Gaming

I use gaming a lot in the classroom. My government students play a gambling game with vocabulary to earn points to buy passes, snacks, late assignments, etc. They write down their bets, I ask the question if they wrote down the correct answer they get plus their bet, if it is incorrect they subtract their bet. They love it. In Spanish we play all kinds of games mata moscas, (fly swatter), Pictionary, charades, jeopardy, bingo, and we have verb races. Games are a fun way for students to review for tests and more importantly still be learning in a more relaxed environment. My students really love the competition. We do girls v. boys, lower classmen v. upperclassmen, or one side of the room against the other. Games reaches different students that lecture, worksheets, and other types of instruction do not connect with. Besides, I have fun when we play games tooJ Games are a great way to break up our long block periods (85 min) and get kids moving.

Now I have not used computer gaming in class yet. The games we play are not on the computer; however I have yet to explore games offered on Moodle. The games I see students play on the computers are games like Tetris, Mario, and a really popular helicopter game. Students know they are not allowed to play these games at school al all, however when they have a question that does not get answered immediately before thinking it through the automatically switch to playing games while they wait. These games serve as mindless distraction or something to pass time. Students need to be always doing something; they jump from one thing to another. We did a practice quiz with i-respond where students key in their answers with remotes. They really enjoyed that because they thought it was a game. I left their scores up on the side and they could compare themselves with other students and see how well they were doing individually.

• Gaming is a great way to get students involved
• Kids love competition
• Gaming creates a more relaxed informal environment for learning
• It is very difficult to monitor students online when gaming
• The good does not out weigh the bad regarding computer gaming in education