Learning And Games The Undeniable Link

Educational games today are being welcomed as much as the silver screen wonders on the red carpet. For once, parents are not bothered about their kids spending more time on the computer playing games rather than shuffling through extracurricular classes and academic note books. There is learning involved in each and every game, only that people are failing to see the hidden message in them. Kids that play such games are experiencing improvised cognitive skills and those with disabilities too are showing definite signs of improvement, thanks to educative games.

Learning through Games

It is obvious that we want the education and training efforts to result in highly skilled individuals who are capable of handling any tough situation and come up triumphs more often than not. Anything less than that, is blamed on the education system and the questionable lifestyle of individuals. But the reality though is far from that, as today learning has become more of memorization than anything else. Learning though is about the ability of individuals to apply that learning and the information correctly on a given range of contexts. This is where games come in as these assist not only in learning but also creating a virtual environment where gamers have to apply what they have learnt.

Creating Learning Experiences

Games as always provide the motivation to learn even in cases where the learners have not other self motivation to keep themselves occupied. If given to them in the right package games can be that platform where even the unwilling learners can learn. This helps them to memorize and retain certain types of content and opens up to a whole new learning experience. Even an unmotivated learner is able to take enough interest in something that gets the individual engaged in the process of learning without realizing that this is more than just a game.

Chocolate Covered Broccoli

This is actually nothing but offering chocolate covered broccoli where unwilling learners see only the chocolate, love the smell of it and get drowned in its flavor while slowly and surely the actual goodie is embedded inside delivering what it needs to deliver. The educational material is the same but the package in which it is delivered is attractive. This has made many educationalists to rethink their strategies of developing game centric learning curricula as games are considered as platforms for experiences that encourage learning.

Placing The Learner At The Center Of The Experience

The whole idea behind developing educational games and games that promote learning among individuals is to encourage them in taking an active role in some way while ensuring that the learning situation isn’t far from reality and is placed in the context of a real world situation. Here the focus is only on one learner and hence multi player games may not do the necessary. The learner is taught to encounter both success and failure as they grow linear. Like all, failure is a critical aspect of life and it is important that young minds are trained to accept it even though they stay competitive in the course of a game. Creating learning experiences through gaming has multiple advantages, but it is imperative to understand that what works for one may not for the other. Individuals have varied tastes and choices and hence presenting a wide array of gaming choices that can help them choose is best.