Do you remember playing console games when you were younger? Most of us had set limits on how long we could play for. These limits were determined by our parents and could have been anything as short as forty-five minutes, making it near impossible to gain any ground on some of the most challenging platform titles. Some kids undoubtedly tried to convince their parents that the best games were actually educational. It’s hard for a parent to understand how a cartoon fox breaking barrels by spinning could increase the intelligence of course. But lately, the gaming world has changed to include titles that really could be beneficial to kids and teach great skills in the classroom. Let’s explain this idea a little further.
Build New Worlds
If you’ve ever played Minecraft, you might just see it as a cool, fun, interactive game that feels a little retro. But take a deeper look, and you’ll see it encourages imaginative play, creativity, and construction in a virtual world. Explore even further, and you’ll find incredible accomplishments by other players in the world. Some have managed to create a scale replica of the city of London. Others have built the Titanic and even the Millennium Falcon. Then there are several bright sparks who have created games within games. For instance, you can now play through Pokemon Red on a virtual Gameboy built in Minecraft. Is it any wonder that there have been suggestions this game could be used to promote active learning in schools? It’s not just Minecraft of course. There are plenty of Minecraft like games that could be used in the same type of way.
Dream A Little Dream
What about the console title Dreams? This game allows you to create and bring to life works of art that interact and build a story. You can do this, using the PlayStation Move controlled in a way that allows children to interact with their creations. Lately, there have been discussions about using this type of game with virtual reality technology. Virtual reality allows people to move around in a virtual world. Usually, this is accomplished by synching the turning of the head with the movement of the game. This creates the illusion that you are actually in the game. Virtual reality has long been suggested as a way of making lessons more immersive. Imagine being able to teach children about the solar system by letting them see it around them. This is one of the very real possibilities that VR gaming could allow mixed with motion tech used in Dream.
Beneath Surface
Most people are completely unaware of the processes that take place in every game we play. In its most basic form, it’s binary coding with lots of yes, nos, ones and zeros. You might remember learning a little about this in school. But what if you could take it further? Instead of teaching kids about these processes help them build games using them. IT is one of the fastest growing industries today and using games we can encourage children to pursue this type of career.
These are just some of the ways gaming could enter the classroom in the future. It’s almost inevitable because the possibilities the new gaming tech creates is quite simply, astounding.
