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Education Arcade Is For Learning... Not For Fun
from the well,-okay,-maybe-a-little-fun dept
MIT is now looking to make use of the educational benefits of video games in a program called the Education Arcade. The idea is to work with game developers, researchers and scholars to help use games for educational purposes. There aren't too many details in the article, but it is an interesting idea. It could also lead to people having less of an instantly negative reaction to the idea of video games.
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Bandwagon
Stupdi, stupid, stupid. Typical MIT bandwagon jumping for publicity. The bottom line is that proper learning is hard, you can't disguise it as a game, you can't make it fun for people who don't enjoy learning. Every teacher worth their salt knows this. Note I am not against video games, just the bogus idea that you can make them educaational. There is no magic bullet for learning - you have to do the work.
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Not True. Re: Bandwagon
Typical limited teacher thinking. Can't see the big picture.
A major component of teaching is about preparing for real life - games can be made to simulate real-life situations, ex. running a company, designing a factory, etc. except the games can do it in highly, highly compressed time so people can learn by practical means... not by being droned on to in a classroom, or told to read chapters 1 - 5 and quizzed on it.
No, playing Doom 3 isn't going to help you learn to write complex essays. But the right simulation can teach you a lot about the real world.
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Re: Not True. Bandwagon
What a load of nonsense. Yes, simulation can teach you stuff, but you have to have a solid grounding in basics before it helps you.
Oh, and I do see the picture because I'm not taken in by the hype of games and fun learning, or by the appearance of the magic initials MIT next to a piece of work. The picture is bigger than you appear to be aware of.
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