August 14, 2007
Written by: Prashant Kumar
Business Development Executive, Emantras
Reviewed by : Lavanya Lahari
Project Manager, Emantras
Living in the new millennium of the "digital world", we have witnessed technology advancing with limitless boundaries. With this constant state of flux and unstoppable growth, knowledge transfer and learning, play key factors that help to keep pace with the latest technical advances. Therein arises an urgent need for nurturing young minds using innovative ways. Gaming is one such arena that has helped immensely to bring out these required changes in the learning world.
The awareness in game-based learning was initiated in the 1970's. The 80s saw Harvard professors asking whether educational practice should be radically reconfigured in the light of five-year-olds' facility with computer games. The 1990s saw the emergence of new concepts in reference to the use of computer games.
In the past year, the new Dayton Technology Design High School created a program focusing on video gaming. The school administration successfully launched this innovative program with about 100 students, and with 80 in the "virtual game" track. This course included concept design, building and possibly selling their own video game. Similar to the Dayton Technology Design High School, other institutes have begun to realize the impact of these games and have started implementing them as part of their coursework.
Bill Mackenty, a computer lab teacher at Edgartown School near Cape Cod feels that video games are not here to replace the teachers but act as a supplement. For example, he designed a new game based on the history of the ancient Roman civilization. This generated a new form interest in students and increased the knowledge productivity curve drastically while providing a strong support for the teaching facilities.
Video game producers are sometimes blamed for the increased inactivity of today's youth but at the other end of the spectrum, if used wisely they are proven to aid with physical activities as well. In early 2006, West Virginia started using games to fight childhood obesity. State and school officials there struck a partnership with Redwood City's Konami Digital Entertainment Inc. to use its “Dance Dance Revolution” in all of its 765 public schools. The innovative plan, the first statewide program to employ the dance video game, was intended to attack West Virginia's youth obesity problem. It built up a solid following among youth and adults, who enjoy the game's fast pace, fun music and sweat-inducing challenges.
With these examples one can easily conclude that, video games, once criticized as a waste of time for kids, are becoming increasingly popular among teachers in such subject areas as physical education, social studies, history and many more, as a valuable tool.
With booming interest in developing new strategies for attention problems and knowledge transfer, the relationship between games and education will mature and its partnership will boost growth immensely in the near future.
