Journal # 10

Haas, J. (n.d.). The Education arcade. Retrieved from http://www.educationarcade.org/about

To top off journal articles, I thought I'd do something fun, so I looked up more on video games in education. Better known as "edutation", video game and media based learning focuses on the natural learning that stems from authentic and engaging play. Taking a closer look at modern video games, it's apparent that they incorporate an intrinsic logical process that plays on the intuition of the gamer. There is some merit to the theory - I speak from experience. It's actually baffling when you hand a controller to a child, and it doesn't take long before they figure out what buttons correspond to which action on the screen.

There is much social, cultural, and educational potential within video games. It's our duty (maybe even MY duty) to find and extract them. I will pioneer this "emerging art."

Would you use video games in the classroom?

YES. I am curious to see how I can apply video games to learning. If I ever get far enough in the field, I may devote myself to research and what not on the benefits of video games in education.

What examples can you think of?

Based on the basic lay out of controls, I think I can extract basic concepts by tweaking what button does what and hand the controller to a child. I'm confident they'll figure it out eventually.