My E- Learning Blog

Found  a great blog caled the Learning circuit blog where the author has put together a selection of questions that teachers from around the world have asked. Some questions that were address were;

1. “Are computer games inherently counter-cultural?”

Blogger: “To the digital generation, computer games are very much a component of the culture. (Except that ‘computer games’ are so last week… the console is where gaming, and a lot of social networking, is really hapening, because it is cheaper and a lot more powerful)”.

2. “Are some computer games bad for children?”

Blogger: “Yes. So are some TV shows. And some diet sodas. And some fast food. And some urban air. And some popular music. And some education policies”.

3. “Do computer games herald a revolution in education?”

“Maybe, but not necessarily in the direct sense of teaching-through-gaming. I think we can learn a lot from games about the motivation to learn, about structuring tests & rewards, and about using interactive media seductively”.

Perhaps it would be suitable for all teachers to list some questions that are tugging away at them, to get down to the core issues why or what is stopping them from using gamming and asimilations in their classrooms.

Some clear fears that teachers may have; are games and assimilations valid for classroom instruction? How do we assess these ICT activities? How much extra IT training will i need to teach/ help the class? How do I know which games to use in the classroom….

If every teacher would be able to clearly list their core issues, they in retrospect would become proactive in changing their minds on how they view ICT in the classroom.

In a study by FutureLab Projects they found that the reason why schools were reluctant to  use games-based learning approaches in schools were:

• There were a variety of technical obstacles to be overcome when using the games in a school context. Technical support staff play a significant role in supporting teachers to overcome these difficulties.
• Concerns over curriculum and assessment appeared to be more influential in selecting the age of students to use games in lessons than the age rating for the games.
• Many teachers found the fixed length of lessons to be constraining in both the planning and implementation of games-based learning in schools.

“What was clear from the study was that a number of factors were significant in influencing the process by which games can be appropriated for use in schools”. These included:

• the technical infrastructure of the school (including personnel and facilities)
• institutional and professional factors (including the organisation of time and space in the school, cultures of collaboration/knowledge sharing, traditions of ‘best practice’ in lesson planning, and classroom rituals)
• the extent to which games can be ‘disaggregated’ and appropriated to meet specific needs
• the individual teachers’ personal experience of games play, and their personal and professional identities as teachers
• the pervading cultural expectations of children’s attitudes to and expertise in playing computer games.

“While games may have potential to support learning , it is clear that these factors need to be taken into account by teachers, and ideally by school leaders and games developers, before this potential can be fully realised”.

As a student teacher participating in E-Leaning, I have had the opportunity to see first hand how schools react and work with ICT. In most cases, schools who are implementing ICT in their schools feel they are  limited as teachers feel they dont have the time and right expertise to simualte an integrated computer lesson. The common factors that I have seen is simple tasks such as getting students to sign in with the correct code, or only having only one teacher in the room to help student with any problems they are having. In many cases I am sure that teachers wished they had 100 heads and 100 arms to help all students. So wouldnt be great if these software companies made a game simulation of the classroom ICT environment that would assist teachers in implementing and guiding students into their ICT lesson. For example, a program that would allow each student to have an “expert IT Teacher” on their computer assisting them throughout their tasks. It could be created into a game of some sort that if the student was able to figure out the problem themsevles perhaps they earned points towards the end of the lesson. ( Just an idea!)