De Freitas, S. (2018). Are games effective learning tools? A review of educational games. Journal of Educational Technology & Society, 21(2), 74-84.
The concept of gaming has been around for centuries. If one would look into the ancient civilizations of the past, one would find that games of some kind have existed for almost as long as humans have. The author of this article proposes that there are very few strong studies that demonstrate the various uses for gaming in education since the concept has only been gradually phasing in across different disciplines. Due to the patchy and erratic implementation of gaming across disciplines, there are few single-subject viewpoints available regarding the topic.
The author discusses the various research around the subject of gaming and the neuroscience behind it, providing a backdrop for the educational benefits, but also examines the negatives. She also goes into detail about the perspectives from the standpoints of educational science, gaming science, neuroscience, and informational science as well. She also lists the key challenges to gathering research on the topic, declaring that a stronger and more energetic amount of research has emerged in the field over the past few years, which makes for a much better analysis of the subject of gaming. Ultimately, the researcher concludes that the vast majority of the research on gaming in education is positive and therefore, should be further explored.
I have never been a fan of video games; however, I can see the appeal that such things have for students in a learning environment. In my experience, students are so much more engaged when they are able to participate in games. I remember the use of Quizizz to help students to prepare for tests. I believe that as an educational researcher, I need to be able to consider different concepts, and I know that this is definitely not in my comfort zone, but I am still very willing to explore it further.
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