BBC Future spoke
to Jessica Lindl, general
manager of GlassLab, at the Silicon Valley-based gaming company, EA (Electronic
Arts) about how games could prepare children for jobs. Watch the talk at http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20131107-could-video-games-replace-exams and comment on/discuss it. Do lecturers use games evaluating your knowledge and skills? Would you include them in the examination scheme?
Ehm.. I do not really think that the game presented in the video is the best example of educational program, but I get the whole idea. I agree that introducing some technology to classes is important and adding fun to this process would be a great benefit, but I think that there was more important sentence in this presentation – that conventional education system hasn’t changed for a long time. Taking me as an example – I was attending a school with rather high level of education, but I couldn’t get why I was learning Latin for two years, while being on profile with extended curriculum in Mathematics and Physics. The same goes with Biology and Chemistry. I’m aware that it’s important to have general knowledge, but learning about granulocytes, dendritic cells or learning by heart actual names of all vitamins is not the most important thing to do. Most of my friends do not know what to write in CV, how to start an official e-mail or how to fill their tax return. Educational games or adding more interactive ideas might be the solution, but I’m afraid that schools are too underfunded for that. Changing educational system to put more impact on creative thinking. The biggest problem I see in polish schools is that we aren’t thought how to think, but to solve quizzes and many times we are told what we should think, rather that pushing us to get our own conclusions. So for the games/applications in education I say a big yes (maybe not SimCity, but something more proper), but we should start with smaller steps and change the way we are taught (I wrote it once, but it’s a good moment to repeat - maybe take Finnish as an example - http://www.businessinsider.com/finland-education-school-2011-12?op=1 or http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/03/finnish-education-chief-we-created-a-school-system-based-on-equality/284427/).
ReplyDeleteIt’s sad, but most computer science in polish secondary school and high school is taught by unqualified teachers like in the begging of this episode of South Park: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uc98rHQRASA
As for our school we had some game-like pop-quizzes during both classes and exams, but I do not need that kind of "fun". But I do really appreciate and value, when lecturer takes some time and effort and prepare an interesting and interactive presentation. For sure, usually it's only a PowerPoint effect or different colour scheme, but I respect that he tried to do something extra, not another and another boring slide show, with white background.
To be honest I haven't met with such way of evaluating knowledge and skills. In my opinion that could be a really good thing. There are a lot of cases people who learned English by playing games.
ReplyDeleteGames are also used to improve professional skills (e.g. Flight Simulator X or some racing simulators). There's a well known case the guy (Vugar Huseynzade) who become a manager of Azerbaijani FC Baku because of his nine years experience playing management simulation games (Football Manager).
(http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2340324/Football-Manager-Vugar-Huseynzade-got-FC-Baku-job.html)
As I see it all of cases when games bring some benefits are connected with simulation games. So if someday a developer-simulation game will be created, let's try it on our students and see what happen.
It`s very interesting idea to initiate video games to education programme but in my opinion this could be difficult to do. On the one side every day we heard bad things about video games, that isolate people from real World and it are a harmful for children. But if we look at this case from the other side we could see a lot of advantages from gaming, for instance some types of games could evolve team working abilities. Some time ago I heard about difference between gamers and non-gamers and now i`ve found interesting article about it. According to this article gamers see more details so immediately and are able to make better decisions on information’s that are available.
ReplyDeleteFor more details check out this link : http://today.duke.edu/2013/06/vidvision
So there are two sides to every coin but if look at this case realistic I think it will be long and very complicated process because it brings a lot of changes in educations programme and always a lot of people will be opposed.
In my honest opinion it's better than doing nothing. Especially from EA, the most hated company in USA. I strongly disagree with opinion that game like Sim City can prepare anyone for a job. If you’ve ever hired anyone for a job, you understand a whole new perspective. Of course it can help, but impact is really low. This game is about fighting with pollution, how it can help in real world?
ReplyDeleteGames can help. For example, simulators have long been used to improve skills involve special equipment, like driving F1 bolid. Ferrari train its drivers on simulators, it’s cheaper and much safer.
We can help kids in many ways. Technology of course helps, for example Samsung School : http://www.samsung.com/global/business/mobile/solution/education/samsungschool or the program, Classrooms for The Future, use innovations to inspire children to make new discoveries and create new possibilities for themselves. Interactive blackboards and tablets instead of books and exercise books and so on. We’ve so many options nowadays.
About F1 simulator it is of course cheaper(but no every team can build it because it’s still the cost of about 20 million $) and safer but what is more important they can use it when they want. The real tests are limited by FIA so as we can see game simulator is quite good alternative in that case.
DeleteIn my opinion it isn’t new idea. Education and games played with fun already has been existed in lower levels of education system. Of course I think about manual games like some puzzles and other logical challenges which develop knowledge and skills of children. So if it works good why we shouldn’t use new technology to improve that process and make it even easier and faster?
ReplyDeleteAlso I agree with @Jakub M that presented game wasn’t the best example for that purpose so the most important thing (IMAO) is to choose adequate types of games like for example real simulators. Lastly, like @Mateusz said “it’s better than doing nothing”.
First of all lets not treat it as a game. Game is for fun, of course it can have some positive aspects, it can make you eye-hand manipulation better, it can make your reflex better, it can help you think but this is only a POSITIVE side efect.
ReplyDeleteLets think about it as a program, as a simulator, when you'll stop thinking about it as a game you can see that it has sense. Of course when you'll be a master of sim city it doesn't mean you'll be an awsome major of a real city. Reality is too complex, I think that at the moment we can't - from technological point of view - move complexity of real world to a machine in scale 1:1. BUT we can take a small part of it, we can train some emergency cases, we can train some normal scenarios of real life.
This kind of program can be better than standard exams on paper. First of all you can add the standard questions to program and hide tham in some virtual situation.
On the other side we need to remember that it isn't for all. You won't use it to test a future it specialist in your company. It is hard to create a "game" about creating a software from code point of view.
Closing the topic, if the software has a good topic, a good target it can be much better than standard exams, it can teach, it can learn and show how to act in real life but still this will be nothing more than knowlege, and in my opinion knowlege without experience isn't worth very much
I agree that treating such software as a game is not the right way to approach this topic as games are usually made just for entertainment. We must also consider that older generations tend to have a negative attitude to video games so we are losing at the very start of a debate. By calling it a simulator, we're addressing it's purpose more fittingly.
ReplyDeleteAs for the real usefulness of such software...well...I suppose it could be used to supplement standard education. Pilots, for example, are testing their skills on a simulator, before they fly a real plane because it would be too expensive to test everyone on a real machine and the risk of crashing is too great. In such cases it's a good idea to test someone in a virtual world. Still, it will never replace real life experiences and I think that if a school can afford such computer software for the youngsters, the money would be better spent on field trips.
What a discovery! My generation used the computer games in education and it was normal. For example, games like Need For Speed have created a level of awareness of future drivers. It is obvious that these games were not realistic but I know from experience that the first time I got behind the wheel of the car, I had no problem to move it forward :D and drive it. Anyway I don't know of such research but I bet that someone has done such a comparison of driving skills between a person who never played video racing games and a person who played it. It should also be mentioned games such as The Sims, Sim City, Pizza Connection, FIFA and a whole bunch of adventure games that taught such perseverance in collecting some diamonds or something ... It's all contributed to our intellectual development in direct and indirect ways. Anyway, an example of the use of games in education is Minecraft, and I know its authentic use when teaching young children. The task was to build a castle, and perhaps this experiment went 100%. You know what? I have an idea. Let's involve cartoons in the learning process... lolz. The same story!
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