As the dawn of technology continues to advance our youth culture, there is now controversy as to whether or not these innovations are truly helpful. Nowadays, teachers are beginning to use video games as another medium to help their students with learning abilities. In addition, video games are now being used to progress the language barriers between cultures. Although it may seem that video games would stunt the progression of our youth and culture, researchers are now finding students to be more motivated, engaged, and disciplined when these tools are not only applied to our schools, but also in the areas of foreign language and rehabilitation.
On average, people spend more than three billion hours a week with an average of eight hours per week playing video games (Folkins 111). Nowadays, when the term “video game,” is heard, pictures of gaming controllers, race cars, or soldiers in tanks flash across one’s mind. Parents regulate the hours of game play that their children are allowed to receive and scoff when the child begs “just five more minutes.” However, little do students and parents know that teachers are now incorporating tools, such as video games into their classroom lessons. Parents are stunned when they receive this news, but they are mistaken as to what types of video games are actually going to be used in the classroom.
While they assume the games being used would be games such as Call of Duty or MarioKart, the types of games that would be used can be demonstrated by Messer and her classroom in Clark Street Community School in Middleton, Wisconsin. When her students were learning about motion force, they played a game where they had to had to make predictions over how a ship was going to move. Then, students had to decide how long to apply force and how much of it to apply. All the while, students were to be avoiding assorted obstacles that were blocking the path and the number of passengers that were on board the ship. This is an example of how students who had different learning levels were forced to consider the topics of mass, inertia, and balance (Meyer 21).
According to a recent survey conducted by the Games and Learning Publishing Council, “55 percent of teachers use video games in the classroom on a weekly basis” (Meyer 20). The use of these video games as an effective tool in classrooms helps raise student discipline, engagement, and motivation (Misfud 34). For instance, an experiment was conducted by Robertson and Howells on sixth graders to test how they reacted to a gaming program that enabled them to create characters, landscapes, and write the dialogue the characters used in the virtual environment. Researchers found that these students were displaying increased levels of enthusiasm for learning, determination to learn new skills and reach new levels of comprehension, and independent learning skills that they would not have normally possessed in a normal classroom setting. Furthermore, these sixth graders were now able to apply their newly learned skills to current situations they were facing (Akpinar 230).
Another illustration can be viewed when Lucas Gillispie began to use the well known online game World of Warcraft as an after school tool. He noted that after a few weeks, attendance of the class rose and other teachers even began to notice an improvement in the behavior of students. Gillispie even stated “these kids are using vocabulary that I don’t hear typical middle schoolers using” (Meyer 22).
For the parents that worry about their students being antisocial or the video games having reverse effects on their children, discoveries have been made that demonstrate the amount of gameplay expressed a direct correlation to the benefit the student receives. For instance, numerous studies show that after twenty-five minutes to half an hour of gameplay, the results were significantly better than those who had no game play at all. For those that worry video games would actually impair their children’s learning abilities, the only scenario where the student retention levels did not rise was after eight hours of gameplay. This can be easily refuted since it is highly doubtful that students would be subjected to eight straight hours of game play without any breaks during a normal school day (Evans 100).
In the words of Squire, “the study of video games and learning is ready to come of age” (Evans 98). Teachers are now beginning to use video games to do over half of the teaching in their classrooms. For example, Asante Johnson, an educator at Wheately Education Campus in Washington D.C., estimates that on average, she and her classroom learn 85% of their course materials through a virtual medium. Her method, along with many other teachers worldwide is that video games use the process of “activity before concept.” Meaning, students are forced to work with a new idea or concept, play with it, visualize it, and apply their senses to it all before the teacher has even presented the full official content for the day (Meyer 22).
For the learning to be as successful as it can be, the students are taught by engaging them, and this is best done through a video game. Furthermore, when students are fully aware of their importance to the process and goal achievements, the process of learning a new topic is not only easier, but more successful (Misfud 33). According to the research of Evans, virtual gameplay helps benefit student ability to retain new problem solving abilities and mathematical concepts (Evans 100).
Not only did educators note the beneficial effects of video games on the attitudes and vocabulary of their students, but also an improvement in their attention span, perception, and cognitive tasks (Meyer 20). This is most likely because of how engaging most video games are to players, especially adolescents. When playing a video game, players are concentrating hard and staying on the tasks at hand. Many even note the difficulty of putting the game down once they are invested in it (Folkins 111). In addition, video games provide an immediate positive or negative response to players. The immediate feedback provides motivation that encourages the player to keep trying until the answer is correct if they have made a mistake in their work (Misfud 33).
Along with the immediate feedback also comes the positive effects video games provide for student autonomy and flexibility. Many parents fear that the utilization of so much technology in the classroom will make their children more antisocial and apathetic to social skills. However, it has been noted that the use of video games for learning has heightened student autonomy levels (Misfud 34). Furthermore, flexibility is required for a completely successful process of implementing video games in the learning process. Meaning, the tools and games being used by teachers would need to be appropriate to help teach the curriculum, while also being flexible enough to provide each student with assistance based on their different ability levels (Misfud 36).
In addition to the factor of flexibility, interest level of the game is also an important factor to consider when applying the use of these video games to classrooms. Meaning, if a student finds the task given to not be difficult, then the engagement of the student decreases. On the other hand, if the task is within the student’s level of ability, or what Vygotsky described, in “zone of proximal development”, while providing some challenges for the student, the levels of engagement are notably increased. Interest is viewed by many psychologists and scientists as the main factor for engagement in the classroom setting. This is because it provides fundamental motivation skills through the use of external stimuli. Video games are known for their vast use not only graphics, but also animations, sound effects, and visualizations (Evans 100).
Along with the flexibility and interest they provide, video games have also been noted to be very effective in motivating low performing students (Meyer 20). For instance, Asante Johnson uses video games as a reward tool in her classroom. She has begun using a program known as I-Ready in her mathematics class. When her students finish answering a group of questions correctly, they are given the option to play a video game for three minutes (Meyer 21). Once video games are implemented, teachers, like Johnson, assume the role of an interpreter for their students. This means they pair video games with their skills that cause the class to think and reflect on new ideas. In turn, students show better ability to “make links” between the learning goals of the class and what is being taught in the video games (Misfud 34).
While teachers make these positive links between learning skills and their students, video games provide an extra medium of learning to help make the learning experience as effective as possible. The use of these video games allows students to execute actions that would normally only be able to be carried out through their imaginations. The use of a virtual medium allows for students to work hands on with the concepts while increasing their retention of the subject. There is a belief that the youth of this generation are only able to learn through experiences they have had, not those they have not. The use of these tools in the classroom could help students proceed with countless new simulations based off of how they acted in a past scenario (Evans 99-100).
These games also possess the ability to take a challenge and use the interest of a student to make the experience meaningful to them. The interest the student will show on the problem will help them learn important skills of how to explore and overcome complications. The important skills they learn through this process are vital when students apply those same problem solving and negotiation skills to similar problems they face in their future (Evans 100).
The use of video games in the classroom would not render teachers completely useless in the student learning process. For instance, researchers conducted a study to test whether students learned fractions best by only using a program called LOGO or by teaching it in isolation through regular classroom activities. The results yielded that students learn best through a blending of classroom learning and the application of video games after a lesson has been taught (Akpinar 229).
Children who take part in literacy programs that utilize video games at a younger age have notably improved letter-naming and letter-sounding skills than those who do not. Furthermore, they display significant story and print concepts in addition to knowledge of letters in their names. Another benefit is that when students were exposed to role-play games, students were provided ideas for creative writing in a manner that was similar to books. Teachers have also noted that students who use video games in the classroom have shown increasingly higher levels in writing skills along with higher sentence structure, question ability, and basic literacy skills (Misfud 35).
As well as their use in classrooms, video games are now ushering in a new and innovative way to teach foreign learners and break down language barriers. A recent study tested a PlayStation 2 and its ability to help second language vocabulary in Japanese undergraduates. They were each paired with a similar English language subject. Both were then asked to take a vocabulary test to see how much information they could recall after gameplay. The results yielded that the players and watchers both recalled a significant amount of vocabulary. These results are just one example of how video games can be used in areas other than a classroom to benefit society as a whole (Chen 130). The reason the study was proven to be so successful is because learning and exposure to words take place all while encountering the true meaning and reality of these words during game play (Misfud 35).
In addition to their application in the process of learning a foreign language, video games are now showing effective use in the rehabilitation of individuals suffering from traumatic brain injury. The use of video games is now allowing for these patients to practice relearning their skills in a safe and motivating environment which helps facilitate for recovery over numerous domains instead of just one (O’Neil 667). Brain damage is known to often affect an individual’s cognitive abilities, such as attention, memory capacity, and many other executive brain functions (O’Neil 668). Research is now being conducted to test the long-term effects of these games on patients. The results thus far show improvements in “postural abilities” and improvements with “fine arm movements” (O’Neil 667). If we continue to utilize these tools for the benefit of those going through the process of rehabilitation, we could possibly increase the rehabilitation time and benefits provided from these processes.
While the progression of technology and education continue to occur, video games still remain a smart and viable tool to use in the education of our upcoming generations. While many teachers worry that the introduction of these tools into their classroom would render them obsolete to their student’s learning experiences, they are still very useful when they teach hand-in-hand with the tools a video game will provide. If society embraces these new changes and addresses the complications that could arise out of implanting technology through a vast amount of schools, mankind could now view smarter and more innovative generations growing.