Free first grade sight words
Practical experience gained through the use of game technology can become the basis of the entire educational system, increase involvement in the learning process. Why free first grade sight words force your child to learn mathematics, explaining that it will be useful when he decides to design cars? Isn’t it better to let him or her learn math by designing a virtual car now? If his car suddenly starts to fall off its wheels or the engine fails, the child will immediately understand the importance of math knowledge.
Ollie Bray, Advisor on New Technology at the Scottish Department of Education, believes that even games that do not teach can be useful and develop the right skills. For example, games allow children to learn from their mistakes. Instead of studying the teacher’s corrections in a week-old test, they can immediately find out where they made a mistake and correct it. We can see examples of this in everyday life. For example, my five-year-old son, when playing Angry Birds Star Wars or chess on his iPad, learns how to quickly fix a bug to continue playing.
Dr. G states that effective learning is impossible without proper motivation, which in turn cannot exist without reward. Thanks to the introduction of game elements into the learning process and the charging of points or ranks for certain successes, it is possible to awaken interest in children even in such seemingly complex subjects as algebra (recent studies involving 3500 Chinese students studying English using game systems have proven the effectiveness of this approach – 95% of teachers who observed the experiment, noted an increase in the level of motivation among students).
Michael Shannon, a teacher from San Francisco who enjoys using new technologies in his studies, believes children learn the best when they forget they are in class:
“They think they are just having fun – and in fact, they don’t even know they are learning.
He also notes that games by themselves can be a source of proper motivation.
When evaluating the current test system, we must ask ourselves a question: do we evaluate the real knowledge and skills of students or simply their ability to correctly answer the test questions? After best math workbooks all, in the real world they rarely have to solve working tasks presented in the form of a standard test.
Gaming techniques allow us to obtain and analyze information in real time – such data is much more accurate than test results. They allow a much deeper assessment of students’ abilities: to teach children for several months, and then to judge their knowledge on a single test … or … to constantly monitor students’ knowledge and analyze how they apply it in practice? Thus, gamification is an opportunity to simultaneously assess both knowledge and potential.
More and more people say that our education system needs a fundamental change. The system of testing has finally exhausted itself in the last forty years, but training is becoming more and more expensive – it makes people think about the value of such education. Peter Tale calls it “a trillion dollars spent on lies” and predicts the near end of the education system as we used to see it. On the other hand, there are radical projects like School of One that should not be discounted in the fight for the future of education.
But what does education need: a revolution or a gradual evolution? Perhaps, a little by little from everyone. A complete rejection of educational traditions is certainly unnecessary. But we must reconsider the main approaches to the functioning of the educational system and focus on the most important aspects of success in the XXI century, which are currently given little attention. Probably, the best solution will be a smaller “averaging” of modern education and its more active integration with the latest technologies and methods.
Games, as an important component of a renewed educational system, can give us an opportunity to better develop children’s communication skills, increase motivation, provide relevant practical knowledge, and abandon the outdated testing system. And there is more and more evidence of the effectiveness of gaming methods in education every day (there is even evidence that video games stimulate brain activity).
Some researchers argue that it has always played an important role in learning, but in a slightly different form, even in the precomputer era. However, the ultimate success of such technologies will depend on how accurately innovations will address the shortcomings of the education system and meet the growing needs of society.
If we can ensure this, then we will stop talking about the fact that gamification is a beautiful soap bubble and will clearly demonstrate how the latest technologies are changing the world of education!
