Now that testing is over, I’m being asked a lot if I know of any games that students can play on the computer.
Let’s be clear, I like games as much as the next guy (here and some for language arts and here some for math) but I wish that we could shift our thinking to ask if we know of anything students can create on the computer. With programs like Garageband, iMovie and Voicethread, students can be planning and creating projects that are probably just as much fun and equally easy to use now that they’re built in on most computers.
Games, educational or not, aren’t the only things computers do these days. In case you’ve missed it, there are many ways to promote higher level thinking on the computer and empower students to create.
If you haven’t done this yet this year, start now but next year let’s work it in before testing too, students might test better if given an opportunity to design and create instead of just pushing buttons.
This seems to be a trend. I think at least three-quarters of the time our labs are being used the students are playing games online or from software (like type to learn). I’m with you. Great post!
Great post, really, but I kinda resent the possible implication that computers were somehow created for games to begin with. I realize that’s probably not what you’re going for, but that’s the feeling I got from the way things are worded and as a gamer it kinda irks me, you know?
Also, games can foster higher level thinking as well. In fact, I think games have the capability to foster much higher level thinking than anything else, as well as doing everything else you mentioned. In terms of creating for example, there are many games out today with level editors. Halo 3 has Forge, for example, and even classics like StarCraft have editors. These allow gamers to create levels and perhaps even entire storylines for games and I argue that this is a creative process on par with or greater than the other things you mentioned. There is a lot to consider, with the toughest being a good game balance so people will enjoy the map instead of thinking it unfair and not playing it.
The extremely creative and ambitions – with a little bit of work – can begin to design their own games, or supplement current games by creating models and textures.
Since you mostly talk about creating, I’ll leave it there, but games can inspire so much more. (Sure, not everybody comes out of games with that sort of inspiration, but not everyone that uses the programs you mention make works of art, so to speak…)
I’m not trying to refute anything you’re saying in your post, but only attempting to indicate that games can also do the things you mentioned because it seems as if you make the two things mutually exclusive. It is another type of creation, but the underlying creative process is still in there.
Karl Kapp has written a great book called Gadgets, Gizmo’s and Games for Learning and has extensive suggestions for selection of games for learning depending upon the type of knowledge being taught.
I think where many people get bothered (including me) is when people attempt to turn the computer lab into a video arcade and just let students play mindless – whatever you want – kinds of games.
The reality in the corporate world is that every keystroke is being monitored and understanding appropriate use is important. Additionally, some gaming sites have spyware on them.
So, I like games — I LOVE games but like them to be used for meaning not as a babysitter, which is what I think you imply here.
My favorite book on games so far is Steven Johnson’s “Everything Bad Is Good For You.” I agree with Benny’s comments and haven’t said that some games don’t promote higher level thinking.
However, when a second grade teacher comes to me and wants games on the computer, they’re not talking about creating new levels in Halo 3 (nor would that be appropriate), they’re talking about Flash based games that replicate what you can do with flashcards in the real world and they don’t realize how easy it would be to fire up garageband and let the students “play” with that. No, Benny, not every creation would be a work of art but it wouldn’t have to be.
Ah, second grade teacher… that didn’t hit me until you said that. I don’t think you mentioned that in the post. I just read “students” and by instinct referenced high school/college because that is most relevant to me at the moment (being a college student myself). Although a great many lil’ tykes are playing games they shouldn’t be (the Grand Theft Auto series comes to mind), I do agree that it’s just plain crazy to expect second graders to foster creativity through Halo 3 or something.
Sorry for my misperception! (again, it’s still a great post!)
I tell my students they can play games at home, but at school, we are using computers to learn to produce. My students are currently working on two projects, a cultural video using iMovie and a newspaper using InDesign. One of them complained yesterday, “this is hard.” “Yes, I replied, learning is hard.” Some of my students come early and then come back after school to work on their video. I know they are learning.
However, Mathew, I can assure you that in the eyes of the proud parents, every creation their child would make IS a work of art. We put the drawing of unidentifiable objects on our refrigerators with great pride and out of love for our little ones, and I’m sure electronic creations would be no different. In fact, the relative ease with which one can make some things via the great software out there usually astounds parents, especially the less technically inclined ones.
And I know this firsthand from teaching game design (with Game Maker 7) and simple programming/3D animation (with Alice and Storytelling Alice). I’ll be venturing into a two week summer program using these apps with 5th and 6th graders, with 25 hours of time available each week. I can’t wait to see what they create! I’m intentionally going to try and keep the tutorials and step-by-step stuff to day one of each week, with the hope that I can spend the rest of the week unleashing creativity (and teaching some deep problem solving)!
Mathew,
Great post with which I totally agree. For elementary students, the process of creating something to represent their learning has to exercise the brain in different ways than playing a game about number facts. I too, think there is a place for these types of games, but not at the expense of students having the opportunity to work in groups to plan, create, reflect and revise. This time of year, unfortunately, is when technology is used the most. If we encourage conditions where teachers see the value of the kind of learning that comes from creating, publishing and sharing, then maybe they would take the risk to do it more often during the rest of the year.
Thanks for putting this out there. I need to think more about this.
Yes, Janice,
I guess that’s my complaint. Teachers have held out on using their computers all year and now they want to use them a kick back kind of way…not that there’s anything wrong with that except that they’ve missed out on using it as a transformative tool for all these months.
Mathew and Janice, I totally agree that far too many teachers/schools/districts are missing out on the real potential in how technology can be used. I saw an article (can’t remember the mag) that referred to three different categories of tech activities or projects – old things in old ways, old things in new ways, and new things in new ways. We’re stuck with far too many in the first two categories. I’m doing my best to effect change in my neck of the woods!
Kia Ora Matthew
I began my career in working with computers in 1982. I’d never touched a keypad or booted up a CPU until that time. I was HOD Science and the BOT had just bought a computer for the school. There was no classroom secure enough to store it except for the senior physics lab on floor 2. So that’s where it was put.
And I put up with it sitting there not being used for a term. At the end of term 1 I spoke with HOD Mathematics who was overseeing the use of the computer and asked her if the school had any computer programs for it. She pointedly told me that we had to write our own. “It’s basic”, she said. I thought she was telling me I should know all this until I found out later she was telling me the name of the programming language.
I got a hold of the manual and started to learn about basic programming. The ‘machine’ (that’s what they called it” was Ohio Scientific with an OS65D3 chip which, apparently could run basic very fast. I set myself small tasks at first. After a week of messing around with the printer, I managed to write a program that displayed a little white arrow on the screen that roamed around by using the arrow keys.
Games were it. Every task I set myself incorporated making a game of some sort. I wrote lots of them, including a game not unlike the snake game used on some mobile phones. My game controlled a little grub that wriggled over the screen and would get longer as it came across randomly seeded ‘flies’. Of course, it disappeared if it touched the edge of the screen so the player had to use some strategy to stay in the game. It got specially tougher as the grub grew longer.
Okay. I had fun. But I learned so much about computers through those primal experiences. I thought everybody learnt about computers that way. Sadly this was not so.
There was an Ohio Scientific club in Wellington where I lived. The evening I took my games programs along I got festooned with enthusiasts asking me all sorts of odd questions about how I managed to get things to work.
This is a long comment, sorry, but the short story is that programming games into a computer teaches one a heck-of-a-lot more about computers than does playing them.
Ka kite
from Middle-earth