Learning through games?

Hello everybody!!!

I've been working for my paper and I've found a lot of interesting information. I would like to share Mark Prensky's ideas with you.

He supports DIGITAL GAME-BASED LEARNING and argues that learning can be fun and encouraging. Honestly this is really interesting and from my point of view a challenge for all of us!!!

If you find it as interesting as I do have a look at:

http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Ch1-Digital%20Game-Based%20Learning.pdf

http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Digital%20Game-Based%20Learning-Ch5.pdf


Digital Game-Based Learning. is precisely about fun and engagement, and 
the coming together of and serious learning and interactive entertainment into a newly 
emerging and highly exciting medium — Digital Learning Games. 

Digital Game-Based Learning is still a radical idea.
It is based on two key premises that are still not fully accepted in the training and adult
learning community. The first is that the learners have changed in some fundamentally 
important ways — the bulk of the people who are learning and being trained today,
people who in the year 2000 are roughly under the age of 36 (the median age of the US
corporate worker) 11 , are, in a very real intellectual sense, not the same as those of the
past. As a result, while there is a great deal of discussion about “how people learn,” there
has been relatively little focus on how these people learn, with the exception of snide and
generally unhelpful observations that often they do not (or at least not what some think
they should).

WHAT MAKES GAMES SO ENGAGING?

Computer and videogames are potentially the most engaging pastime in the history of 
mankind. This is due, in my view, to a combination of twelve elements:

1. Games are a form of fun. That gives us enjoyment and pleasure.
2. Games are form of play. That gives us intense and passionate involvement.
3. Games have rules. That gives us structure.
4. Games have goals. That gives us motivation.
5. Games are interactive. That gives us doing.
6. Games are adaptive. That gives us flow.
7. Games have outcomes and feedback. That gives us learning.
8. Games have win states. That gives us ego gratification.
9. Games have conflict/competition/challenge/opposition. That gives us
adrenaline.
10. Games have problem solving. That sparks our creativity.
11. Games have interaction. That gives us social groups.
12. Games have representation and story. That gives us emotion.

But what about adults – the workers we are supposed to train? Do adults play? Is there 
any value in it for them? And what is play’s relationship to “work”? 

Of course adults play – they play with their children, they play games, they play in many
of the senses of the above definitions. But unlike children, adults also have a “serious,”
“work,” or “real life” side that is often construed to be in conflict with, or even the
opposite from, play. The definitions cited above define play as “outside of ordinary life,”
not serious,” and “unproductive.” Some authors attribute this work/play distinction to
industrialization or to social-class distinctions. We speak of executives who “work hard
and play hard.” But are play and work really that separate?

What do you think? Can we learn through games?

Tenti Fanfani's Lecture

On 19th June, Emilio Tenti Fanfani came to Escobar and gave a lecture and the topic was education.
This was a very interesting seminar because we could get from him more than we could ever get from his books.

Tenti's words were honest and that's when we come to know that he really means what he writes. That there are people who think and work to make of the classrooms and education a better environment, a coherent one. That it's not only we, teachers, who feel that there is something wrong.

Hearing such an important author was inspiring. What most called my attention was the moment when he mentioned that the role of the school has already changed, that we cannot pretend we're still in traditional schools although most of our heads do so, that we have to give our students something that neither a computer nor a game can give them.

Computers can give them information, but we are the only ones who can give them KNOWLEDGE and make it part of them.

It was inspiring because I think we can do it if we work together. We can get our students attention by showing them that they can do more than they imagine, that they are important and that they are the future. Education is the key for a better world and Tenti's words showed that.

I invite you to read more about him and his books because you will get new ideas and points of view as regards our roles as teachers... and as regards the role of education in this new era.

Can we change the world from the classroom?

Some changes are easy to see... others are not. Some changes are big... others are small. Some changes are expected.. others are not. Some changes are made by others... some changes are made by US!

We can imagine our classroom as if it were a light bulb. With effort, love and enthusiasm we can turn it on. Rapidly, this bulb that now shines will get bigger and will start making other light bulbs shine, too.

One day, we will make our students' souls shine and I'm sure that they will pass their brightness to others and soon, the whole world will be strongly shining.

This is a CHANGE!

We can change the world from the classroom: Maybe we don't see the change now, maybe we think it is too small, maybe we don't expect it, maybe we think we cannot make it... but the change is there... waiting for us, so look for it and make it real!

Welcome

Hello Everybody!

Welcome to my blog LEARN IT AND LOVE IT. I'm sure that the more Enlgish you learn, the more you love it! Try and see...

This aim of this blog is to share information related to English and its Teaching so that we can all learn together and improve our skills both as teachers and as learners!

I hope you enjoy it.

Love,

Carolina