When it comes to school learning through games, they can prepare kids in a number of ways that conventional school just cant match. This is because games can offer personalized teaching environments, which work through through force & cooersion, all the while spotting our weaknesses, judge our time spent with them and mapping out realistic and achievable goals we can work towards. There are few school systems in the world that offer such a personalized and versatile curriculum, and for those that do many would never be able to attend them, either because of location or the cost involved.
As an example, many third-world citizens living under or just above the poverty line have very basic and traditional school systems around them, something I've witnessed first-hand. In these places chalk boards are common but chalk, tables and chairs are not. Sitting on the floor they learn the basics of archaic curriculum that offer little direct value to their lives. Then I've witnessed the superficial inverse, schools with big screens in the classroom, multiple tools such as art utensils and carefully planned book/video curriculum. Disciplined attendance registers, with careful attention to keeping classes relatively small and manageable for the teacher. Schools which offered numerous extra mural activities for kids, such as swimming and athletics.
Neither school could compare to the potential of what video games (in their current state) can offer though. One research study comparing games to an educational video found that "The children playing the video game expressed more enjoyment and learned the same as those watching the television program"(Egenfeldt-Nielsen). Gamers intrinsically know this, and now science is also beginning to prove this theory. According to numerous MRI studies (and what some of us always felt to be true) when we play video games they leave a lasting impression on individuals through the release of dopamine and seratonin. Depending on the games we play, and how often we play them these lessons we learn and the excitement we have while learning them imprint on our minds the concept of 'hard fun'. This is in contrast to how many schools function, which is often hard but not often fun.
I believe dopamine and seratonin are the key components to understanding the effectiveness of games as learning tools, and as they are played more and more in the coming years it will be interesting to see if anyone begins to measure the usefulness of strenuous game activities versus those in real life to draw comparative values. This 'measuring of player engagement' is one of the areas I would like to specialize in, the other being Archival Science & Video Game Curation. What excites me most though about gaming though, even beyond the virtual museums of the future is that they could be THE way to bridge the widening economic gaps and solve the labor unrest problems that even the first-world communities seem to be heading towards. It will also take advances in a few key technologies to make this a reality, but once it happens I have no doubt that society will be transformed as a result. Some people are calling these 'serious' games. For a refined list of sub-genres that serious games as well as normal games can contain look here.
As an example, many third-world citizens living under or just above the poverty line have very basic and traditional school systems around them, something I've witnessed first-hand. In these places chalk boards are common but chalk, tables and chairs are not. Sitting on the floor they learn the basics of archaic curriculum that offer little direct value to their lives. Then I've witnessed the superficial inverse, schools with big screens in the classroom, multiple tools such as art utensils and carefully planned book/video curriculum. Disciplined attendance registers, with careful attention to keeping classes relatively small and manageable for the teacher. Schools which offered numerous extra mural activities for kids, such as swimming and athletics.
Neither school could compare to the potential of what video games (in their current state) can offer though. One research study comparing games to an educational video found that "The children playing the video game expressed more enjoyment and learned the same as those watching the television program"(Egenfeldt-Nielsen). Gamers intrinsically know this, and now science is also beginning to prove this theory. According to numerous MRI studies (and what some of us always felt to be true) when we play video games they leave a lasting impression on individuals through the release of dopamine and seratonin. Depending on the games we play, and how often we play them these lessons we learn and the excitement we have while learning them imprint on our minds the concept of 'hard fun'. This is in contrast to how many schools function, which is often hard but not often fun.
I believe dopamine and seratonin are the key components to understanding the effectiveness of games as learning tools, and as they are played more and more in the coming years it will be interesting to see if anyone begins to measure the usefulness of strenuous game activities versus those in real life to draw comparative values. This 'measuring of player engagement' is one of the areas I would like to specialize in, the other being Archival Science & Video Game Curation. What excites me most though about gaming though, even beyond the virtual museums of the future is that they could be THE way to bridge the widening economic gaps and solve the labor unrest problems that even the first-world communities seem to be heading towards. It will also take advances in a few key technologies to make this a reality, but once it happens I have no doubt that society will be transformed as a result. Some people are calling these 'serious' games. For a refined list of sub-genres that serious games as well as normal games can contain look here.
