GAMES & E

DUCATIO

N

Benefits of educational games

• According to Shapiro, “gameplay has cognitive benefit because games have been shown to improve attention, focus, and reaction time.

• Games have motivational benefit because they encourage an incremental, rather than an entity theory of intelligence.

• Games have emotional benefit because they induce positive mood states; in addition, there is speculative evidence that games may help kids develop adaptive emotion regulation.”

• social skills because they connect and interact with friends and the environment around them. Whenever a child plays a game, he or she develop independence, self-sufficiency, and persistence. Playing with the same toy with others, the child acquires social skills such as sharing, empathy and cooperation.

Game website

Garry's Mod

• Garry’s Mod (GMod) is a sandbox game like Minecraft but instead of building and exploring, students use a fun physics engine that simulates things like gravity and mass.

• They also use a virtual toy box of assets from Valve Software’s popular games. The tool is a step up in complexity from the elegant simplicity of Minecraft, but with Garry’s Mod, students are exposed to physics concepts while having madcap fun.

Cons:A steep learning curve and some violent content limits classroom accessibility.

Kerbal Space Program

• Kerbal Space Program has a robust physics engine too, but it’s more focused than Garry’s Mod.

• Players purchase rocket parts, put them together, and then see if they can get a ship into orbit, to one of two moons, or even to another planet.

• These aren’t easy tasks, so play is focused on trial and error testing, and, like Minecraft, seeking help from the community is part of a successful strategy.Game website

CODECADEMY

• Codecademy is a web-based, self-paced site that teaches actual industry-standard languages like PHP, Javascript, Python, Ruby, HTML, and CSS.

• While students don’t create publishable games like they would in Stencyl, their learning is purpose-driven and contextualized, e.g.

• JavaScript for web development or Ruby for app development. And students do get to see their code’s output directly onscreen.

web

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auP-eq17U1g

Gaming The Educational System