Michael Gove: Video Games - Lessons Of The Future?

From bringing digital textbooks to the classroom to requiring keyboard skills in lieu of cursive writing, schools are taking teaching in the digital era to a new level. Now, U.K. Education Secretary Michael Gove says video games have a place in the classroom, too.

In an address to the Royal Society in London last week, Gove cites games developed by Marcus Du Sautoy, a math professor at Oxford University, that allow students to actively engage in math and science, according to Edge.

"When children need to solve equations in order to get more ammo to shoot the aliens, it is amazing how quickly they can lear," [Gove said.] "I am sure that this field of educational games has huge potential for maths and science teaching and I know that Marcus himself has been thinking about how he might be able to create games to introduce advanced concepts, such as non-Euclidean geometry, to children at a much earlier stage than normal in schools."

Sautoy's Manga High features online assignments from teachers and subsequent rewards -- some free versions are available as well, according to TechSpot.

The U.K. Department of Education is working with Li Ka Shing Foundation in Hong Kong and the Stanford Research Institute in the U.S. to develop educational math computer games.

"We need to change curricula, tests and teaching to keep up with technology," [Gove] said. "These developments are only the beginning...The new environment of teaching schools will be a fertile ecosystem for experimenting and spreading successful ideas rapidly through the system.

But Gove's outlook on technology in education is seeing some criticism. Keith Stuart of The Guardian says that while such a view of video games in teaching is a positive step, educators and policymakers should also look toward allowing children to engage in the process of interactive experiences. From The Guardian:

But the way games work, the way they're structured, the way they teach players their systems, the way they ask players to engage with the virtual world, and the way they allow social interaction, should also be important pedagogical pointers. Games are, after all, among the most complex systems that children are exposed to - just look at the labyrinthine structure of titles like Lego Star Wars, or the masses of information in RPG games, or the social economies at work in Club Penguin and Moshi Monsters.

Some teachers in the U.S. have already implemented these games in their lessons. Angry Birds, a mobile game that was recently launched for the web, let's players launch a bird across digital skies and fields into forts. And John Burk, a physics teacher at Westminster Schools in Atlanta, has combined the computer game with physics to teach his students about projectile motion, according to Kotaku.

Comments

[elblanc0]

01:46 PM on 07/11/2011

I think video games have a place in the classroom but they need to be part of a broader, well-researched and planned integration of curriculum technology and assessment strategy - a true blended approach to facilitate real learning and retention - not this lecture-to-the-test failure of a format we have now.

[Elizabeth Farmer]

10:46 AM on 07/13/2011

Yea I do not like the lecture for the test style. This doesn not teach students anything!

[TINA ANDRES]

01:35 AM on 07/09/2011

Games are about motivation. They provide the student with something they actually want to accomplish and then require the skills to get it accomplished. That is the opposite of what is done in most classrooms. We try to teach kids skills so at some point in the future they will be able to do something with them, it's backwards. The Mind Institute has also has incredible success with their technology programs for math in the schools. The program is great because it doesn't completely depend upon language skills in order to make progress. I definitely think that there is a lot of room for improvement in educational games though, kids are sharp, they catch on when they realize that the game is trying to teach and starts to look more like a worksheet than a game.

[Elizabeth Farmer]

10:47 AM on 07/13/2011

I definatly think that games are about motivation! Students like to be motivated!

[olegkos]

06:08 PM on 07/08/2011

If we want games to work in connection w/ lectures, game mechanics need to specifically repeat what we want to reinforce; for example; http://mathiqgames.com are starting to do this for some of the arithmetic areas....

[sharmaine73]

01:52 PM on 07/08/2011

I am finding an effective way to get my seven year old son to put in the effort to read are his video games. He likes role playing games. he just finished Bully and is now playing Kingdom Hearts. The game requires a lot reading and follwing directions. I won't help him with it unless he reads out loud to me what he sees on the screen. It pisses him off but he loves the game so he shows no sign of giving up.It's an excellent tool. His teacher told me all year he was a poor reader. I know what my son can do. She only cared about his ability to do well on the state tests and so he didn't get the kind of help he needed. But forcing him to read and follow a fun video game shows me just how much he can do and is helping him get up to speed and beyond. We hope to have a much stronger second grade year.

[Joe Reynolds]

05:07 AM on 07/08/2011

I got an idea. Let's bring the kids to the pub. They can learn maths through pint measures, prices, making change, scoring darts and snooker. They can learn physics through darts and snooker. There are all sorts of 'experiences' to be had.
This kind of guff (games) has been around awhile. It's just the latest form of educational quackery.

[Andy Shick]

10:47 PM on 07/07/2011

Back in the 1990s, a game similar to the one pictured was used in my high school physics class.

[methodman]

08:41 PM on 07/07/2011

The other angle is kids need to think in terms of set relations and make their own simple gadgets in order to begin to find and expand their thinking and extensions. For goodness sakes I still am programming a Commodore 64 because I think PetAscii is a great fun invention and the whole collection of programming books is available for free along with the magazines.

[methodman]

08:37 PM on 07/07/2011

Lectures and Games actually work well together. So does plagurism about complicated ideas. Formal language makes someone creative. People complain so what. People who take formal language to heart as kids are very creative as adults. People who blow it off later still don't care when you are 40 you can tell who reads and who doesn't.

[xkehaulanix]

08:37 PM on 07/07/2011

It's not that new of an idea though...We used to play computer games every week or so in elementary school, which for me was a decade ago. It made learning to spell much, much easier. As long as they don't completely replace lectures with video games, why not use them? Kids might actually enjoy going to school and fall asleep in class less often.

[Hlynn]

07:53 PM on 07/07/2011

Using video games for students is great! We play them at school often and whether it's something really simply like baseball math or watching a Kahn Academy video (if you haven't seen one, you have to check them out--they're wonderful!) and then playing a game based on that, or playing the game on former Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's sites, our students love them and learn from them. There are many free online games for students to play and they get to learn new things or maintain their skills and they enjoy them very much.

[GlennWatson]

06:19 PM on 07/07/2011

I will try anything. What we are doing now is not working well enough.

[Hlynn]

07:55 PM on 07/07/2011

Video games don't replace what we're already doing. It's not either-or. They work together. There are many good things happening in public schools, and the video games help make learning more engaging for students. When they enjoy learning, they remember more.

[RutherfordLaser]

05:42 PM on 07/07/2011

I remember in elementary school all my friends and I who played RPGs extensively had vastly larger vocabularies than most other children. We learned to read first too.

[sharmaine73]

01:57 PM on 07/08/2011

That is exactly what my seven year old is doing. He is playing Kingdom Hearts right now and played Bully before that. He has to read what's on the screen out loud to me before I will hlp him with a task. His teacher said he was a poor reader. He isn't. I think by fall, he will be more than ready for second grade level reading if not beyond all because he wants to play his video game. He is still learning the ins and outs of RPG's so needs more than a little guidance in completing missions, etc. But his reading before getting help of any sort from me or Dad is essential.

[RutherfordLaser]

01:03 AM on 07/10/2011

Here are a couple suggestions if he can look past the dated graphics: Chrono Trigger and Earthbound. I can't wait to watch my children play these games, if I ever have any.

[umbrarchist]

04:55 PM on 07/07/2011

Kids are supposed to be educated so they can eventually get jobs. But that is about MONEY and double-entry accounting is 700 years old.

So why hasn't accounting been mandatory for 20 years or more? Could that have prevented the real estate debacle? Does the Economic Power Game need for ignorance to be maintained?

http://www.toxicdrums.com/economic-wargames-by-dal-timgar.html.