Gaming Playing for Education

Here are some interesting pieces from articles about video games for learning:

According to an article titled Medical Students Open to Learning With Video Games:

Among the more than 200 medical students surveyed, 77 percent said they would participate in a multi-player online health care simulator provided it helped them to accomplish an important goal.

“Role-playing games may have special educational use to help students envision what their life would be like in different types of professional practice,” says Michael D. Fetters, M.D., M.P.H., associate professor in family medicine and director of the Japanese Family Health Program at U-M.

“Allowing students to step into the shoes of practitioners in different specialties, health care settings and economic systems, in an immersive and authentic way, could help guide their decisions regarding which career choices would be the best fit with their values and personal characteristics,” Fetters

In another article, Research: Active Video Games Can Enhance Learning

Playing “active” video games such as those found on the Wii (and now via Kinect and Move) can enhance learning for students, says a new study by Dr Andrew Manley from Leeds Metropolitan University in London…”The increased sophistication of AVG technology provides teachers with new ways to engage students,” said Manley. “As Active Video Game can increase motivation and interest, they represent an effective resource for enhancing students’ understanding of new and complex ideas.”

This article quotes many studies and provides a nice balance of the impact of video games. Read the article Playing Video Games Offers Learning Across Life Span, Say Studies

“The big picture is that there are several dimensions on which games have effects, including the amount they are played, the content of each game, what you have to pay attention to on the screen, and how you control the motions,” said Gentile. “This means that games are not ‘good’ or ‘bad,’ but are powerful educational tools and have many effects we might not have expected they could.”