Digital Games

I was surprised to read about how video games such as, World of Warcraft implicitly teach kids some important skills. It never dawned on me that even these types of games reinforced skills that are important for kids to be practicing. I think that this is great because it is something that kids LOVE to do and yet they still view it as fun because they don't realize that they are learning at the same time. In the past, I have always struggled with my view on video games. I work with kids on the autism spectrum and while some of my students are very passionate about these video games, they can quickly lead to an unhealthy obsession for them and infringe upon their learning. In the past, I have used more traditional educational games such as, www.starfall.com and some of my students have loved it. Many of them made some significant progress in reading by playing these games, whereas they were not making progress when they were taught reading the standard way. The games were really motivating to them and allowed them to generalize what they were learning through the game to other contexts. On the other hand, I have some other students who love to play more modern video games such as Sonic and Mario on the Wii. Prior to reading this article, I was not sure how beneficial games like these would be to my students from an educational perspective, however, now I can see how these games could help a great deal with my students' hand-eye coordination, processing speed, problem-solving, and strategy techniques. I also think that being able to accept a loss within the game and experiencing the various emotions surrounding that, as well as the emotions experienced when you win the game, is something that is really important for my students to feel, experience, and recognize. We have actually just started a video game club in my school and I am now looking forward to it having read this article.

--Megan Miller