Should Video Games Be Used as a Learning Tool at School?
Nowadays video games are the way most kids spend their free time. No matter if it is a fighting game, a racing game, or a sport game, kids love them. So why not use that for educational purposes. Video games can be very useful as a learning tool at school. Lessons at school can be boring. The Guardian reported that 75 of students are daydreaming, 66 are doodling, 50 are talking to their friends, 45 are texting and 38 are passing notes to the other during lectures.
That could be fixed if instead of just sitting and listening there trying to concentrate, you kept your brain active in some sort of way. Now what better and less boring way is there to keeping your brain active than playing a game. Despite you not realizing it, people, receive a lot of information from the games they play. They have to remember moves, paths, and events. They have to solve riddles and find secret passages. If you put the right information in the game, students could really learn things from it.
This new kind of literature can simulate whole new environments that students should be learning from, according to Bernie Dodge, professor of learning design and technology at San Diego State University.One example Dodge, gave is how his son learned about solar systems through a video game, a virtual universe his young son used to effortlessly learn about astrophysics. “I watched him at age 4 or 5 intuitively figuring out what would make a stable solar system,” Dodge said. And he had fun doing it. Of course this kind of education has its own cons.
Firstly, critics of gamified learning believe that the fast pace and immediate feedback creates a problem with student attention span. Students may begin to expect the same kind of responses from all parts of their education and won’t find it, leading to frustration. Secondly, while teaching by using videogames can be more effective, it is a lot more expensive than by using books. Can you afford to buy all the videogames and devices for all the students? Will the students be able to play at home? All this high prices would be passed on students and would make it harder, if not impossible for them to afford that kind of education. Finally, this kind of learning can be of great threat to the heath.
Extra hours of screen time can cause Staring into a screen for extended periods of time can cause “computer vision syndrome.”You’re probably familiar with the symptoms: strained, dry eyes, blurred vision, and headaches. Another damage screen time can cause you is dopamine, the “feel-good hormone,” is part of the brain’s pleasure and reward circuits. Playing video games turns on similar brain regions as those linked to cravings for drugs and gambling, In conclusion, despite having many advantages, there are far too many disadvantages to ignore, and so using videogames as a learning tool is impossible.
