My flashback
As I am reading other posts, I am recalling long-forgotten games, not necessarily for me…my experience with games consists of Space Invaders (yes, that old) and Pong…but I do recall buying “educational” games for my kids, although the quality was definitely not that experienced today. I remember Mario Brothers – and yes, my kids learning typing from Mario teaches typing. And I bought the Learning Connections series of Reader Rabbit and the like…but my kids were bored silly – likely due the incredibly slow computers of the day…no ram to speak of…They gave up quickly – and besides, the activities were incredibly lame. Since then, I do know that my adult sons are both huge gamers – as is my grandson. My daughter has no interest at all. The boys admit it is for the adrenalin rush, and for the ability to lose oneself for a few hours.
Posted in: Week 05: Game-Based Learning
ifeoma 5:42 pm on October 3, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
You are quite right about how reading other posts help you remember so many other games. Your post just reminded me of using Mavis beacon to learn touch typing. What made interesting for me was the way the practice tests were designed like games. I must say that it was an added incentive for me to learn touch typing.
I guess your adult sons have a good point abut the adrenaline rush and losing oneself for some time. I sure saw that more in my male colleagues at work and this makes me wonder if males are more inclined to play these computer games than females. i must say that I was surprised to see that the percentage of male and female gamers was quite close.
Everton Walker 6:12 pm on October 4, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Males are designed for games it seems. On a regular basis on campus males can be identified lost in games when they should be in class. It was just the other day a first grader asked if he could see my cell. I showed him and in a few seconds he was in the game menu searching for a game to play. I was amazed at the ease at which he manipulated the games as I was clueless to them.
Kristopher 4:52 am on October 5, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hi Everton,
My 3 year old nephew grabs an iPad and is navigating his way through folders to find the games that he likes best with ease. He is actually pretty good at it and even gets the concept of Tetris and how to stack the blocks so that it lasts. He has also gotten quite good at getting to youtube and using the recently played videos to find all of the Elmo and Old McDonald videos he can find… it’s amazing.
Kristopher
Everton Walker 10:10 am on October 5, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Kris,
They are really tech-savvy. This is just their thing. It amazes me at the rate they are able to master these games and problem-solve. Educators should take cues from these exploits and set up similar activities that will challenge our boys as they are usually the ones falling back in the classes.
Everton