Week 14: Using Gaming for Teaching and Learning

This week we talked about using gaming for teaching and learning. The primary game we talked about in class was second life--basically virtual life, a place where you can do everything in another world with a person you've created. We discussed in class whether this was a good thing or a bad thing. Although the Internet has wonderful programs that can be really useful for education, I think online games is where it becomes a little too risky.

Most children are used to navigating the online world, and as many parents can tell you, most already have online games they play. In this society, it's easy to become swept away with the Internet. It is so incredibly important for teachers and educators to teach children the importance of not letting the Internet take over their life. Using online games for teaching does the opposite. It reaffirms what children are beginning to believe--that it's OK to rely on the Internet for everything. I'm not saying every situation is a bad one, but you must be very picky and cautious about how many online games you use when teaching children.

One area where gaming really hasn't hit too hard yet is journalism. There are no clear, everyday uses for gaming in the journalism field. It is an interesting thing to think about, though. Using games for informing adults and attracting readers is much different than teaching children, first of all. In a constantly evolving world it's interesting to think about how you could use games in journalism. For instance, you could use them to accompany a story or in some interactive way on a publication's website. Actually, using it as an interactive way is really great idea. It'll be interesting to see over the next few years how games begin to permeate journalism.

All that said, I don't want to sound to critical. Like I said before, yes it is a very dangerous area to get into. But to be fair, it's important to evaluate all sides and look at the benefits of online games, too. The below video show how five graduate students from IIT Delhi are trying to make learning easier for  kids through games they are developing. The video, a news report from NDTV, shows the benefits to gaming for teaching and learning. They're really are a lot of benefits. You just have to be extremely cautious.