Games in Education – How Games Can Improve Our Schools – Extra Credits
Games in Education – How Games Can Improve Our Schools – Extra Credits
Sticking a game into a classroom agenda or homework assignment doesn’t automatically make it more educational *or* entertaining. Integrating games into school requires rethinking education itself!
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(Original air date: August 7, 2013)
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I have an idea for a somewhat game(s) for education. Anyone remember The Magic School Bus, and the games they had? Ever thought of implementing the concept to VR? Imagine touring a cell, with you being the size reduced up to the size of an item. Letting us see the different processes on such a close and personal level, and having multiple interesting personalities from multiple points of view/understanding will help with any questions the player may of had. The students will have the ability of understanding each organelle intimately, and not simply know it like the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell. They can learn a little bit about chemistry, and it could be presented in such a way that what is normally more advanced material to a much younger audience. The concepts of cellular respiration’s jargon and complicated diagrams more than anything.
I agree with the kid on the thumb, why someone would accept to eat a videogame box
well i do not go to School
TLDR: having the feeling of choosing what you do makes that thing (game or not) a lot more powerful. And it’s doable in a classroom setting.
Quite interestingly, This rule of "you can’t force someone to play a video game and assume the student will learn by it" applies to pretty much anything. How many kids think they don’t like reading because they are forced to read books they don’t want to read? I recently was talking with a friend about the fact that I have the feeling of most of my knowledge (at least the things I remember the most) comes from things *I* decided to watch or read.
I got to love reading thanks to a teacher I had. She would not make us read a particular book. She just made a "reading corner" in the classroom. With giant pillows and all. And shelves with lots of books. We could go to the reading corner if we finished our exercises, at pauses if we did not feel like going outside, or even during the lunch hour. We could also borrow books and take them home.
The only rule was: You have to read a book a month; and fill a card with title, author, quick summary, and why you liked it or not. Guess what? IT WORKED. Because in all the books available you would eventually find something that you enjoyed. And then another, and another.
Also:
– Most of the things I learned as a kid was by watching documentaries on DVDs my father bought me. (those were french shows made to simplify science – I think an American equivalent would be "Bill Nye the science guy"). He didn’t make me watch this. He just offered me a DVD one day, and then I liked it and asked for many more. I could watch them several times, during hours on weekends and vacation, as you watch a movie. And I learned without knowing it.
– Most of the things I learned as a teenager and today was from YouTube. Things I watch in my free time like this video because I want to, I like to.
I think there is few important things going on here. The feeling of having a choice of what to do. Having the choice of when to do it. Being trusted. Not being pushed to do something or constantly being reminded you have to do it.
And also make the activity attractive by every mean: the reading corner really was a place of soft and warm comfort.
EDIT: Just realized a big strength of the reading corner was also that it was presented as a reward "if you finish you exercise earlier, you can go read" subtlety implies that reading is a reward
I think one of the hardest issues in gamifying education is it’s hard to teach those solid facts in a way that isn’t boring or a monologue. I think the issue is trying to avoid exposition dumps but making sure the message isn’t muddled. ex: let’s say you are trying to teach that metal conducts electricity to a small child. so you put in a silver strip and tell the kids to zapp it. kid learns "silver stuff conducts electricity"
good to know
If anything, educational games and websites definitely need to be better.
Most that I’ve seen fall flat on their faces because they either apparently forgot to play test (have blatant issues), or think all students are five-year-olds.
Take Dreambox, for instance.
It gives the player instructions and help almost exclusively through speaking, and doesn’t provide captions.
This is very bothersome, not only because the VA they chose sounds rather patronizing, but also because the majority of the sounds the games make are sharp electronic beeps, which encourages you to mute the site. The help section is also delivered in this manner.
Additionally, the game really likes to talk. Every time you make a mistake, no matter how minor, the game decides that you don’t know anything, and forces you to sit through another explanation problem. It also badgers you for spending more than half a minute on a problem, which is a bit ridiculous, for some of the problems. (Especially the reverse quadratics, where you have to a. move a bunch of sliders around and b. guess-and-check two variables.)
Despite being a site where you do math for a certain period of time, it doesn’t let students know how many hours or even problems they’ve done within the span of more than a week. It does reward you with “stars” for completing lessons, though, so this might be more of a “my school didn’t look carefully enough” (They gave us hours to sit through, not stars to gather. The stars thing would have also been a measurement system we wouldn’t be able to cheat as easily.) thing, and less of a “educational game doesn’t provide enough stats” thing.
Dreambox also forgets to lend the player a digital protractor for the game on rotations, expecting them to hold a physical protractor up to their laptop screen. (Luckily, doing the rotation game isn’t absolutely required, but still.) (I’m not sure why my grade has rotations, actually. Don’t we know these already?)
why not an idle game of math where theres math questions instead of clicking (ill get addicted)
Thank you for giving me idea! Lately I have been planning to make a game to make my students get interested in economic sciences (I also am planning to use the data for my grad school dissertation). Wish me luck!
Does the "f" in grades stand for "fear"?
I read the comments from 2019 and yeah. Some "educational" games are absolutely unplayable. BUT implementing what you want the student to learn into a fun game that really sparks their curiosity and is not BS is amazing and would work. I’d love to get into rocket science or FTL travel and crazy things like that not because of school, but because of Kerbal Space Program(My personal favorite. I have 1100+ hours played) or Elite Dangerous.
Civil engineering seems fun, interesting, and challenging at the same time because of Cities:Skyline(I like to call it Cities Skylines).
Managing a massive transportation network seems interesting because of Transport Fever.
I don’t remember where I got my interest in Computers and cars from, but it was not from school.
These(except that last one) are all great reasons to incorporate games. And the best part:
They all have you do some complex logic problems or math problems to achieve a goal you want to achieve in game. Although there is a catch: all the games I mentioned are expensive(Kerbal Space Program is around 45 USD on steam when not on sale). Elite Dangerous costs around 20 USD, and Cities skylines cost around as much if not more. And that might be why their not getting implemented: cost.
My old math teacher used prodigy to help teach us math and we always were asking to play it and some of us played it at home
I know I’m late to the discussion. I appreciate the observations in the video. I was wondering if you
could name some of those specific pieces you thought of. For instance, do you think a game that was vr
and allowed student "gamers" to explore a battlefield in the past would be something that would spark
that curiousity?
I want to quote you in my essay, but my professor wants us to use the author’s name, not just the title of a video or the channel that created it. Do I quote John? Is he the author? I’m assuming someone else is the author, but I don’t know.
I got competitive in Pokemon and now I’m better at math.
How do i know my multiples of 2?
not math class.
minecraft! :3
bad example of this is moby max most kids find workarounds to doing work like "if put up a new tab with a game on it you can play it as long as you want if you switch of the tab when the teacher comes by" or "for all the open ended questions you can put any thing in and still get 100% even if you type cuss words" plus your forced to do it. the only real drive is OMG U GOT LIKE 55 SWEEPSTAKES TICKETS YOUR SOOOO GONNA WIN AND GET THE PRIZE HOW DID YOU EVEN GET THAT MANY and then do nothing to try and get there own plus there is always the "Oh me? ya im doing my work" when all your actuly doing is pulling up random graphs you cant even read much less understand .there is all these "moby max worked great in my class!" quotes on the home page but
1 there is only like 3 of them
2 do you ACTUALLY think there gonna put any "My class learnd nothing this is terible!" quotes up there?
all in all I think moby max is TERRIBLE for this kind of education and if you don’t believe me try it for yourself.
http://www.mobymax.com/
You’re always talking about this ”James” who is he?
When I was in junior high, my PE class had just gotten enough funding to buy 2 DDR machines. So on fridays, they would pull them out, and we got a choice: you can play the game, or you can walk laps around the gym.
I usually chose to play the game.
But one thing that always bothered me was tangential to this choice.
My class period for PE was shared with the special needs students. They wanted to play the game too. No big deal.
Except they always had their choice removed.
They got to play, but they never got to pick the song. It was always Girls Just Wanna Have Fun because it was the easiest song in the game.
And they barely got to play.
Anyone who has played DDR knows that if you get enough moves wrong the level ends.
So to keep that from happening because their reaction times were slower, other students would stand on the sides and press the buttons for them so the level wouldn’t end and they wouldnt feel sad.
But it bothered me because this meant they could never improve because people wouldnt let them.
End rant.
Video games have changed my childhood. I remember reading and playing maxis games (guys who created sims, but what Im talking about is their older games) and it always gave me an urge to learn, I was so depressed at that time but when I played their games I suddenly became a really good student and my depression was gone and I felt great! Thank you so much Maxis, you are one of my favorite video game developers/publishers! Plus, my last name is Mexis, so its like if we were meant to be!
yeah
What if there was an hour of classtime reserved for games where the student was given a choice of three different games to play that teach the same concepts but do so in radically different ways?
Please explain this to the people who made I – ready. The Teachers make us play the lessons and games for education. Or just explain this to teachers who use I – ready…
3:17
SASAGEYO
I Copyrighted a Board Game,made copies,and Held Tournaments for Adults & Children with Great Success! I would Love to Share and Help Grow The Education of OUR Children.Type James Stubits for MY Videos.Thank You for YOUR Video!
nuh uh, video games are POISONING our youth
And women tend to not like this type of things hue hue
i wish my school used minecraft education edition so i could whoop my class by just sprinting to the end XD
i have an idea for games. so the teachers make a game and secratly tell a few students that if they hang out in a poupular place near the school and play the game and tell anyone who asks them what there doing that there just playing a game they will get extra credit on a test or somthing do that and all of a suden this happens "hey what u doing bro?"
"just playing a game you wanna try?"
"sure! wow this is good where did you get this?"
"on the app store i can download it to your phone if you want."
"ok here"
BOOM done and done
"If you want to build a ship don’t drive the men to the forest, divide up the work and give orders,
Instead teach them to long for the sea" -someone I can’t remember
I know driving eventually becomes second nature, but to not have to concentrate at all? To be able to come up with strategies *while* you’re driving? Wow. That’s pretty cool! (I’m only learning to drive so it just sounds so weird)
Hello @Games in Education. Awesome episode. I’m glad to know that it is not just few of us who think the same way – that games can be medium for learning. That is what I’m trying to promote in my channel too. I’m still ongoing of making it better but that is part of the learning. I like that I learned from your video and will continue to support your channel. Thank you and more power to your team. =)
Anyone else see Gandhi sitting behind James at 0:12?
omg, already watched it 2 times.
Thats why we souldnt learn in schools. We should _learn how to learn_
4:59
DAYUM!
Shots fired…
If curiosity wasn’t more powerful than the threat of punishment, then why would little kids go into places they aren’t allowed?
The only games my school played were prodigy(boring) and orphahus the lyrical(Enemy spammed education platformer).
Did I miss it, or does this omit games that are simulations? I find simulations, while maybe not taking advantage of all a game can be, can still help as homework to improve the basic understanding better than three sketches and a wall of text trying to explain certain concepts that are obvious (or at least less unclear) when shown in an animated or interactive way. Like, illustrating projection and dimensions by showing a 3D object and a 2D slice out of it, then letting students move the 3D object and see the shape change, and only *then* show them a hypercube and say "that’s the same thing, just one dimension up". And maybe pack that up in a Monument Valley-style game.
Our ebukation (sorry i am not a native english speker.) is not broken its just peole that hate sholl that complains.
I mean, when we were bored in school we snuck onto cool math games (god I’m showing my age aren’t I?) they were educational games, and often taught us more than whatever we were doing at school on the computers at the time. But it was fun because it was naughty. Those same games might seem really lame if assigned.
what about before everyone goes to school in the summer the teacher lays out on a menu all the assignments that you have to do that years and pass to get a hundred and then all day you work through the list with different teachers coming into the room that you are helping kids who need it or just making sure no one is goofing of all day.
US Schools : Games are popular, let’s use this.
Also schools : *creates a buggy flash game that involves doing math problems in quick succession as its core and only mechanic and assigns it to students as an "optional extra study" alongside regular math homework*
Students: *work on other homework instead of playing the game*
Schools: You see! Video games will never work for education! The real
Problem is that students are lazy and hate to learn!
baildis basics?
April 3 2018
Baldi Basic education learning
I want to build an educational game that acts like worms using physics calculations to make the shots, the equasion gets run through and the arc gets output and if you get the right equasion the shot will hit, another idea I had was a combat/exploration game where puzzles and traps require riddle solving or mechanical skills along with in game copies of real books that may have relevant information
Interesting
This is what Socrates said in the allegory of the cave
good games teach well. Look at the example of portal. It teaches you how to use the controls and the way to think with portals. The problem with most educational games is that they are not good games. And some things just have to be drilled relentlessly like say learning letters or basic arithmetic… just think of how much time people spend grinding in RPG’s. In my experience those tend to be the most wildly successful and fun educational games that teach something practical are RPG’s that use the grinding to make people drill relentlessly on words or letters, with modern voice recognition systems whole foreign language courses could be done that way… but most are fairly low budget and focus on text. If you make it a good, or at least halfway decent game. Most educational games are not good games. Let me emphasize again; All good games teach, the control scheme is not something that is innate, the very concept of a difficulty curve is founded on learning.