Games are thought to be big distractions to learning, especially the formal kind. I recall when I was in college, I’d stay up all night playing my favorite adventure and shoot ‘em up games. Of course by the time I attend my classes, I’d be a walking zombie, with rarely anything getting through my sleepy brain. I wonder how I ever finished my degree a semester early.

Now word is that some schools are actually using video games as a tool for learning. Not only are they using video games as alternative means of teaching, they are actually using video games almost exclusively in their teaching curriculum.

Popular science writes how students are, for instance, encouraged to alter a game’s parameters in order to achieve the desired outcome, or to work in a social context in order to achieve some collaborative goals.

The Quest to Learn school opened last September in Manhattan, welcoming the first class of sixth-graders who will learn almost entirely through videogame-inspired activities, an educational strategy geared to keep kids engaged and prepare them for high-tech careers.

The goal, of course, is usually to win the game. But it’s in how the technology is used and manipulated that students learn. The video games might touch on knowledge of history, with the students role-playing as spies working against each other’s governments. Or the games might involve physics by requiring the students to move objects through space, given certain parameters. The possible scenarios go on and on.

With video games, learning becomes fun. Kids nowadays are bombarded with different sorts of media, like email, instant messaging, social networks, and video games. Why not explore these applications in order to foster a love for learning? The disadvantage, though, is that this teaching method might put too much focus on the fun aspect of learning, and not the intrinsic value of learning, itself.

Education through video games might be an appropriate methodology for preparing students for skills like programming, design, coding and the like. One concern here is whether this method also works for other real-world applications and professions. How about literacy? How about fundamentals in math?

Media is fast evolving, and along with this, everyone also follows suit. Education is but one of those important aspects of human life that is adapting well to change. Teachers are favoring online collaboration over traditional submission of paper homeworks. Classrooms usually have computers, audio-visual systems and wireless Internet access. Video games might just be the next big thing when it comes to helping impart the value of learning.

A West London school is trialling the use of iPhones to aid in teaching, and good luck to them I say.

A group of student volunteers have been lent iPhones and have to pay around £10 ($15) per month for the cost of calls. They are then able to use them in the classroom to aid in group discussion and learning.

Thanks to the range of applications, plus access to the Internet, it’s possible to learn all manner of things via the iPhone. The news report I watched showed students enthusiastically viewing the Periodic Table and the works of Shakespeare on screen.

It’s a far cry from when I was at school (not that long ago, thanks very much).

We were lucky to get one computer between two or three — and that was in the IT Lab. Computers in every classroom? Forget it.

Oh, and mobile phones hadn’t been invented.

Many schools ban mobile phones from the classroom, or even the school, because it can be distracting, but it’s definitely well past time to see the benefit in using mobile technology to aid teaching.

One unnamed critic believes that “learning by computers has not yet been proven”. Funny, that. I’ve been using computers for twenty years and I’d say I’ve learnt a great deal. Much of that time was pre-Internet, too.

It’s very easy to look at the negatives of technology and the Internet, but far more beneficial to spend some time creatively looking into helping kids learn using the gadgets they’re already using every day.

Don’t burn the books, or close the libraries, or stop kids visiting historic sites and going on field trips, or teaching them how to write, or add up without using a calculator — but don’t use poor excuses to stifle innovation.

Kids that want to learn will use the technology well. Those that don’t want to learn are going to use gadgets whether or not it’s sanctioned. At least this way, they might still be educated.

(Photo credit: LizMarie)

Well, they were boring and not necessarily the best way for kids to learn. Thing is, multiplication is pretty useful, even if these exercises did only go up to 12 (what’s that all about? Did teachers have a fear of the number 13… oh hang on…)

Anyway, a British inventor has come up with The Maths Wrap that is designed to turn multiplication exercises into a physical game. It doesn’t need batteries – in fact in its simplest form it’s just a board with some notches cut top and bottom and a piece of string.

Kids insert a card for whichever times table they are trying to learn. At the top is a row of numbers to multiply by, from one to 12, and at the bottom are the answers. The aim is to connect the numbers on the top with the correct answers on the bottom by passing the string through the notches. When done, the device is flipped over, and if the strings match up with the lines printed on the back, the kid got his sums right.

There’s also a deluxe edition that includes cards for fractions, decimals, percentages,
addition and subtraction, though as far as I know there’s no binary, hexadecimal or octal editions yet. Still, I guess you could make your own cards.

Now… “once twelve is twelve, two twelves are twenty-four, three twelves and thirty-six, four…”

While I’m doing that, why don’t you watch a video demo of it:

MatshWrap.co.uk

?

?

Features: