Gamez are gud for your Edukashion - The Bear and Badger

Stopharage

Despite Michael Gove's best efforts to get every child in Britain repeating mantras by rote, I'm still convinced there's huge educational benefits to be had by using games in the classroom (or at home). My eldest is really enjoying the creation (and destruction) of Minecraft and forming structures is requiring him to do sums and use planning skills. He's 5. The number of educational apps is growing although I still don't think there are any 'must-have' educational apps.Â

There's countless academic papers highlighting the case for gaming/interactivity to be part of education, but because iPads and Angry Birds weren't around when Victoria was on the throne, Gove and his sycophantic cronies won't have anything to do with the use of games in education. He wants students to be able to develop, but not to benefit from that development in lessons.Â

I've been impressed with a number of online games that could be used in teaching and was wondering whether you fine people had any examples of games that could be used in teaching. I've found a pretty decent one on poverty called Spent (http://playspent.org/) that posits you as someone living on the breadline and the choices you have to make in a month to survive. Another one is called Survive 125 (http://www.live58.org/survive125/) which challenges you to survive on $1.25 a day.Â

Fairly sure I started a thread like this on the old forum (not Blurum) and met with some pretty decent results. And some juvenile ones. A mixture of those two approaches would be wonderful.

Skerret

I have mixed feeling about this topic because when I first set sail into my thesis, every piece of lit that I turned up was about games as educational tools, not how to teach game development.Â This annoyed me, a lot.Â I probably have a pile of peer reviewed research around here on the topic, little of which is any real use to me, but I could pop it on here somehow.

It's a sound idea and there are numerous examples of it working not just in schools, but in medical training, military training and more specialist organizations like the FBI.Â It is a Good Thing, just not the thing I was after.Â We (we being my research group) are in fact tossing around ideas about a location based smartphone game for university students to familiarize themselves with campus facilities during O-week.Â Should be a larf.

JonB

Skerret wrote:

...and more specialist organizations like the FBI.

They better not be using LA Noire.

Skerret

Thankfully no.

Tempy

Oregon Trail, the internet has taught me Oregon Trail.

The Daddy

Did my masters thesis on this topic. Won an award for it too, go me!

Basically found that games designed for educational purposes were quite limited - kagayema maths training on the DS was a particular focus. Of more interest was the intrinsic learning that could be garnered from more mainstream games, usually with a higher budget.

This is interesting:
http://www.teachwithportals.com/index.php/faq/

Bollockoff

My love of history to some extent was kindled by certain games. The Total War series, Age of Empires, anything involving World War 2 (even CoD) got me buying books and avidly watching all the discovery channel documentaries in my early teens so I could devour the contents. I ended up so enthused in the subject i'd love to read the 60% of chapters we missed out in the huge History GCSE text books we had (stuff like the cold war, the boxer rebellion) because all we ever seemed to focus on was the rise of Hitler and the Treaty of Versaille. Which is an important subject certainly, but christ we learned nothing else!

Even Metal Gear Solid had benefits in education. Or rather, self-education. I knew nothing about the gulf war or the various START nuclear disarmament treaties when I started playing the first MGS and once I finished the game I was all over the internet looking up stuff.

Bollockoff

A curse/blight/STD on the first person to use the word Edutainment.

djchump

Which would be you, then :-P

Tempy

Gameucation

Bollockoff

djchump wrote:

Which would be you, then

IN A SENTENCE.

THAT ISN'T ME.

The Daddy

It was definitely in a sentence.

Bollockoff

And if you've never read Horrible Histories you're a fagget. FYI.

Skerret

And it was definitely you.

The Daddy

They should release a sequel called Horrible: His Tories - David Cameron's Rise and Fall

Skerret

Not sure if you can have a double subtitle like that.

Bollockoff

I think his sense of humour lets him do anything he wants in his own head.

Skerret

I was hoping he'd provide a miffed response so I could say YOU'RE NOT MY REAL DAD but alas...

The Daddy

Alas, I am your real dad?

Skerret

YOU'RE NOT MY REAL DAD but then I never knew my real father oshit

Brooks

Have on occasion wondered about foreign language vocab (and alphabet, if you're dealing with Chinese or Jap) learning games, where it's all about a pick of the right word from a selection to dispatch Foe X, time extend bonuses for quick responses etc.

Choke

Skerret wrote:

Not sure if you can have a double subtitle like that.

The latest handheld Castlevania would suggest otherwise...

EvilRedEye

I've not had anything to do with schools for a long time. Have we gone backwards in terms of this kind of thing? I think the BBC Micro and Acorn computers had a fair amount of vaguely educational stuff, didn't they?

Stopharage

It seems like in Maths there's a real focus on games being part of education - at my place we use mymaths. I've purloined the logon if anyone wants it - currently got my 5 year old doing bits and pieces on there, which is apparently helping him out in school. Don't want to push him too early, so if he's enjoying playing maths games seems like a reasonable half-way house.Â

Was wondering whether anyone is aware of any other browser games like Spent?

Bollockoff

Is there an overall leaderboard to that mymaths thing? Maths has always been one of my most pained weaknesses and I don't want to know i'm worse than your boy.

Shinji

I teach Maths and have used MyMaths as a homework tool. To be honest, it's a nice break from marking homework but I find it a little dense as a teaching tool and some of the wording is a bit odd.

Manga HighÂ is something I've been using recently. The games on it are much more "gamey" without taking away the quality of the learning. Sigma Prime is a particular favourite. A method of teaching prime factorisation through missile command.Â

High score table too mean the kids freak out over it, there are also achievements and whatnot built into the student's log ins

The Daddy

Have used both of those, with varying levels of success. The flower game is quality on manga high. Have you ever done World Maths Day? Obviously it's a once a year thing, but the kids essentially compete against the world at varying difficulties of maths questions, can be good fun.

Stopharage

Bollockoff wrote:

Is there an overall leaderboard to that mymaths thing? Maths has always been one of my most pained weaknesses and I don't want to know i'm worse than your boy.

Don't think so, perhaps on some of the games there might be, but there are loads of stand-alone lessons and activities on there up to A2 I believe.

Shinji

The Daddy wrote:

Have used both of those, with varying levels of success. The flower game is quality on manga high. Have you ever done World Maths Day? Obviously it's a once a year thing, but the kids essentially compete against the world at varying difficulties of maths questions, can be good fun.

Yeah to be fair to MangaHigh most of the games are of a pretty high standard, especially when compared to the MyMaths alternative. Yeah I've been involved in World Maths Day, it's a good time around the dept generally.

Aaroncupboard

The Daddy wrote:

Have used both of those, with varying levels of success. The flower game is quality on manga high. Have you ever done World Maths Day? Obviously it's a once a year thing, but the kids essentially compete against the world at varying difficulties of maths questions, can be good fun.

Have a look at Mathletics. It involves children playing online against others (all anonymous) and earning points. They can create avatars, practice offline etc. As a teacher, you can also go on and see how they are doing, what work they have done and even set them questions/homework. Its great stuff.

The Daddy

Aaroncupboard wrote:

The Daddy wrote:

Have used both of those, with varying levels of success. The flower game is quality on manga high. Have you ever done World Maths Day? Obviously it's a once a year thing, but the kids essentially compete against the world at varying difficulties of maths questions, can be good fun.

Have a look at Mathletics. It involves children playing online against others (all anonymous) and earning points. They can create avatars, practice offline etc. As a teacher, you can also go on and see how they are doing, what work they have done and even set them questions/homework. Its great stuff.

And play against them and DESTROY THEM WITH NUMBERS?!

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