It's pretty much a fact, most kids love video games. It's also true that most parents are not enthused by their kid's gaming habits. While it's easy to see the value in educational games, is there really any educational value in a game like the Sims? We recently attended a great seminar which turned our ideas of gaming, learning, and their place in the home upside down.
Who shook up our ideas on gaming? James Gee at a recent seminar from by the Hechinger Institute. Jame Gee is a member of the National Academy of Education and is an author whose most recent books deal with video games, language, and learning. During this seminar he demonstrated quite persuasively that good video games are designed to enhance learning through effective learning principles supported by research in the Learning Sciences.
What makes a good video game great for learning?
- A good video game will teach problem solving which is an important skill to learn, more important in the age of digital information than memorizing certain facts and formulas which can be easily located.
- Every good video game is challenging but not too frustrating. The game designer wants you to learn and feel accomplishment without giving up. Good video games are experiences that have learning at their core with built-in mentoring.
- By playing video games, kids learn that it is OK to fail and that often failing a few times is necessary to achieve success. Because the risk factor is low with trying new solutions and quests, kids are more prone to experiment and give it a shot.
- Video games have built-in assessment which let kids know where they are and what areas they need to improve in. This allows kids to look objectively at things they are good at and work at improving areas where they are weaker.
- Playing the game is usually not the whole experience as many good games have thriving communities developed around the game. These communities give kids a way to delve deeper into the game and increase their social interaction with peers around something they are passionate about.
When asked to provide some game examples, James Gee highlighted these three:
- Portal: This game is well designed and is a fantastic educational experience both while playing the game and in communities that are developed around the game. James Gee cited several of these communities where kids were discussing physics concepts that they researched independently because they were trying to solve a game puzzle discussed in game forums.
- The Sims: While it might be surprising to see this game in this list, The Sims does offer non-traditional learning opportunities. One of the best ways for kids to learn with this game is by providing challenges. An example James Gee provided was to "live the life of a single mother on a budget," which players found challenging and enlightening.
- Foldit: Clearly the most educational of the titles on the list, the concept behind Foldit is to solve puzzles for science. Foldit is a computer game that enables players to contribute to important scientific research via protein folding puzzles.
We think James Gee makes some great points and it has caused us to rethink some of our ideas on kids and video games. With our lives being more and more dominated by technology, problem solving skills have never been less important and we think that tech that cultivates those skills should be encouraged in humans of all ages, and particularly in young ones.
What do you think?
More on kids & tech from the Unplggd archives:
- Can an App Help Your Kids Love Math? s
- 5 Great Educational iPad Apps for Kids
- Kid Tech That Teaches Without Using Screens
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At the very least, my kids' DS allows us to create a system of rewards and consequences that they genuinely respond to (you have a choice: clean your room and you may play DS, or ignore my words and lose it for tomorrow).
And as someone who worked in the game industry for almost 10 years, I feel OBLIGATED to point out the learnin' that happens in most games. Problem solving, failure leading to success (and stick with something in order to figure it out), and cooperative play (in the case of online and wi-fi enabled games).
Not to say that I don't kick my kids out of the house to play in meatspace as well. I'm not raising social rejects, here...
It's amazing how the whole "what a good video game good for learning" part has the same exact essentials for what makes a good and functioning video game. I heard those same words from my instructor back in art school, where I studied game art.
They are great as long as the parent stays in control, and its usage is moderate. Look for games with short playing sessions, or that you can pause and come back to later. Games that require you to sit down for hours at a time to accomplish anything are not healthy.
Kids, at least the very young ones, typically only get games their parents either buy or approve as gifts. This allows the parent to maintain control, and guide the child. Everything in moderation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23Uuehgmd14
This video pertains to how video games allow boys to learn in ways their brains work, vs the typical manner of sitting at a desk.
It's a short and great video, as a mother of 4 sons it's an important one to me.
The problem this doesn't address is that most kids don't WANT to play games like the Sims (Portal was an exception to that rule) they want Call of Duty and Halo. They want shooters. You get zero value form playing games like that. Zero.
Portal, Myst, even LA Noire (my husbands current favorite) games like that are puzzle games. Strategy is involved and you have to think to play them. I've seen far too many kids 10 years old cursing and laughing while they play along with Call of Duty or similar games. THAT is the kind of games parents have problems with. I grew up with Nintendo and Atari and you were hard pressed to find a parent opposed to those simple games (heck, mine played along!) but nowadays, unless theres blood guts and sex kids don't want it once they hit a certain age.
Trust me, I grew up with a brother a year younger than me who has a legitimate obsession with video games. I watched a top of his class person waste his life sucking into this stuff so I have a hard time saying shooters and 99% of games around today are ok for kids.
Co-op games or team games online like Halo or Call of Duty actually do have some redeeming values.
Like I posted on Ohdeedoh, if you see your kid spending too much time on games, then whose fault is it? Impose your daily limits, parents, and stop blaming others for your kids' obsession.
My husband and I grew up playing games of all types, including video games, and we had limits. Games didn't take precedence over homework, chores, studying, reading.
There's a way to teach a healthy relationship with any kind of pastime/hobby.
better hand eye coordination and reaction time when playing games like halo and call of duty. also likely to have better social skills, as those games are most often played online with friends.
@angus, that was an amazing video - thank you for posting it.
I've got a 1-year-old son and a husband who loves video games. I don't "get" video games and rarely play them, but I know I need to educate myself before my son gets much older, about what is acceptable and what isn't. @Angus's video was eye-opening for someone like me, who tends to look down on video games as time waters or disgustingly violent.
sorry - that was "time wasters"
Amen.
As an avid gamer, I'm going to agree and disagree with some people here. I'm 25 years old, male, and what I say might surprise you.
As the linked TED talk explains, boy culture has been removed from most of our society. Part of that boy culture is violence, but violence and rough play are just a part of that culture.
To start, there has been no conclusive evidence that violent video games increase violence in people. Any experiment finding that conclusion was either funded by groups lobbying for more video game legislation, or has failed to stand up to peer review.
Violence is found in more games than the FPS genre. Most real time strategy (RTS) games, like Command and Conquer or Starcraft, are just as violent but, because it's small and pixelated, we don't seem to care.
Fighting games like Street Fighter or Mortal Combat are often more graphic than FPS games, and yet they are not nearly as popular. If violence is the major factor in drawing an audience, then why is it that ultra-violent fighting games are rare compared to the vast clones of FPS games that fly off the shelves?
The truth is, FPS games offer something other games do not. They are fast paced, and require both skill and strategy to play well. FPS games are also fairly balanced. A relatively inexperienced player can have a good time playing against seasoned veterans. More importantly FPS games have a low barrier to entry. We are all familiar with with the point and click instant feedback of using a mouse. FPS games boil down to, "put cursor on player," "click til they die." It's familiar and, unlike RTS and fighting games, there's usually a smooth transition between one FPS and another.
There's a bigger familiarity FPS games have than just the point and click metaphor, however. FPS games are the digital realization of one of humanity's oldest games, tag.
There are variations on tag as well. The one I will note is paintball. Paintball is like the real-world counterpart to the FPS. You point, shoot, people get hit and are out. It's like tag, it's like FPS games, but it hurts. Part of boy culture is pain. People who play paintball volunteer to do it and have fun doing it. Adrenaline is released and a sense of false fear is built up. The risk of death is essentially none, but the benefits of a near death experience are fully realized. We play games with some of our oldest instincts to keep them fresh, to trigger reactions in our bodies that we no longer have in our normal day to day lives. It's healthy.
Although to a smaller extent, the same reactions are triggered in us when we play FPS games, especially if we are invested in the outcome and are able to attribute some sort of weight to the life of our avatar.
On top of that, FPS games appeal to another universal human appreciation, the appreciation of virtuoso human performance. We all value something done well. The problem with FPS games is that unless you are familiar them, you will be unable to tell the difference, which is why so many people don't get it.
Now for the part that might surprise people. Although I am 25, male, and enjoy violent video games, I have never killed a person. I am extremely gentle and loving to my wife. I spend quality time with her. I am sensitive to the feelings, especially the pain, of others. I have a soft heart. I hate games that objectify women, contain excessive amounts of foul language, or which depict nudity, sex, or glorify drug use. I choose the games I will play based on what content I want entering my mind.
When I have children I will let them play the games I feel are appropriate for them. It will probably be different than what ESRB tells me, and will differ from child to child based on their own maturity.
To the parents who dislike the violence in video games, make sure you check to see if it can be turned down. Many games have options to turn off bad language and reduce gore. If they do not, write a letter to the game developers telling them why you will no longer be purchasing their games and what they can do to improve their games in the future. If they want your business, they will listen.
Our 4-year-old recently started playing Portal with my husband. He loves it, and it's a great way of getting him to calm down before bed-time.
Last weekend, we were out and tried to go into a building but the door was locked. Our son turned to my husband and said, completely serious: "just make a portal!"
Makes me glad we haven't been letting him play any violent games.
We do not have video games in our home. Our son is 1 but early on we decided that we would not be buying any gaming system. Not because of the violence (I actually hadn't thought about that) but because of the timesuck that we feel video games are. Will he play them at his friend's house? Sure he will and that's fine. But we are hoping that at home he'll play soccer in the backyard instead of wanting to play video games. This might be idealistic, but we watched my nephew become completely consumed with video games. It was the only thing he wanted to do or talk about. While I understand that this has a lot to do with parenting, it's not something we feel good about bringing into our home. Even his current electronic toys, he can play with them at home or in the car, but not when we are out - we want him to observe and engage with his surroundings and other people.
Gosh, we sound like pretentious hippies, but I guess our lack of interest in the video games makes it an easier decision for us. Plus, kids can learn all those skills elsewhere too.
Playing video games does not allow kids to learn a wealth of social skills. Instead it teaches them how to withdraw from their current situation and the world around them. I agree with AbbyR that kids should learn how to observe and engage with their surroundings and other people, rather than characters on a TV screen.
Also I acknowledge that rough play is a natural quality of boys but shouldn't they be encouraged to actually throw around a ball or run outside rather than merely pressing buttons on a controller that simulate those activities?
Our kids used to be hooked on videogames. We fixed that by swapping them out for audiobooks. Audiobooks are far more engaging. There are lots of sites where you can download them, but we use this one a lot because the stories are original and free. Here's the link if anyone is interested. It really helps. http://www.twirlygirlshop.com/moral-stories-for-kids