Gaming in Education

Gaming and education; two separate entities that for the most part, people used to think went together as well as oil and water, but in today’s culture, gaming can be seen as a either casual way to wind down after a long day at school and work or as a competitive multimedia tool. Education on the other hand, in the context of active learning is fairly self explanatory. For decades, some researchers and subsequently, parents have warned about the dangers of mindless video gaming and its supposed ability to rot children’s minds and their future. However, that notion seems to be almost nonexistent thanks to the efforts of other researchers whom found interest in proving that games, whether it be online or as a physical activity, was in fact an invaluable teaching and learning tool. “The time children spend playing with peers, toys, and games can be time to learn new skills, practice their existing abilities, and build their interests, especially in mathematics (Ramani & Eason, 2015, p. 27)”.

You won’t have to look far to see that almost everyone is attached to some sort of electronic device. It has come to dominate our daily lives and with that in mind why not take advantage of it and try to incorporate education into our electronic lives? And this is where the aspect of gaming comes in handy. To examine the usefulness of this combination, as a class were split into groups and tasked to scour the internet for an educational game that all members of the group would like and agree upon for a presentation. Although our group originally consisted of four people, it eventually shrank down to just three, which threw us off at first. However, after getting used to one less member, it became slightly easier to compromise since two of the remaining members were elementary education majors, while the other was a secondary math major.

This meant that all we had to do was find a common ground between the two majors; of which was easier said than done. As a group, after spending quite a bit of time digging and sifting through the masses of educational games available on the internet, we decided upon an free elementary math game called “MathMan”, an updated throwback to one of the most popular games in video gaming history; Pacman. 

MathMan is an arithmetic game designed for students in elementary school ranging from 3^rd to 5^th grade. Its aim is to help students review and strengthen their problem solving skills with efficiency and accuracy in all of the four basic operations; addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Although we all agreed that mathman was a fun and useful game with the added bonus of a recognizable character, it was not without its own shortcomings. When we were creating the rubric, two of the major flaws we noted were the lack of feedback and its lack of clear instruction which could potentially confuse a student even before they had a chance to play the game. After taking note of these major flaws, creating the rubric for the game was much easier

Without these specific traits, the overall score of the game in our group rubric suffered. To further support the importance of these traits Panhuizen, Kolovou and Robitzsch reference the earlier work of researchers Li and Ma who found that in their meta-analysis of the effects of computer technology on mathematics achievement, there was indeed a positive impact on achievement and in scoring. These positive effects of technology on mathematics learning can be attributed to its unique characteristics, such as interactivity and immediate feedback (Roschelle et al., 2000). Especially feedback that prompts students to reflect on their own thinking is crucial for learning. (Hewitt, 2012)

For our presentation, we utilized Prezi and YouTube as our main presentation tools, but in our interactive portion, we also used Voki and Google Hangouts as a way to bring the class together and have them compete in a fun quiz. On a more personal note, I thought it was very cute to have Albert Einstein present our questions to the class and see the competitiveness between all of our classmates. But this could not have been done without the cooperation from all of us. As we all had different schedules, most of the tasks that needed to be done were delegated to us beforehand in order to eliminate all unnecessary meetings. Most of these tasks were completed in Google Docs in order to view and track any changes; however, since most of these tasks were done in our own independent time, we did meet on Tuesday to practice a short run through of the presentation and to iron out any final kinks.

It is important to understand that even though there are thousands of educational games, what truly makes an educational game good are its characteristics and how well it presents its contents to its intended audience. By doing this assignment, I have come to realize that it’s important not only to pay attention to the content of what you’re trying to get your kids learn, but also how it is taught and whether or not it reinforces what you teach. 

References

G. B., & Eason, S. H. (2015). It all adds up: Learning early math through play and games. Phi Deltan Kappan, 96(8),27-32.

Heuvel-Panhuizen, M., Kolovou, A., & Robitzsch, A. (2013). Primary school students' strategies in early algebra problem solving supported by an online game. Educational Studies In Mathematics, 84(3), 281-307.