Educational video game

An educational video game is a video game that provides educational value to the player. Edutainment describes an intentional merger of video games and educational software into a single product (and could therefore also comprise more serious titles sometimes described under children’s learning software). In the narrower sense used here, the term describes educational software which is primarily about entertainment, but tends to educate as well and sells itself partly under the educational umbrella. Normally software of this kind is not structured towards school curricula and does not involve educational advisors.

Educational video games play a significant role in the school curriculum for teachers who seek to deliver core lessons, reading and new skills. Gamification of education allows learners to take active roles in learning and develop technological skills that are needed for their academic and professional careers. Several recent studies have shown that video games, whether violent or not can help children in the development of intellectual and emotional skills that support their academic achievement (Chang et al., 2009). These findings have made teachers all over the world recognize the numerous benefits of gaming and to include educational video game learning in their curricula.

Definition

There can be also defined strategy war games that include historical references, like the Total War franchise or the Age of Empires trilogy and an in-game encyclopaedia like Civilization. These games often integrate education without being explicitly educational.

These are games which were originally developed for adults or older children and which have potential learning implications. For the most part, these games provide simulations of different kinds of human activities, allowing players to explore a variety of social, historical and economic processes.

Examples:

The games have been enthusiastically received in some educational circles and are mentioned into academic literature.[1]

A new category was recently started by Bot Colony (2013). It can be used to practice English dialogue by conversing with intelligent robots as part of an adventure game.[2]

Design

Many titles were developed and released from the mid-1990s onwards, aimed primarily at the home education of young children. Later iterations of these titles often began to link educational content to school curricula such as England's National Curriculum. The design of educational games for home use has been influenced by gaming concepts – they are designed to be fun and educational.

Examples of children's learning software which have a structured pedagogical approach, usually orientated towards literacy and numeracy skills.

History

In September 1983 the Boston Phoenix reported that "edutainment" games were a new focus area for companies after end of growth of the Atari 2600 software market.[3] In 1983, the term "edutainment" was used to describe a package of software games for the Oric 1 and Spectrum Microcomputers in the UK. Dubbed "arcade edutainment" an advertisement for the package can be found in various issues of "Your Computer" magazine from 1983. The software package was available from Telford ITEC a government sponsored training program. The originator of the name was Chris Harvey who worked at ITEC at the time.

Since then, many other computer games such as Electronic Arts's Seven Cities of Gold, released 1984, have also used edutainment as a descriptive term. Most edutainment games seek to teach players by employing a game-based learning approach. Criticism as to which video games can be considered educational has led to the creation of "serious games" whose primary focus is to teach rather than entertain.

Psychologist Simon Egenfeldt-Nielsen researched the educational use and potential of computer games and has written many articles on the subject. One paper dealing specifically with edutainment breaks it down into 3 generational categories to separate the cognitive methods most predominantly used to teach.[4] He is critical of the research that has been done on the educational use of computer games, citing their biases and weaknesses in method, which cause their findings to lack scientific validity.

In education

Games provide structure to problem-solving. This allows a player to “fail up”, meaning that with the combination of challenging and fun and identity-building,[5] the student will want to continue to persist on that problem until it is solved. It is a productive failure. This may take quite a few times before success is reached, but progress is obtained each time and so is knowledge on how to solve that problem. Iteration and discovery become two major aspects to learning through game playing. Many students have a “sweet spot” for gaming, which allows gaming in education to be successful in terms of grasping concepts, while this can be more difficult through the use of a book. Students may not even realize that they are learning through a game. Games need to include novelty. Unexpected occurrences and challenging choices allow the player to want to keep playing. Having a story or narrative in the game is what can really suck a player into the game. It allows for continuous feedback and challenges at the right level of difficulty, while avoiding frustration.

When developing successful learning games for the classroom, it can be a challenging task. In order for the game to show achievement in student learning, the games should hold certain qualities. The development of successful games to promote learning requires attention to opposing factors. Creativity and inventiveness is needed to help the outcome work well and run smoothly. Games should take the opposite approach of drill-and-practice principles, as this simplifies the games and limits the domains of knowledge. The three factors to keep in mind when designing strong and successful games are integration, motivation, and focus. In order for the player to progress in the game, they must master the learning goals and objectives behind the game. The game should be integrated with learning goals. In the content that needs to be taught through the game, it should be made a point that in order to succeed in the game, is to know the information, which creates importance to the player. The game needs to be as motivating as possible and should pose a challenge. The primary activity of the game should be interacting and interesting to the students. Games are about decision making, where you see what the consequences are and what feedback you receive. Games teach students about rewards, but that it takes some work to receive those rewards. The actions within the game need to be relevant to life outside the game, so learning can occur. Focus can most successfully occur when one is learning by exploring, operating, or interacting.

Teachers are using games more regularly that focus on a wide variety of objectives, while exposing students to more game genres and devices. There is much more structure, which makes it a lot easier for the teacher, and the students enjoy it. Students have become so fluent with the use of online tools. Learning data can be generated from the use of online games, which allow the teacher to have insight on the knowledge the children have obtained, and what needs improvement; this can then help a teacher with their curriculum and teaching.

Importance to learners

Educational video games help learners in the development of reading comprehension and thinking skills (Chang et al., 2009). For teachers, video games with educational value act as relevant material for engaging their students. Therefore, video games can be used as an immersive learning system that provides for a combination of digital technology, rich narrative, and real world gameplay. Through games students learn to exercise resilience, critical thinking, and the creation of problem-solving in older for them to succeed in an alternate reality, which helps them gain real-life success. By introducing them to educational video games, parents and teachers can make children interested in technology and technical skills from an early age.

Educational video games are important for individualized learning. Given that every learner is different, teachers are always looking for adequate resources that will provide every learner with an individualized learning plan. Video games allow students to learn new concepts at their own pace without having a constant overlook from parents and teachers (Chang et al., 2009). The experiences of the players can be tailored based on their preferences and performance. The game is automatically adjusted to present higher-level challenges after solving each problem. If they are having difficulty with a concept, then the game is tailored to present the same concept in a different manner until the student understands it. Video games balance enjoyment with an appropriate challenge level, which keeps players in an optimally engaging and challenging learning zone.

Research shows that children who play educational video games have improved visual-spatial skills. For instance, a simple game session can help learners visualise science topics in a way that helps them learn better. Children who play educational video games have sharpened visual attention skills and improved capacity to visualize 3D objects (Achtman et al. 2008). Furthermore, educational video games as they improve their aim and hand-eye coordination. The video game is a learning sector as activities that sharpen the perceptions of children as well as their responses to the world.

Limitations

Regardless of the enthusiasm surrounding video games and learning, very few studies have examined whether educational video games improve academic achievement and classroom performance. Only additional research could tell whether playing educational video games improves classroom behaviour and academic skills although memory is an important cognitive skill for learning (Chang et al., 2009). A study carried out by the University of Cambridge in 2013 showed that the use of video games on children who have low memory levels did not broaden their skills. The extent to which educational video games will be used in schools is yet to be seen. Those students who have not responded well to traditional methods of teaching will experience the greatest impact by the educational video games.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Howard Witt (February 27, 2007). "Video games good teachers?". Chicago Tribune. Herald.com. Archived from the original on March 4, 2007.
  2. ↑ Eugene Joseph (2012). "Bot Colony – a Video Game Featuring Intelligent Language-Based Interaction with the Characters" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on July 15, 2014.
  3. ↑ Mitchell, Peter W. (1983-09-06). "A summer-CES report". Boston Phoenix. p. 4. Retrieved 10 January 2015.
  4. ↑ Egenfeldt-Nielsen, S. "Making sweet music: The Educational Use of Computer Games" (PDF). www.egenfeldt.eu (Center for Computer Games Research).
  5. ↑ Scott, Michael; Ghinea, Gheorghita (6 March 2013). Integrating Fantasy Role-Play into the Programming Lab: Exploring the 'Projective Identity' Hypothesis (pdf). Proceedings of the 44th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education. ACM. pp. 119–122. doi:10.1145/2445196.2445237. Retrieved January 1, 2016.
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