based teaching, as well as, act as rewarding education experiences. The book is emphatic on the ways in which games challenge, motivate, and engage young learners. It also shows how game technologies equip learners with the necessary attitudes and skills for knowledge acquisition, living and working in the contemporary society. Assessment: This article covers a wide array of issues regarding learning based on computer games. For instance, it follows an orderly arrangement by first defining game-based learning, followed by the observed effects and possible impact of this mode of learning on scholars’ engagement and academic achievement. The authors also explore the implications of this form of learning for schools. Therefore, the book gives me a broad range of aspects to examine during research. Other than being extensively informative, the book extensively examines recent scholarly articles on gaming, which provide both theoretical and experimental evidence on the topic making it a highly valid source. Quotations: “Gaming is intrinsically motivating because by and large it’s a voluntary activity. Therefore, games for learning work best, in the context of invitation and persuasion, rather than compulsion.” “While teachers are generally positive about the use of video games in the classroom, they would require very strong evidence of their impact before they replaced more traditional learning styles. Until this time, they are more likely to use video games to supplement existing practice.” Klopfer, Eric, Osterweil Scot, Groff Jennifer, and Haas Jason. Using the Technology of Today, in the Classroom Today: The Instructional Power of Digital Games Social Networking Simulations. The Education Arcade, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2009. Web. 11 November 2013. Summary: This magazine article explores the extensive use of modern technology-based learning methods such as computer simulations, social networking and digital gaming. The article highlights the diversification of gaming platforms over the past few years to include specific goals, rules, challenges and outcomes. It also emphasizes that learners that use gaming technology are able to analytically examine information and determine aspects that are relevant to their learning process. The article shows that games create a relaxed education environment, increasing learners’ ability to experiment with their settings and adopt a problem solving approach towards acquiring knowledge. Assessment: This article explores the reasons as to why technology-based learning methods like gaming are suitable for the modern generation. This will be vital for my research, since one of my principal arguments is that people in the contemporary generation are different from older generations and must therefore be taught using equally distinct approaches. By exploring the issue of extensive social networking, the article supports my view that multi-user gaming is suitable for youngsters’ learning due to the fact that they are used to non-geographically limited communication networks. Quotations: “Simply put, these technologies afford us the ability to convey concepts in new ways that would otherwise not be possible, efficient, or effective, with other instructional methods.” “In other words, these technologies don’t just help us teach the old stuff in new ways – they can also help us teach new stuff in new ways.” Shaffer, David, Squire Kurt, Halverson Richard, and Gee James. Video games and the Future of Learning, 2004. Web. 11 November 2013. Summary: This article explores how video games transform the learning process. It presents an argument that games constitute powerful activities that are, experimental, personally meaningful, social, and knowledge enhancing. This article further examines another perspective of games indicating that majority of modern education-oriented games have been manufactured without taking into account any logical learning theory or fundamental education research. Therefore, the article proposes that production of games should follow specific learning theories, in order to enhance their efficacy as education tools. Assessment: This article would be extensively informative for my research since it evaluates diverse literary works regarding games and their benefits. It also informs a crucial part of my study, which is to determine ways that games, can be improved as education instruments through adoption of learning theories. Quotations: “The first step towards understanding how video games can transform education is changing the widely shared perspective that games are mere entertainment.” “Whereas schools largely sequester students from one another and from the outside world, games bring players together, competitively and cooperatively, into the virtual world of the game and the social community of game players.” Hartmann, Tilo and Klimmt, Christoph. Gender and computer games: Exploring females dislikes. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 11.4(2006): 910-931. Summary: The article gives comprehensive information on the number of girls and women involved in gaming. It article reports on average number of women that indulge in gaming and the kind of games they prefer. The article also gives two studies investigating the dislikes of video games by women. Additionally, the article shows that women are less attracted to violence as well as competitive elements in the games showing the reason why female respondents are specific to particular games. Assessment: The article is imperative because it has informative information on gender and gaming. The studies conducted in this article provides statistic that are useful in making vital arguments in my research. The article assists to prove that there are women that are interested in gaming but they prefer less violent games. Quotations: “For example, among a representative sample of German six to 13 years olds, 33% of girls reported playing Game boy at least once a week (compared to 51% of boys), 33% reported playing other video consoles or computer games (compared to 54% of boys), and only 12% reported being very interested in video games in general (compared to 36% of boys; MFS, 2005a). Another study (MFS, 2005b) found a similar gender gap in video game involvement among 12 to 19 year old adolescents, with for example only 15% of all females reporting finding video games very interesting (compared to 52% of males) and only 15% of all females in this age group (compared to 61% of males) stating that they play computer or video games at least once a week.” Annetta, Leonardo. Video Games in Education: Why They Should Be Used and How They Are Being Used. Theory into Practice, 47(2008):229–239 Summary: the article recognizes the world has changed especially with the net generation. The article emphasizes that children passing through the education system should subjected to the digital media they are accustomed to. The author clearly stipulates the need to expose as well as challenge the net generation in the education environment because it encourages them to explore and experiment to gain knowledge. The article also provides a practical justification of integrating video games in the curriculum. Assessment: The article does not clearly give the statistics of schools that have used video games in their education. However, it provides a rationale as to why video games should be used in the education system. There is immense information on why using video games in the class room can improve students’ performance. Quotations: “A player learns to think critically about the simulation while at the same time gaining embedded knowledge through interacting with the environment”. “By allowing the player to take on new identities, solve problems through trial and error, and gain expertise or literacy, video games have potential for nonself-referential disciplines, particularly science. Games provide learners the opportunity to learn by doing, experience situations first-hand, and role-play.” McClarty, Katie et al. A Literature Review of Gaming in Education, 2012. Web. 11 November 2013. Summary: This is a literature review that has immense information on gaming in education. The review shows that utilization of digital and simulation games in learning will increase in the future. This research report gives a credible an overview of the empirical and theoretical evidence about the five principal claims on the use of digital games in education. These five claims are that video games are built on intact learning principles. Additionally they provide more engagement to the students, give modified learning prospects, provide students with recent century skills, as well as providing a relevant and authentic assessment environment. Assessment: The literature review gives massive statistical and theoretical evidence showing why video games should be incorporated in the education system. Quoting different scholars in the literature review assist in supporting his five claims. This is formation is very important in making relevant argument as to why video games are an imperative aspect in the education system. Quotations: “While in the past educators have been reluctant to use video games or computer games in the classroom, there is an increasing interest across broad and varied parts of the educational establishment to look at the use of digital games as serious learning and assessment tools”. “Games also are built with clear goals and provide immediate feedback (Dickey, 2005). This allows players to change their game play in order to improve their performance and reach their goals. The idea of immediate feedback is also prominent in good formative assessment processes. Students will improve their work when given constructive feedback”. Bond, David. The Effects of Violent Video Games on Aggressive Behavior and the Relationship to School Shootings, 2011. Web. 11 November 2013. Summary: The article discusses the impact of playing violent video games as a way of manifesting aggressive behaviours in young individuals. The principal objective of the research is to examine scientific effects of violent video games on aggressive behaviours. Additionally, the author examines relevant evidence depicting that playing violent video games has played a crucial role in the recent extreme school shootings. Assessment: Having proven that many commercial video games are violent, it is imperative to examine how gaming has affected individuals psychologically. The article has statistical evidence on the increase of gamming and also on the psychological effects on people. Quotations: “Only one-third has records of behavioural problems and 10% had been expelled from school. Most attackers showed no change in academic performance, friendship patterns, interest in school, or school disciplinary problems prior to their attack. However, many attackers felt bullied, persecuted or injured by others prior to the attack, and over 50% described revenge as a motive for killing”. Gentile, Douglas and Anderson. Violent Video Games: The Effects on Youth, and Public Policy Implications. In Dowd, Nancy, Singer, Dorothy and Wilson, Robin. Handbook of Children, Culture and Violence. 2006. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Summary: The chapter in this book discusses the immense violence that has been introduced by video games. The history of video games violence has also been provided showing that the first commercial video was released in 1972 and it was called the ping pong. The book also defines aggressive behaviour and provides examples of violent commercial video games in the market. Technology advancement is continually promoting violence. Assessment: The book discusses the effects of video games and also provides statistical evidence to prove the inferences made. The authors have also quoted different scholars to in supporting their different conclusions. Therefore, the book has enough evidence showing that despite the fact that video games can be used in the education system; there are chances that it might promote violence among children. Quotations: “Years of research documents how witnessing violence and aggression leads to a range of negative outcomes for children. These outcomes result both from witnessing real violence, as well as, from viewing media violence”. “Ironically, the same parents who take great pains to keep children from witnessing violence in the home and neighborhood often do little to keep them from viewing large quantities of violence on television, in movies, and in video games.” “For example, among high school students, the correlation with violent behaviour was r = .35, and with moderate physical aggression was r = .46 (Study 2). Violent video game exposure was also significantly related to a host of aggression-related variables such as trait anger and hostility, attitudes toward violence, and hostile attribution bias.” Read More