A lot of people are worried that children nowadays spend way too much time playing video games, and there’s no wonder why such addiction occurs. Gaming is becoming more and more realistic and engaging, as it was specially designed so that people will develop an addiction to it.
But gaming doesn’t necessarily have to be a waste of time and just another form of entertainment. Surely, there are lots of folks out there, including children, who spend too much time playing video games without having any actual benefits from such an operation.
Last time, we’ve spoken about how gaming can bring people together, but guess what? Video games can even do a lot more than that, such as being an efficient tool in a child’s learning process. If you’re wondering how could that be possible, keep reading the article to find out!
Motivation and persistence:
At their core, video games are challenging and achievable. Once you pass them, you can be overwhelmed by a sense of accomplishment. Once such a wonderful feeling takes place in a person’s heart, motivation for learning kicks in. In other words, video games can encourage you to persist in the face of challenges.
The concept of “gamification” in education exists, and it uses game elements such as rewards, points, and badges to further motivate students and improve their learning experience.
Engaging learning environments:
Educational video games can provide an immersive learning experience that can rapidly captivate the attention of those who are trying to learn something. Such games have an interactive nature that encourages active participation from the users, resulting in a motivating and enjoyable learning process. It’s clear that gaming has the ability to create scenarios that simulate situations from the real world, which is not something we can say about traditional learning/teaching methods. In other words, gaming can enhance the practical application of knowledge.
Personalized learning
Video games also have the possibility to adapt to individual learning styles, which can be a great advantage. Games can be designed with different difficulty levels, allowing the students to progress at their own pace. This is in contrast with the traditional learning methods in which a student can feel bad if he can’t compete at a certain rhythm. Thanks to the adaptive nature of video games, each learner can benefit from a personalized experience.
Collaboration:
Lots of video games out there, especially online games, require collaboration between the players in order to achieve the desired result. Many educational video games also include multiplayer features to foster collaboration and social interaction. Online platforms can allow students to collaborate with peers from around the world, fostering teamwork.
Real-time feedback:
Educational video games will even provide instant feedback to players, which means that your performance in such tasks can be assessed in real-time. You can rapidly find out what you did wrong and how to improve your progress, which is always a “plus” if you want to learn something new.
Learning with the help of video games can foster a growth mindset, emphasizing the importance of learning through mistakes and being persistent when challenges come. After all, we all make mistakes, so why wouldn’t we try to learn something from them?
It’s a fact that technology continues to shape our view of the world and even the educational landscape. Therefore, it’s somewhat normal for the integration of educational video games to play the role of a powerful tool in the learning process.
Tim M. Hill helped bring Digital-Overload from a weekly newsletter to a full-fledged news site by creating a new website and branding. He continues to assist in keeping the site responsive and well organized for the readers. As a writer to Digital-Overload, Tim mainly covers mobile news and gadgets.
