This week is Screen Free Week, the national effort to spend a week unplugged from our electronic devices and plugged into...each other, the great outdoors, our neglected books and artwork, or whatever else. It used to be national "Turn Off the TV" week, which seemed to be easier (especially for us, since we don't even own a TV). But as our children's time has been increasingly taken up with the proliferating electronic devices they use for entertainment, so has the scope of Screen Free Week.
My son and I will be participating in Screen Free Week, although we are still figuring out how to make it work for us. Some things are easy. My son has agreed not to play his Wii or his computer games for the week. But so much of our schooling and working involves the computer, we are not just going to shut those down for a week. So we are going to try to use the computer for educational, work, and communication responsibilities, but try to refrain from using it for entertainment. But there is a fine line there, especially for me. I don't play computer games, but how much of the surfing the web that I do is really necessary for educational purposes, and when does it morph into entertainment? It's hard to tell.
Nonetheless, it's a great thing to do every year just to become more aware of our computer and other electronics usage. We are already great readers here, and it's a good time of year to spend time outdoors, so it is great time for us to make a conscious effort to replace electronics with those activities. And who knows what other realizations may occur to us during this week? We'll let you know.....
Showing posts with label video games. Show all posts
Showing posts with label video games. Show all posts
Monday, April 30, 2012
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Should Our Children Be Spending MORE Time on Video Games?
Yesterday's post was learning via MTV; today's is learning through World of Warcraft.
I capitalized it in the title so people wouldn't think it was a typo, but the TED talk embedded below argues not that our society wastes too much time playing video games, but that it doesn't spend ENOUGH time. Game designer and researcher Jane McGonigal has written a book entitled Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Save the World, which I have been eyeing on my library's new nonfiction shelf but have not yet brought home due to my inability to spend any time reading while I'm doing NaNoWriMo. But I went searching for the short version, and found it in the TED video below.
McGonigal has an intriguing notion. She has studied people's behavior in video games (in this video, at least, she seems to be talking primarily about heroic/adventure collaborative online role playing games), and found that people tend to be more empowered, more connected, more helpful, more optimistic, more creative, and just all-around better people in these game environments than they are in real life. Her quest is to find ways to take all those qualities developed by gaming and unleash them to solve huge problems in the real world.
I could say more, but she will say it better, so it's probably best if I just let you watch the 20-minute video below. At the very least, it will make those of us whose children spend a lot of time playing these sorts of games feel like there is more benefit to that time than we might have thought.
I capitalized it in the title so people wouldn't think it was a typo, but the TED talk embedded below argues not that our society wastes too much time playing video games, but that it doesn't spend ENOUGH time. Game designer and researcher Jane McGonigal has written a book entitled Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Save the World, which I have been eyeing on my library's new nonfiction shelf but have not yet brought home due to my inability to spend any time reading while I'm doing NaNoWriMo. But I went searching for the short version, and found it in the TED video below.
McGonigal has an intriguing notion. She has studied people's behavior in video games (in this video, at least, she seems to be talking primarily about heroic/adventure collaborative online role playing games), and found that people tend to be more empowered, more connected, more helpful, more optimistic, more creative, and just all-around better people in these game environments than they are in real life. Her quest is to find ways to take all those qualities developed by gaming and unleash them to solve huge problems in the real world.
I could say more, but she will say it better, so it's probably best if I just let you watch the 20-minute video below. At the very least, it will make those of us whose children spend a lot of time playing these sorts of games feel like there is more benefit to that time than we might have thought.
Monday, November 21, 2011
Curriculum Resource: Math and Videogames
I've found what looks like an incredible resource. It is an online, multi-media, interactive, self-paced course on math concepts used in video games. It was developed by WNET, the public broadcasting network in New York City, for 7th-10th graders, although advanced younger middle schoolers could probably use it as well.
The lesson demonstrates how algebraic concepts, such as linear relationships, rate of change and slope, algebraic and numeric expressions and equations, and graphing transformations, underlie the design and playing of many video game challenges. Of course, it is interactive, so students are called upon to solve such problem to demonstrate some typical video game techniques.
You can access the entire lesson for FREE at the Teacher's Domain website (although students will have to create an account if they want the lesson to record their input for various challenges). You can also download a Teacher's Guide about how to support math learning through this lesson at the same location.
The lesson demonstrates how algebraic concepts, such as linear relationships, rate of change and slope, algebraic and numeric expressions and equations, and graphing transformations, underlie the design and playing of many video game challenges. Of course, it is interactive, so students are called upon to solve such problem to demonstrate some typical video game techniques.
You can access the entire lesson for FREE at the Teacher's Domain website (although students will have to create an account if they want the lesson to record their input for various challenges). You can also download a Teacher's Guide about how to support math learning through this lesson at the same location.
Sunday, August 14, 2011
Curriculum Resource: WolfQuest, a North Carolina Addendum
Just a couple of days ago I wrote a post about the free online wildlife simulation game, WolfQuest. In this game, you create a virtual wolf persona, and attempt to survive, join a pack, find a mate, create a den, and raise your young in the wilds of Yellowstone Park. It is a great way for students to learn about wolf ecology.
However, there was a great article in this weekend's News and Observer paper that talked about the re-admission of red wolves in Eastern North Carolina. This article is an example of a way to extend the learning from the online game by researching wolves in your local environment and the impact they have in the web of life.
So, for instance, in the game the wolves hunt elks and try to escape from grizzly bears. But are there elks and grizzly bears in North Carolina? Not outside the zoos or museum they aren't. Those are not the prey or the predators that our local wolves need to deal with. Nor, at least as far as I have been able to tell (and maybe we haven't played the game enough or haven't done well enough as wolves), has the game displayed what happens if your wolves get TOO good at eating other animals and producing too many young.
But this represents a great launching off point from the game. After students have mastered the ability to survive as a wolf in Yellowstone, you can ask them how those results might differ if they were wolves in North Carolina (or whatever state or country you happen to be in). In your local area, who benefits from the wolves? Who is threatened by the wolves? What could overpopulation of wolves in your state do? This won't be found in the video game, but could inspire some interesting offline research, once students have identified with wolves through their game play.
I'm not going to answer that question for North Carolina because I want my son to investigate the issue himself (and he reads my blog). But if people from other areas do this and find out what species win or lose when wolves are around, please add that information below in the comments.
However, there was a great article in this weekend's News and Observer paper that talked about the re-admission of red wolves in Eastern North Carolina. This article is an example of a way to extend the learning from the online game by researching wolves in your local environment and the impact they have in the web of life.
So, for instance, in the game the wolves hunt elks and try to escape from grizzly bears. But are there elks and grizzly bears in North Carolina? Not outside the zoos or museum they aren't. Those are not the prey or the predators that our local wolves need to deal with. Nor, at least as far as I have been able to tell (and maybe we haven't played the game enough or haven't done well enough as wolves), has the game displayed what happens if your wolves get TOO good at eating other animals and producing too many young.
But this represents a great launching off point from the game. After students have mastered the ability to survive as a wolf in Yellowstone, you can ask them how those results might differ if they were wolves in North Carolina (or whatever state or country you happen to be in). In your local area, who benefits from the wolves? Who is threatened by the wolves? What could overpopulation of wolves in your state do? This won't be found in the video game, but could inspire some interesting offline research, once students have identified with wolves through their game play.
I'm not going to answer that question for North Carolina because I want my son to investigate the issue himself (and he reads my blog). But if people from other areas do this and find out what species win or lose when wolves are around, please add that information below in the comments.
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Should the Government Ban Minors from Buying Violent Video Games?
Next Tuesday, two wonderful expressions of our democratic government will take place. For millions of us, Tuesday will be the day we vote for our U.S. Congressional Representatives and a host of other state or local officials (the others, I'm sure, have already voted by early ballot). Meanwhile, in our nation's capitol, the U.S. Supreme Court will be hearing arguments about whether or not the free speech protections of the U.S. Constitution extend to video games.
On Tuesday, November 2, the Supreme Court will hear arguments on the case of Schwarzenegger v. Entertainment Merchants Association (EMA), which deals with a 2005 California law that restricts the sale of certain violent video games to people under 18. The law was overturned by the California courts for being unconstitutional, but the US Supreme Court agreed to consider the matter when the state of California appealed the decision.
On one side of the issue are various parent groups, who cite studies that linke playing violent video games to actual acts of violence, and argue that we should restrict children's access to such dangerous items just as we refuse to allow them to buy cigarettes or alcohol. On the other side are civil libertarians and media groups, particularly the game developers themselves, who argue that with their ever-increasing ability for interaction and interconnectivity between players, video games are a growing means of self-expression for tweens and teens, and denying them access to that media runs counter to their constitutional rights, which have been re-affirmed in regards to books.
For our particular family, this matter is not really an issue; we don't own any game consoles, my son doesn't play many video games, and he doesn't enjoy violent games or activities in general, so I can't see him getting into such games whether or not they were banned. And I can certainly understand the arguments of the proponents of the law. I highly recommend the book Stop Teaching Our Children to Kill by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman and Gloria Degaetano, which makes a chilling case that time spent on violent video games (some of which were adapted from military sharpshooter training materials) not only numbs children to violence but gives them the skills to shoot with deadly accuracy, and was a factor in the mass school killings such as Columbine.
However, while I can't speak from personal experience, it also seems that the video games industry is evolving and has created some interesting games that lead players through the consequences of such violence. The game industry puts forth examples of more-nuanced violent games as "Darfur Is Dying," where the player tries to avoid being killed by militias while in a refugee camp, "BioShock," where the game deals with genetically modified people being used in a bad system that players can choose to either profit from or rebel against, or "Fable 2," where players face the ultimate ethical dilemma--whether they will save only their immediate family from death, or sacrifice their family to save thousands of innocent lives. Such games, according to game developers, actually allow teens to confront the moral issues surrounding violence and give them better coping skills if faced with violence in their real lives.
So in the end, I have to come down against the proposed law. I think it would inhibit the free speech that mature middle schoolers and teens should be having about these issues. And I am always reluctant to restrict civil liberties, which I think are already under seige with the threat of international terrorism.
So if Chief Justice Roberts were to ask my opinion as a parent, I would say the Supreme Court should uphold the lower court decision ruling the law as being unconstitution. What would you say if he were to ask you?
On Tuesday, November 2, the Supreme Court will hear arguments on the case of Schwarzenegger v. Entertainment Merchants Association (EMA), which deals with a 2005 California law that restricts the sale of certain violent video games to people under 18. The law was overturned by the California courts for being unconstitutional, but the US Supreme Court agreed to consider the matter when the state of California appealed the decision.
On one side of the issue are various parent groups, who cite studies that linke playing violent video games to actual acts of violence, and argue that we should restrict children's access to such dangerous items just as we refuse to allow them to buy cigarettes or alcohol. On the other side are civil libertarians and media groups, particularly the game developers themselves, who argue that with their ever-increasing ability for interaction and interconnectivity between players, video games are a growing means of self-expression for tweens and teens, and denying them access to that media runs counter to their constitutional rights, which have been re-affirmed in regards to books.
For our particular family, this matter is not really an issue; we don't own any game consoles, my son doesn't play many video games, and he doesn't enjoy violent games or activities in general, so I can't see him getting into such games whether or not they were banned. And I can certainly understand the arguments of the proponents of the law. I highly recommend the book Stop Teaching Our Children to Kill by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman and Gloria Degaetano, which makes a chilling case that time spent on violent video games (some of which were adapted from military sharpshooter training materials) not only numbs children to violence but gives them the skills to shoot with deadly accuracy, and was a factor in the mass school killings such as Columbine.
However, while I can't speak from personal experience, it also seems that the video games industry is evolving and has created some interesting games that lead players through the consequences of such violence. The game industry puts forth examples of more-nuanced violent games as "Darfur Is Dying," where the player tries to avoid being killed by militias while in a refugee camp, "BioShock," where the game deals with genetically modified people being used in a bad system that players can choose to either profit from or rebel against, or "Fable 2," where players face the ultimate ethical dilemma--whether they will save only their immediate family from death, or sacrifice their family to save thousands of innocent lives. Such games, according to game developers, actually allow teens to confront the moral issues surrounding violence and give them better coping skills if faced with violence in their real lives.
So in the end, I have to come down against the proposed law. I think it would inhibit the free speech that mature middle schoolers and teens should be having about these issues. And I am always reluctant to restrict civil liberties, which I think are already under seige with the threat of international terrorism.
So if Chief Justice Roberts were to ask my opinion as a parent, I would say the Supreme Court should uphold the lower court decision ruling the law as being unconstitution. What would you say if he were to ask you?
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Video Game Development Contest for Middle Schoolers Announced
For all those middle school students out there who want to design video games....
The White House has recently announced a video game development competition as part of its Educate to Innovate campaign to improve student achievement in STEM disciplines (that is, Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathmatics education). In the Youth Division part of the competition, U.S. middle school students--those enrolled in grades 5-8 or for homeschoolers, students aged 9-13--are invited to submit their best game designs dealing with STEM topics. There are three ways students can submit their ideas: (1) a written game design document; (2) a playable game that uses the design features in the free version of Scratch, Gamestar Mechanic, or Gamemaker 8; (3) a playable game than runs for free on any open platform (for example, using something like Flash). There are over $50,000 in prizes available for the middle school contest, which is actually split into two sections: submissions from 5th-6th grade, and those from 7th-8th grade. But even if they don't win, or even end up submitting an entry, this is a great place for middle school students who want to design video games to check out, because there are lots of resources available on the competition submission platforms and other options. Those who want to compete have until January 5, 2011 to submit their design documents or playable games.
For more information, see the competition site at http://www.stemchallenge.org/Default.aspx
The White House has recently announced a video game development competition as part of its Educate to Innovate campaign to improve student achievement in STEM disciplines (that is, Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathmatics education). In the Youth Division part of the competition, U.S. middle school students--those enrolled in grades 5-8 or for homeschoolers, students aged 9-13--are invited to submit their best game designs dealing with STEM topics. There are three ways students can submit their ideas: (1) a written game design document; (2) a playable game that uses the design features in the free version of Scratch, Gamestar Mechanic, or Gamemaker 8; (3) a playable game than runs for free on any open platform (for example, using something like Flash). There are over $50,000 in prizes available for the middle school contest, which is actually split into two sections: submissions from 5th-6th grade, and those from 7th-8th grade. But even if they don't win, or even end up submitting an entry, this is a great place for middle school students who want to design video games to check out, because there are lots of resources available on the competition submission platforms and other options. Those who want to compete have until January 5, 2011 to submit their design documents or playable games.
For more information, see the competition site at http://www.stemchallenge.org/Default.aspx
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
The Gender Gap in Reading: What Should We Do About It?
A recent report by the Center on Educational Policy, based on data collected by the reading component of the National Assessment for Education Statistics, says that while the gender gap in mathematics (where girls typically performed statistically lower than boys) has essential disappeared, whereas boys perform substantially worse on reading tests than do girls--in some states, up to 10% worse. This has generated a variety of opinions about what we should do about it.
For example, Jon Scieszka, author of such immortal books as The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales, The True Story of the Three Little Pigs, Math Verse, Science Verse, and the Time Warp Trio series, has started up a program called GUYS READ, which advocates the position that we should introduce boys to books that appeal to boys as a solution to the problem. On some level, that makes sense, especially because I think books like Scieszka writes should induce ANYONE to read.
But, then, there is the other side.
I read a great rant the other day about this position of "boys need BOYS books" by a contemporary Young Adult (YA) author, Maureen Johnson (whose book, The Bermudez Triangle, was challenged in Oklahoma, which reminds me to remind you that this Friday is "Freedom to Read" day, a day that honors our ability to read 'banned books'). Anyway, she had a great blog asking why, after hundreds of years of schoolgirls having to read books by and about men, suddenly boys are demnding "boys" literature. Read the whole thing here at her blog post, Sell the Girls.
There was also a great article on this issue in last week's Wall Street Journal. The author, Thomas Spence, indicts typical "boys" books as focusing on juvenile humor, anti-social behavior, and unpleasant bodily functions. Encouraging boys to read such books, he argues, will not help raise them into the sort of adults we want them to become. His theory for the sudden decline in male reading ability? Well, he points out that the gender gap began to appear right around the time that video games broke onto the scene... Again, I recommend you read the original at How to Raise Boys Who Read
Hint: Not with gross-out books and video-game bribes.
Spence ends with an interesting observation. He says there is no gender difference in reading among homeschoolers. While that is certainly true in my own experience--I ran a summer book club for homeschoolers last summer in which boys predominated--I would love to know if he has any statistics to back up that assertion.
Anyway, I think it is an interesting educational issue to ponder.
For example, Jon Scieszka, author of such immortal books as The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales, The True Story of the Three Little Pigs, Math Verse, Science Verse, and the Time Warp Trio series, has started up a program called GUYS READ, which advocates the position that we should introduce boys to books that appeal to boys as a solution to the problem. On some level, that makes sense, especially because I think books like Scieszka writes should induce ANYONE to read.
But, then, there is the other side.
I read a great rant the other day about this position of "boys need BOYS books" by a contemporary Young Adult (YA) author, Maureen Johnson (whose book, The Bermudez Triangle, was challenged in Oklahoma, which reminds me to remind you that this Friday is "Freedom to Read" day, a day that honors our ability to read 'banned books'). Anyway, she had a great blog asking why, after hundreds of years of schoolgirls having to read books by and about men, suddenly boys are demnding "boys" literature. Read the whole thing here at her blog post, Sell the Girls.
There was also a great article on this issue in last week's Wall Street Journal. The author, Thomas Spence, indicts typical "boys" books as focusing on juvenile humor, anti-social behavior, and unpleasant bodily functions. Encouraging boys to read such books, he argues, will not help raise them into the sort of adults we want them to become. His theory for the sudden decline in male reading ability? Well, he points out that the gender gap began to appear right around the time that video games broke onto the scene... Again, I recommend you read the original at How to Raise Boys Who Read
Hint: Not with gross-out books and video-game bribes.
Spence ends with an interesting observation. He says there is no gender difference in reading among homeschoolers. While that is certainly true in my own experience--I ran a summer book club for homeschoolers last summer in which boys predominated--I would love to know if he has any statistics to back up that assertion.
Anyway, I think it is an interesting educational issue to ponder.
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