Gaming in Education
Rube Goldberg: _
Great segment on Digital Literacy, Video Production, and Gaming in School Libraries...
Playing Games
April 28, 2014
The unnecessary can also be the mother of invention – according to Rube Goldberg. Rube Works, the official Rube Goldberg Invention Game, is the epitome of fun that is inspired by the Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist who has inspired engineer and scientists for many years.
After downloading the app on my iPad ($2.99, money well spent) the screen prompted me to several choices for creating a new invention. I decided to build my first invention, a combination alarm clock and juice squeezer. The inventions cleverly embed scientific concepts that may include how pulleys work and other scientific laws of motion. For instance, a magnifying glass can focus sunlight besides making things larger. The hints tell me that the key to building successful inventions is frequent testing and to keep checking my progress. (Skill building) I’m going to be awarded some golden prunes depending on my score! After I successfully (it took me at least an hour) completed that task, I was prompted to invent a contraption to slice a turkey. I gave up on that one Friday night because my husband was getting a little irritated with me. This is the funniest, cutest app I’ve ever seen. What kid wouldn’t love it?
Gaming has my attention. I wasn’t at all interested in educational games at school or even at home, really, until I starting looking around. I read a few articles, and downloaded the book Reality is Broken by Jane Mc Gonigal. I can’t put it down. I’m in the middle of it, and don’t intend for this paper to be a critique or a summary of it, but OMG! This book is not just about gaming. It’s about psychology and it’s about human nature. I loved her descriptions of how games have made life bearable since starving populations used games to make sense of a chaotic environment and gave the people a better way to live when their situation was unbearable. She asks, “What if we started to live our real lives like gamers, lead our real businesses and communities like game designers, and think about solving real-world problems like computer and video game theorists?” Hmm.
McGonigal believes that game design isn’t just a technological craft. It’s a twenty-first-century way of thinking and leading. Her description of “flow” and “fiero” explained so many things to me. It explained why my husband is addicted to skiing. I read some of the passages to him from the book on Saturday. He got up at 5 am Sunday morning, drove to Tahoe, skied for four hours, and drove home. He was in the best mood I’ve seen him in for some time. He then explained to me that when I described “flow” and “fiero” to him it prompted him to go skiing. He needed that rush!
This book has prompted me to allow my seventh graders to stay in the library during lunch and play games. They’re connected socially, they’re talking about sophisticated topics, and, I discovered, they’re not goofing off! I’ve stopped nagging them about being outside and getting some “fresh air”. What they’re doing is relaxing and they’re de-stressing from school. Research shows that playing games alleviates depression. Compared with games, reality is depressing. Games focus our energy on something we’re good at and enjoy.
Intrinsic reward and lasting happiness have been verified through gaming. Working hard, failing, and developing personal strengths and building social relationships are all life-changing events that happen when kids play games. The kids are strategically planning some challenging moves and the collaboration I’m seeing is definitely higher level thinking. I say, let them play. I will never ask a kid to stop playing a game again. I’m even considering playing WOW myself, if I can get the nerveJ.
April 28, 2014
The unnecessary can also be the mother of invention – according to Rube Goldberg. Rube Works, the official Rube Goldberg Invention Game, is the epitome of fun that is inspired by the Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist who has inspired engineer and scientists for many years.
After downloading the app on my iPad ($2.99, money well spent) the screen prompted me to several choices for creating a new invention. I decided to build my first invention, a combination alarm clock and juice squeezer. The inventions cleverly embed scientific concepts that may include how pulleys work and other scientific laws of motion. For instance, a magnifying glass can focus sunlight besides making things larger. The hints tell me that the key to building successful inventions is frequent testing and to keep checking my progress. (Skill building) I’m going to be awarded some golden prunes depending on my score! After I successfully (it took me at least an hour) completed that task, I was prompted to invent a contraption to slice a turkey. I gave up on that one Friday night because my husband was getting a little irritated with me. This is the funniest, cutest app I’ve ever seen. What kid wouldn’t love it?
Gaming has my attention. I wasn’t at all interested in educational games at school or even at home, really, until I starting looking around. I read a few articles, and downloaded the book Reality is Broken by Jane Mc Gonigal. I can’t put it down. I’m in the middle of it, and don’t intend for this paper to be a critique or a summary of it, but OMG! This book is not just about gaming. It’s about psychology and it’s about human nature. I loved her descriptions of how games have made life bearable since starving populations used games to make sense of a chaotic environment and gave the people a better way to live when their situation was unbearable. She asks, “What if we started to live our real lives like gamers, lead our real businesses and communities like game designers, and think about solving real-world problems like computer and video game theorists?” Hmm.
McGonigal believes that game design isn’t just a technological craft. It’s a twenty-first-century way of thinking and leading. Her description of “flow” and “fiero” explained so many things to me. It explained why my husband is addicted to skiing. I read some of the passages to him from the book on Saturday. He got up at 5 am Sunday morning, drove to Tahoe, skied for four hours, and drove home. He was in the best mood I’ve seen him in for some time. He then explained to me that when I described “flow” and “fiero” to him it prompted him to go skiing. He needed that rush!
This book has prompted me to allow my seventh graders to stay in the library during lunch and play games. They’re connected socially, they’re talking about sophisticated topics, and, I discovered, they’re not goofing off! I’ve stopped nagging them about being outside and getting some “fresh air”. What they’re doing is relaxing and they’re de-stressing from school. Research shows that playing games alleviates depression. Compared with games, reality is depressing. Games focus our energy on something we’re good at and enjoy.
Intrinsic reward and lasting happiness have been verified through gaming. Working hard, failing, and developing personal strengths and building social relationships are all life-changing events that happen when kids play games. The kids are strategically planning some challenging moves and the collaboration I’m seeing is definitely higher level thinking. I say, let them play. I will never ask a kid to stop playing a game again. I’m even considering playing WOW myself, if I can get the nerveJ.