Podcast Reflection #6: Kicking it Up a Notch, Games in Education

For this podcast I decided to switch gears and visited the K12 Online Conference and found a podcast by Sylvia Martinez discussing the use of games in the classroom. She started out the podcast by discussing how games have been used to educate living mammals since the start of time and that schools were the relatively new phenomena on the block.  To explain this she highlighted animals such as lions who use games to teach their cubs survival skills. So, that made sense.  So games are a way that we naturally learn skills, but, as she highlighted in her podcast, they are not all skills that go along with classroom education.  So what is important and what is the right way to go about tackling the issue? Mrs. Martinez discusses about the use of COTS, Commercial Off the Shelf games, to add life lessons into the classroom lessons by using games that anyone can by.  One of the games she mentioned was a Sims City because it can highlight many real world situations to the kids.  She went on to say that with the game play, teacher lead discussion also needs to be present to make sure they are understand the educational purpose in the time spent with the game and not seeing it as just a fun alternative.  Lastly, she suggested game design. Allowing the students to design their own computer based games highlights many things they learn in the classroom and also implements teamwork and problem solving skills.  While I agree with much of what Mrs. Martinez discusses throughout her podcast I still remain somewhat skeptical to the idea of the COTS type games being used in the classroom.  When I was a student that would have been more of a distraction from the learning I was supposed to be doing then it would have been an aid to reinforce what I had learned.  Rather then games, I think I will stick to hands on reinforcement of my learning and recommend games to my students for out class time to help further stimulate the growth of an idea.