This week we talked about the idea of games being brought to the classroom. Do games aid in learning? I LOVED games as a study tool and still do now that I am in college. I absolutely despise studying. I have the world's shortest attention span and I can get easily distracted. Studying all together just makes me super cranky, and then no one wants to be around me.
The idea of studying just stresses me out like to a crazy degree. Right now as I am writing this blog post I am putting of studying for a chem test tonight. Games however, trick myself into studying. I love playing online games or even taking online quizzes to test my knowledge. Why? Because I see the progress. I need that. It's kind of like my love for cleaning. I clean when I am stressed. Why? Because once I finish cleaning something I can see my progress and I just feel super accomplished. When I am just staring at a book trying to absorb information and study literally nothing gets done. I'm a junior in college and I still have no idea what I am doing when I try to study something. I just stare blankly at pages and notes hoping something syncs in.
If I have something online that I can quiz myself over or interact with I am super productive. I don't get discouraged like I am just wasting time. This is because I can see my progress and I get feedback which shows me I actually grasped the information I was trying to learn. Games I think have their place in education. When I become a teacher someday I plan on using games as a resource for my students. It won't be something we take class time to play, but it'll be up as a study tool. I may even offer it as some form of extra credit to do outside of the classroom. I understand games aren't for every learner out there, and they also shouldn't be the only form of studying a student does, but why not take a tool that may benefit some students and make it available to them?
