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Weekly Reflection – #7

jessicaraeburdge

Gaming in Education

I think gaming can be very useful in education with the caveat that it has to be used right. When scaffolded properly, games can be used as a tool in a variety of subject areas. The students need to know why they are using it though. I think a great example of this is the getbadnews game. When used properly, and scaffolded in with a lesson or unit, I think it could really get students thinking about the media and propaganda. My group used it in our English course in a Hunger Games unit that we created. I think the game is meant to make the player uncomfortable, but if they were to jump in and play it without context it might not land the same way.

I also can think of a variety of video games that could be used in Socials Studies contexts to help teach certain concepts. A couple examples are:

  • Papers Please: The player is a border crossing agent checking peoples papers as they enter Russia. If the player does something wrong (such as getting caught letting people in who don’t have their papers), they get fired.
  • This War Of Mine: A survival game that focuses on the civilian casualties of war and about living in a war-torn environment. Players must balance moral code with survival.

Both of these games are good examples of games that would also need some scaffolding to make them work in an educational context, because they do have the potential for discomfort.

While I think it has to be a balance, since students do have a lot of screen opportunities outside of class, these types of games could still be beneficial if used right.

Coding

I think there are ways that coding could be used in classes. One of my teachables is Drama and I think that learning about coding for theatre tech could be interesting. Something similar to what we did in class could also be used to do blocking for a scene. I also think there could be a way to use coding for learning about set design in a more conceptual way. I do think that I would struggle to incorporate it in most cases though, because I feel like there could be more effective ways to teach similar concepts in a way that wouldn’t require as much technology (especially in a drama context where you typically don’t have desks or computers).