Chapter Two Blog

Chapter Two in "Video Games and Learning: Teaching and Participatory Culture in the Digital Age" by Kurt Squire touched on good points about what makes a "good" educational game.  I like how Kurt mentioned playing games for leisure brought out talents he later tapped into during his college life.  He was able to go on to study fields of interest that pertained to the games he played and actually received degrees from them.  When I was younger and I played video games, my favorite were the game show video games.  I would play "Wheel of Fortune" or "Double Dare" while my brothers and cousin would play the "Mario Bros." and action/adventure games.  I would watch them play those games and be as excited as they were when they completed a board or level and moved on.  I would try to play their video games, but would get frustrated when I was not able to complete a board, and if I did, it was by pure luck.
As mentioned before in my prior blogs, video games are educational because they help people pique and explore talents whether hidden and/or apparent.  I learned early on that I was not the athletic type, so playing sports video games did not interest me.  My older brother would invite me to play them with him because I was not as hard to beat, unlike playing against the computer.
We pick up on or play video games that come to us naturally, gives a challenge to the play, or so we can learn something from them.  Video game designers have to research topics within their games and/or bring in outside sources of knowledge.  For example, using Wikipedia for a source is not credited, but I am able to take from it and add to it for research.  I really like the aspect of video games being educational more than ever now because I have nephews that play video games hours upon hours.  If something has their attention more than studying and reviewing schoolwork, I would at least like them to learn from their distraction.
Video games whether for leisure or educational purposes bring about discussion.  There are no right or wrong responses because video games are built around choices.  I have learned from this course so far that video games bring about great debates, which is another great educational tool inside and outside of the classroom.