For as far back as I can remember, I have played video games.
To me, video games are a huge part of my life, just as much as someone who likes to read romance novels or study the history of Charlemagne. I can say with honesty that I have learned just as much from video games as I have in school when it comes to story-driven moral lessons. There have been games such as the Mass Effect series that have demonstrated to me the importance and use of dialogue within a story, and there have been ones such as Journey and Shadow of the Colossus that have shown me how much can be said with little to no dialogue. It is because of these lessons I've learned that I feel video games could be a great help in the educational field.
Aside from the physical and mental benefits of regular video game play (increased hand-eye coordination, faster information processing, more efficient decision-making skills, etc.), students could potentially develop a deeper understanding of plot devices withing a narrative. Due to the very engaging nature of video games, students who actively play and pay attention to the plot of the game are more likely to remember it than if they had simply read it. This is not to say that memorization is definitively better in the case of video games, but it can be said that for certain students it would be much easier.
I will definitely use video games in my classroom when I am a teacher. I feel like they are a more accessible and enjoyable form of media for most students, as they are actively engaged in the story instead of being passive observers. The type of games I would use would be short, narrative driven games, as they would be the most useful in an English/Language Arts classroom. I know that a potential problem would be the lack of universal access to a gaming console or computer, so I, of course, would not make playing the game a requirement in the curriculum. Instead, they would be offered and suggested as supplementary materials to the related text that we may be reading.
Hopefully I will be able to prominently employ the use of video games in my class when I am a teacher. I also hope that more educators catch on to this untapped and potentially beneficial educational mode.
To me, video games are a huge part of my life, just as much as someone who likes to read romance novels or study the history of Charlemagne. I can say with honesty that I have learned just as much from video games as I have in school when it comes to story-driven moral lessons. There have been games such as the Mass Effect series that have demonstrated to me the importance and use of dialogue within a story, and there have been ones such as Journey and Shadow of the Colossus that have shown me how much can be said with little to no dialogue. It is because of these lessons I've learned that I feel video games could be a great help in the educational field.
Aside from the physical and mental benefits of regular video game play (increased hand-eye coordination, faster information processing, more efficient decision-making skills, etc.), students could potentially develop a deeper understanding of plot devices withing a narrative. Due to the very engaging nature of video games, students who actively play and pay attention to the plot of the game are more likely to remember it than if they had simply read it. This is not to say that memorization is definitively better in the case of video games, but it can be said that for certain students it would be much easier.
I will definitely use video games in my classroom when I am a teacher. I feel like they are a more accessible and enjoyable form of media for most students, as they are actively engaged in the story instead of being passive observers. The type of games I would use would be short, narrative driven games, as they would be the most useful in an English/Language Arts classroom. I know that a potential problem would be the lack of universal access to a gaming console or computer, so I, of course, would not make playing the game a requirement in the curriculum. Instead, they would be offered and suggested as supplementary materials to the related text that we may be reading.
Hopefully I will be able to prominently employ the use of video games in my class when I am a teacher. I also hope that more educators catch on to this untapped and potentially beneficial educational mode.