Video Discussion #2 - Gaming

I decided to use a note card with bullet points, vice a script to make the video discussion sound more natural... not sure I achieved that end state!

Transcript:

Good evening. Ben Woodworth here, doing our second video discussion on gaming. Our first prompt delt with benefits and challenges. I have to agree with Hughes & Roblyer (2023) and some of their listed benefits and challenges. In particular, they discuss the motivation and competition that gaming can create and I see that in my students every time I do it. Additionally, they talked about the good feedback you can get if you use appropriate games. I found that picking the appropriate game can give me feedback down to the mastery level on standards of learning and that is a great benefit. Some of the challenges... I really see transfer of learning as an issue. Sometimes my students learn in a superficial way and it does not transfer later into more difficult sense making activities. Secondly, we were asked, ”Do you have any strategies that you use to make gaming productive?” Well, one of the things I like to do is use gaming for foundational knowledge early on in a unit. This foundational knowledge includes key people, key dates, key events. With that baseline of foundational knowledge, students can then apply it to higher level thinking and questions, so gaming for me is an early on activity in a unit. And finally, we are asked, ”When is gaming inappropriate in the institutional setting?” In my reading of Acosta & Denham (2018) they discuss the fact that topics of racism and social oppression are sometimes best not taught through gaming because it can further racial stereotypes, and I agree with them. I believe such sensitive topics are better left to the guiding hand of a well-qualified instructor. Have a good evening.

References 

Acosta, M. M., & Denham, A. R. (2018). Simulating oppression: Digital gaming, race and the education of African American children. Urban Review: Issues and Ideas in Public Education, 50(3), 345-411. 

Hughes, J. E., & Roblyer, M. D. (2023). Integrating Educational Technology into Teaching: Transforming Learning Across Disciplines (9th ed.). Pearson Education, Inc.