Gaming in Education

After reading the few articles on gaming and education I can really see the benefits of incorporating this learning method into a curriculum. The way that schools use the “skill and drill” method in the school system just doesn’t make sense with all of the technologies that are available. Yes, gaming is looked at as a leisure activity, but it is obviously something that kids find fun to do, so why not make use of it as an educational tool.
I played a video game on our super Nintendo called super Mario world. I have played this game several times, but I can see how it is a way of learning. It isn’t teaching kids math skill, but it is helping them learn problem- solving skills. They would have to know what would be the best way to go about defeating a level and how to get the most points possible when doing so. It has a lot of strategy behind it. I also played a game online called Math Baseball. This game showed that there were much more fun ways at going about learning math along with it being fun. The game would make it so that the gamer would have to solve any kind of math problem to swing the bat and then if they got the problem right, depending the difficulty, they would either get a single, double, or a triple. This game, to me was just a fun way to learn math skills. If a student was having trouble with basic math skills this game would be a great way to practice those skills.
In the High score education web article I like when it said that learning isn’t about memorizing isolated facts rather it is about connecting and manipulating them. I think that video games promote this type of thinking. There are strategies in gaming that have to be used to solve problems. I believe overall that gaming is a good way to learn. Kids will not feel like they are learning because they will be having fun while doing it.