Games teach problem solving.
No, seriously. Probably 95% of my problem-solving skills came from a life spent playing all variety of games and puzzles.
More research is being conducted every day that shows this phenomenon is true for most of those who engage frequently in games.
What’s really cool is that the engineering sector is saying that a specific game can help kids develop the thinking skills necessary to succeed in engineering.
Where some people see a video game as someone sitting glued to a television for hours on end playing the same game, some of us understand that we’re learning to take risks, think situations through, trying out different combinations to find a solution. Where some people see the MMORPG as a great way to lose a loved one to a virtual world, some of us understand that some level of communications and social development is taking place.
The results are trickling in, and games can actually be beneficial for developing skills that serve adults well in the business world, regardless of the sector.
Posted by Rebecca as Problem Solving, Games at 8:25 AM EST
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Today is really going to just be about sharing some of the posts I’ve been reading lately. The other day I was thinking about the new class of educational toys. Today I’m thinking about computer and video games. This might be because I have my interview with the Art Institute this morning to discuss whether or not their Interactive Media program is a good fit for the shift I’m trying to push myself through. I suspect by the time it’s all said and done, she’s going to recommend I find a more technical school…but we’ll see.
Okay…recent games reading:
- Racial ambiguity in games- Like Mrs. Dewey, it appears that games are starting to feature characters that are designed in such a way that most people can find something to identify with. I don’t know if I’ve ever thought to identify myself with Mario or Lara Croft, but I think this is just awesome. Designing with multiculturalism in mind can open up what you can do with a game, but at the same time, it also runs the risk of breaking down cultural boundaries, and potentially making it okay to generate a homogeneous culture instead of celebrating what makes various cultures unique.
- Hotel Dusk: Novel or Game?- I’ve been working on figuring out the Change Your Own Adventure development process for what I hope will become a series of games where math will help determine your path through the story, so finding out about this one excited me. I’m going to have to see if I can pick up a copy to see how they did it. One of the potential benefits of a game like this is that it can either breed an interest in reading in kids who wouldn’t normally read for fun, or it could pull avid readers into gaming (thereby encouraging them to become more social).
- Today’s Homework: Make Good Games- I remember when I was in middle school, my life science teacher thought it would be fun for everyone to create games designed to help us study for a test. It was a lot of fun. We each worked on our own, and I think mine was a version of Monopoly with a trivia element to it. It was awesome because I got to design something, and just creating the game helped me study for the test. When I got to make the box of reading games for one of my teacher prep classes, I thought that was pretty cool, too. I love playing games. I love solving puzzles. I love creating treasure hunts. And I love creating games, even if my experience up until this CYOA one has been low-tech.
- Game over- Play again?- Okay, so I really like this one! When I was a kid playing Donkey Kong Junior and Mario, it was all about how wonderful the games were for teaching things like problem solving and hand-eye coordination for us less athletically gifted kids. Now, games are hailed for being able to draw people together socially as they work together on MMORPGs or through xBox Live. Even the Wii is already being praised for getting gamers off their couches. (And if you have yet to play with a Wii, I highly recommend it. It is more fun than any one person should be allowed to have indoors!) The one unsung skill taught by gaming, though, is the ability to make mistakes and be completely fine with it because you know you’ll get an other chance. It’s actually a subskill of the problem solving skill. You try something. You die. You think, ‘So next time, I’ll try this instead.’ Which you do. It kills you. Finally, you figure out the right solution, and you keep going. No fuss. No stress over doing it “wrong”. It’s just an attempt. Smart gamers carry this skill, like the others, in their back pocket to help them get through real life. And it’s true.
Gaming isn’t a panacea to all of education’s ills, but it can be great for reinforcing skill development. And I’m starting to see why I’m gravitating back toward it, just from an educator’s perspective.
Posted by Rebecca as Experiential Learning, Problem Solving, Games, Link Dump at 7:31 AM EST
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As my thoughts on my future try to narrow in on a plan and a back-up plan for my career shift, I’m finding my reading shifting away from e-portfolios and adult-centric e-learning to information architecture/literacy and K-12 media and games. The more I read, the more I think about things, the longer I’m at my current job, the more I want to get involved in creating products to help students acquire and review math skills. (Actually, I want to be involved in more than just math, but it’s what’s got me fired up for so many reasons.) Right now, I’m just trying to figure out how to position myself to move into that kind of work.
It’s quite the time to try to figure out how to shift to a different informal education niche. The education industry as a whole is going through a rather large shift that may involve sliding in and out of paradigms as it grows to accommodate the accelerated changes in our society. Children are able to reach out and learn in many different ways and from many different sources. With a little training, they can learn what sources can be trusted, and what sources should either be reinforced with information from other sources or discarded altogether.
But I digress from my actual reason for writing today. My point is that children love to explore. They love to learn initially. They like to copy what grown-ups do because they know that’s part of becoming a grown-up. They mimic. They make knowledge their own. They find their own ways of doing things.
More often than not, they do it at a rate that is faster than their parents are able to adapt to the current new world order. Think about it. I’m a member of the video game generation. While my parents enjoyed sitting down to play favorite games when we first got the Coleco, I was the one who played nearly every game we had. When I was given a Nintendo right after they came out, Mom and Dad had their games, but again, I was the one who played nearly all of them. Now, they IM me for help on the computer (even though Mom is far more computer savvy than she realizes). Along with my technological toys, I had my Fisher Price kitchen so I could pretend to cook like my mom. I had my blocks so I could try to make my own buildings. I had no end of art supplies so I could create my own works of art.
I had access to toys my parents couldn’t have imagined when they were kids, but they helped me be able to successfully navigate my way into the grown-up world I had to deal with. Today’s children are now doing the same thing- except their toys are kid-friendly computers, cell phones, and other technological toys. Where I learned to design with my Crayola caddy, they’re using Crayola products that can do far more than my crayons and markers ever could. Where I learned to write BASIC programs and draw in Paint (both of which i did toward the end of elementary school), these kids are learning their way around WYSIWYG editors and kid-friendly programs to create with a computer. Many of them move on to harder programs by the end of middle school.
The kids show the grown-ups how to use the “basic” technology toys in use. It’s because it’s the world they’re growing up into. They become familiar with these now so that they can be prepared to quickly adapt to newer technologies as they develop.
Are we stealing their childhood from them by allowing them access to these types of toys, or are we allowing them to explore, to play, to discover?
Inspired by this article
Posted by Rebecca as Experiential Learning, Problem Solving, Games at 8:08 AM EST
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Here’s an article and some links on how decision-making works in the brain. It was a very interesting read.
Unsurprisingly, and many of us as educators understand some of this from our teacher prep program days, decision-making is often firmly rooted in the prior knowledge we bring with us to a situation. We want to relate something unfamiliar to something familiar, not entirely dissimilar from the math tests I talked about on Monday. By bringing part of the problem into part of our definition of “familiar”, the problem becomes less frightening, more approachable. An approachable problem is far more likely to be resolved than one we want to avoid because it’s unfamiliar.
Posted by Rebecca as Problem Solving at 7:49 AM EST
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It has always amazed me how often problem-solving activities are assigned to keep the gifted students quiet while waiting for their classmates to finish their work. This article does a great job of showing what happens when you open those activities to all of your students. This is such a great idea, and it equips all of your students with the ability to look at various problems and solve them.
He has also included some great ideas for other areas where puzzle projects can be used to help enhance lessons.
Posted by Rebecca as Problem Solving at 7:41 AM EDT
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