'Video games stimulate learning'

Continuing my search for research, articles and examples where schools are successfully using video games as integral to their learning curriculum....

...the following article, “Video games ‘stimulate learning’”, that appeared in the BBC News / Education, dated Monday, 18 March, 2002.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/1879019.stm#map

This article was written approximately 8 years ago and the opening sentence begins, ‘computer games could become part of the school curriculum’.  Interesting that the authors choose the word, could, and yet it would appear to me that little has changed in regards to video games being included in the curriculum in the years since this news item was reported.

According to the article, research findings have found that children who participate in video games, develop significant skills that included strategic thinking, planning skills, and with improvements in mathematics, reading and spelling.  These findings are supported by Compton-Lilley who further states that video games are successful learning tools because they ‘engage children and hold their attention’. (2007, 718) Little argument could be broached that these are important and necessary skills to be developed in the classroom and yet educators have failed to adopt video games as part of the curriculum.  The report suggests that due to a strong content driven curriculum, teachers find it difficult to justify children spending important classroom time playing video games.  

As a teacher in a Queensland school, where the curriculum is currently being driven by national testing results, I feel this is justified.  However, the report further suggests that educators would use video games more often if the games themselves were linked to the curriculum and the factual information was accurate.  There is already a wealth of educational games on the market that claim to do just that, but these games have received heavy criticism especially from gamers themselves because in an effort to be educational, the games often lose the fun element.  Gee, on the other hand states that, ‘Good video games incorporate good learning principals.’ (2005, 33) and I think the news report misses this point.  Teachers need to be re-educated themselves to the educational advantages of incorporating video games into the curriculum not trying to fit video games to the curriculum content.  Compton-Lilley (2007) supports this notion by paralleling the learning and teaching of reading with the playing of video games using Gee’s learning principals.

References

Compton-Lilley, C. (2007) What Video Games Teach Us About Reading in Reading Teacher;  May 2007, Vol. 60 Issue 8, p718-727  accessed 15/10/10 from

http://web.ebscohost.com.ezp01.library.qut.edu.au/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=2&hid=11&sid=9bf7c59a-94f7-4437-849c-77968b16448c%40sessionmgr11

Gee, J.P. (2007) Good Video Games and Learning Collected Essays on Video Games, Learning and Literacy. Peter Land Publishing Accessed 10/10/10 from 

http://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&lr=&id=6NY2i9stxZwC&oi=fnd&pg=PA1&dq=video+games+education+gee&ots=eg8VxwXZAt&sig=H__81vw6brxowlD6moLWcpPrX4U#v=onepage&q=video%20games%20education%20gee&f=false