Chapter Five Blog

The author Kurt Spire has made reasonable points about video games and learning thus far.  In chapter five, he talks about using games to teach and redesigning video games for educational purposes.  He collaborates with new colleagues to come up with great ideas that have been successful.

One that stood out to me while reading this chapter was the point of entertainment products being reappropriated for learning. Video games being played on student's leisure time has proven to be a source of sparking interests of school subjects.  I have a friend that played around with computers as a child and teen ager for fun and turned it into a successful business.  He also researches and utilizes many forums and blog posts that pertain to keep him afresh with what is evolving the world of electronics and technology.  With that being said, who knew that hobbies could turn into something so magnificent as professions and learning tools.    Playing the Spore Galactic Edition video sparked an interest in me about Science that would have been a big help during my undergraduate years studying Biology.

Using games to teach takes research.  I agree with using multiple prototypes for testing game ideas.  This way the creators can send them out and get as much feedback as possible.  When creating games for multiple use, there have to be many hands-on involved.  This shows where money should be spend and scaled back.  We also should consider what catches the eye.  Art is constantly changing and this is vital when coming up with concepts for new games or shifting things around in old games.  And it is always good to test things out before producing a final project.

I learned from reading this chapter that we have to move with the times.  We need to be involved and accept input from all angles.  We should be open to criticism (good and bad) because it at the end of the day, helps improve situations, and with education, it will help with teaching and learning.  Criticism helps teachers know how to handle certain students, and with students, it helps them be able to relate to where their instructors are coming from.  Like Kurt mentioned in this chapter, we learn from play and use, like the designers of social media sites learn how to change layouts and functions of them to best suit their users.  And the more we use something the more we find ways to make them better.  We need to continue to come up with ways to keep learning fun.