Video Games and Education: Good and Bad - News
by VGChartz Staff , posted on 13 March 2011 / 5,377 Views
It's not all doom and gloom when it comes to kids and video games. According to recent studies and interviews with educators, video games are changing the landscape in education from a generation ago. First off, gaming is up over recent years, 60% of kids 8 to 18 play an average of 2 hours a day, up from 38% playing 1 hour 5 minutes back in 1999 according to Kaiser Family Foundation surveys.
What does this mean for educators? Holli Goodrich likes many qualities which she believes video games have helped instill in her students at Hickman Mills Junior High School in Kansas City, But it’s also harder to keep many of them on task.
“They have so many distractions,” Goodrich said. “It’s a constant battle.”
Many educators are finding that children today have somewhat shorter attention spans and are more impatient than those of a generation back, but they also find that in the context of computers, today's students have no fear of jumping in and learning on their own. There is no fear of figuring computer stuff out, something that Goodrich cannot say of the adults she trains.
“They (adults) will wait for me to do it, screen by screen,” Goodrich said.
Not everything is beneficial though. In a study which focused on families who were considering buying a game system, giving game systems to half of the families involved, and promising systems to the other half at the end of the four month study found exactly what you might expect. The kids who received the game systems had an initial drop in performance on standardized tests compared to those who had to wait.
Over the long term, gaming has been shown to increase kids' involvement in class. Many educators believe that video games are producing more adventurous, risk taking thinkers. Video games help kids to know that “failure is a normal part of the learning process,” said Dan Willingham, a psychology professor at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville.
Teacher Cassie Krause has also seen this to be true.
“They’ll answer a question,” Krause said, “and if it’s wrong, their hand is back up, trying to figure out the answer.”
Video games can also motivate kids to read, help build teamwork skills, planning, and others.
“You’re not just melting the brain the way my parents described it to me,” says Marie Alcock, president of Learning Systems Associates, “You can find games that are going to absolutely help in school.”
Most educators say that kids and parents are finding a workable balance with gaming and everything else that needs to be done.
"Good students are still going to be good students," Goodrich said.
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Educational games can happen.
It's just that parents must parent their childs for the VG to be a good portion of their sons life and not a hidrance.
I think the smarter question is ask is what type of games are good and bad for kids. GTA on an 8 year old brain will probably hurt the kids morals as he or she grows up, but what about Brain Age, Jump Start --, Zack and Wiki? What about a typical Zelda game, which is hack at slash at it's core, but also requires significant problem solving skills for a child during dungeon encounters.
I think thats a more important question.
Video games made me smarter, i became an planner which resulted in me learning better and that came off the back of planning in video games. But it depends on the games. Some games teach morals and good skills which can improve performance in learning like DS brain training which has been proven to increase performance but an game like cod does not so well.
Besides giving a game console to an kid and putting them in sport is an great way to keep them off the streets and out of gangs.
As with all things. Whether it's good or bad depends on how you make use of it.
